If hd is dead, then why... - Page 2

I even have an Onkyo receiver from the 80's. I was surprised at how the SR606 was constructed to fail. They added an HDMI daughter board right over the sizzling hot component video section of the main board. People noticed that it took a few minutes for convection currents to build for it to start cooling and the amount of heat it produced was more like a tube amplifier! Clearly they had not done any proper testing. I never thought a major manufacturer would make a series of mistakes like this.

To Onyko's major credit, they fixed all of units for free after they failed. SR606's are continuing to fail years after the warranty has expired and Onkyo is still fixing them for free, no questions asked. I hope the cost of these repairs has taught them a lesson about designing products that will obviously fail.

yeah I have some 80s Onkyo stuff, too.. haha an M-504 and P-304 Integra 2-channel setup with the old EQ-35 equalizer, an older Integra tape deck, and some other old goodies.. different times.

I'm not even sure if HD Radio is still a priority for broadcasters anymore. It appears as if CBS Radio as abandoned plans for HD upgrades to their remaining Charlotte stations. The 2 urban stations have it, but Kiss 95.1 and WSOC 103.7 still do not. But both do have RDS and outstanding analog signals. I listen to Kiss, but also Clear Channel's 96.1, which does have an HD signal. And supposedly they are planning to increase power on their digital signal.

I have to agree with you Mike. Broadcasting has always been in existence for the money aspect. Unfortunately, not many folks are set up to ever receive HD radio. I just bought a new tuner for AM & FM HD, and living here in Haverhill, on the NH/Ma border. I get good reception from stations in both the NH and Boston markets. FM has a large selection of HD stations here, but AM, very few.

How is it in the Providence market? I'm originally from Somerset, MA and of course my first market was the Providence AM broadcast market as a broadcast engineer. A good friend of mine in the Hampton Roads area and also member of the local SBE in Hampton Roads, where I last worked prior to retiring had only a couple HD stations on FM. He was the Chief Engineer for the Hampton Roads Radio Group which owned several of the AM and FM radio stations in the area. Seeing not many folks have spent the money for HD tuners, it isn't a priority for them.

Because I moved into a valley with no line of sight reception

Then no stations should be broadcasting HD Radio.

They also shouldn't have been broadcasting in FM forty years ago. I can't believe how much money went to waste on that.

Don't assume anything done by an individual market to be representative of the whole organization. CBS prides itself on local control. If a local market manager would rather spend his capital improvements budget on something else, it's his/her call. Very little is "shoved down the throats" of the O&Os. In fact, from a talent perspective, the few corporate directives that DO come down make perfect sense and compliance really isn't that big of a deal.

Well, I would still like to see Kiss 95.1 and WSOC-FM 103.7 add HD Radio transmission. As long as they don't alter or mess up their analog signals, which are very good. But was told it would require some major technical work which was not considered economically feasible, so plans were put on hold.

Part of the idea of HD was not only to give you radio with higher quality sound, but also to give you additional choices in the type of music to listen to. I find myself listening to WODS-2 most of the time. The call it, "The Cove" with nice soft love songs. It is a really nice format. WODS on 103.3 has 3 audio choices. Their regular analog FM format hasn't changed and repeated on WODS-1, WODS-2 is easy listening love songs, and WODS-3 of more harder rock.

I'm sure eventually as HD hopefully catches on more, that the number of choices will go up...provided the stations want to make the investment.

94.9 in Atlanta (The Bull) isn't broadcasting HD Radio.. Not sure if this is just it being down or if it has been given up on.

95.5 WSB (now just a rebroadcast of WSB-AM) gave up on it years back.

This is FM where it would supposedly thrive, not AM where it actually is dead (well, maybe just living-dead in that I think there is one AM station in Atlanta that still broadcasts HD Radio)

Called WUBL. They say it's just down.

I was just about to reply. They told me their tower was struct by lightning and it took out some of their HD Radio equipment. They're getting it replaced.

I imagine not a lot of stations have backup gear for their subchannels. Not until they're generating significant revenue. We do make money from our subs, but the listener base is more online than off-air. If the encoder goes down, it doesn't hurt us that much.

I've been looking over the selection of reasonably priced home audio HD tuners and receivers.

There aren't any. As recently as a year ago, we had a few good choices with the expectation that better things were in the pipeline. Nothing available now is within my rather limited budget; I'm glad I got my Sony XDR-F1HD when I did!

