I do most of my radio listening through headphones, and continue to hear things I've never heard before. For instance, I've been in radio, mostly at pop/rock/top 40 stations for 33 years. I must have played "Heaven must be missing an Angel" by Tavares hundreds of times through the years. But this morning I was listening to the "70s and 80s flashback weekend" on Lite 102.9 in Charlotte, and for the first time I heard that the rhythm pattern at the beginning of the song is far more complex than I thought. I could clearly hear more instruments, and a syncopated line I'd never heard before.

Don't tell me the "HD" doesn't stand for "high definition". Even on familiar records THERE'S MORE TO HEAR with hd. It's stunning to hear this level of detail on over-the-air radio!

It's almost embarrassing what has passed for "high fidelity" all of these years. Multiplex Stereo FM on 19-dollar open-air headsets has been the de-facto standard for a long time. It's no surprise nobody notices anything missing with stripped-down, low bitrate mp3 files played over computer speakers. But plug some Zen Aurvana earbuds into a Receptor and dial up an HD-2 channel playing jazz and you can hear all sorts of things. Just listened to Patsy Cline sing "I Fall To Pieces" on our own HD-2 channel a bit ago and could hear all kinds of acoustic flaws typical of the studios and microphones in use at the time.

Listen to something really complicated and see what happens. My favorite example of a song that crumbles in 48K HD is that live version of "On Broadway" by George Benson. I've heard some of the percussion and even the clapping audience disappear after loud noises like a snare. There is a whole lot going on during this song. It would be a great AAC+ test.

I've heard this song many times on two HD2 stations and the song sounds different on each station. Both had different flaws but it's hard to say which sounded better.