This is incomprehensible. What is wrong with Ibquity? Do they think the car audio market is going to save their baby? As it is, very few FM analog tuners are still being made in contrast to the many dozens of models over a wide range of prices; it's essentially expensive high-end market now.

Seems like a very bad situation to me.

Also noticed that Sangean is no longer in the HD tuner business.

It's sad, but understandable. I can't think of a lot of people who use radio tuners on their expensive sound systems NOW. The ratings certainly bear that out. In-car listening is the bane of MY existence. Clock radios come in second followed by iPods, work radios and the like. Not much point making a product for a market that's just not there. Even XMSirius doesn't show a component tuner on their website. Amazon lists just two.

I suppose it's another chicken-and-egg story. If there were a plethora of heavily promoted commercial free classical or jazz subchannels, then there might be some demand. But if people switch on their surround sound systems, it's not to listen to commercial radio.

HD radio is a great idea. It's what radio should have been by now, much the way TV finally went to digital broadcasting. Unfortunately, it appears that HD radio is controlled much the way Apple, the Sony BetaMAX, and other products have been.. tightly, and with royalties that prevent mass cloning and production from taking place to increase market share.
Speaking of market share, though, I have to say that I listen to radio more than any other source in my room where my 2-channel audio system is (separates, KEF reference floor standing speakers, CD jukebox, tape, tuner, turntable, and MP3 player cable) whereas in the car (and I'm a master mobile audio installer) I dislike listening to the radio since any static in the signal seems to be accentuated on a better audio system. I mostly listen to CDs in the car. Maybe I'm just weird.

You're the very person for which an in-car HD Radio system would be appreciated.

I have no doubt. However, nobody seems to offer one, at the higher end of the spectrum, and I use a head unit with time alignment, and 4 way active crossover to run fully active for the amps/speakers. I've also noticed that Onkyo has dropped their universal port, and by doing so, dropped suppport for HD radio from their entire 2012 line of AV receivers for the home.
Sad.

Nobody?

http://usa.denon.com/us/Search/Pages...x?k=HD%20radio

http://www.amazon.com/SHERWOOD-RD-74.../dp/B0038CC0T6


Granted, they don't do everything you'd like them to do. But do a simple search before making a blanket "nobody" statement, please.

DrDon, please read what I typed again. I was talking about car stereo head units, at the high end, such as Pioneer Stage 4, or Alpine F#1Status.
The links you posted are to Denon home audio/video receivers and modules.

When I mentioned home AV receivers, I was talking about Onkyo dropping support via their now-defunct universal port.

I misunderstood. My apologies.

There are some Alpine units. However, I don't know what's considered "high end." To me, anything north of a few hundred dollars BETTER be "high end."

haha the F#1status CD player, if I recall, runs about two grand. Their flagship stuff is pretty amazing. K-grade Burr-Brown DACs, copper chassis, pure digital signal path up to the output stage of the amplifiers, signal processing that handles time alignment and phase, 4-way active crossover network, and so forth, but yeah not cheap. I'm glad to hear they offer, or have offered HD at some point, though. What kills me is the licensing.. that always seems to be the downfall of some good technologies.

Apple and Sony are rather successful companies.

IBM on the other hand allowed cloning of their PC and quickly found themselves out of the personal computer business that they helped create.

Apple is successful if by that you mean they have about 1% of the home computer market. Amusingly, you named two of the companies I most dislike.

No I don't, Apple has recently expanded into other markets like cellular phones, media players, and tablet computers. They've had some success with these products. Their personal computer division is a small fraction of their profits these days. These new products are also tightly controlled making Apple tons of money.


I guess you forgot that you named these two companies in your post I responded to.

I pointed out examples of companies sitting on rights for royalties, and seeing the entire technology tank as a result.
You're trying to argue from the specific to the general. Bad form. Logic doesn't work like that.
Edited by GlassWolf - 6/6/12 at 10:56am

How are Apple and Sony "seeing entire technology tank"? These are two very successful, profitable, and innovative companies.


No, you brought up the specifics (Apple and Sony Betamax) and made the general conclusion that it's just like HD Radio.

The fact is that companies make lots of money by maintaining diabolical control over technology and companies have been forced out of markets after they lost their control. I don't like that Ibiquity has complete control over digital audio broadcasting in the U.S. but I completely understand it from a business standpoint.