Anyone got a HD Radio yet? - Page 2  

*Possibly*. Although i work in radio and know a little more than your average consumer concerning HD audio, we do NOT use it and I have no "hands-on" experience, so my opinion is just that...opinion.

However, I wouldn't say that IBOC will actually cut down on audio quality, but unless some drastic approches are taken in the entire audio chain, I don't see how it could make it any better.

In my mind for HD to provide a substantially improved audio quality, you have to start at the source. You know the old saying, garbage in, garbage out. I am not calling rebook CD audio/compressed audio garbage, but how on earth can you claim "HIGH DEFINITION" audio, when the source is so rarely High Definition to begin with.

I do not know of a single station that starts with a high resolution content. Maybe they are out there, but to me, unless you are ready to dump the enormous amount of money required to bring ALL your equipment current (automation systems with enourmous hard drives to hold the non-compressed high resolution audio), all digital consoles, digital stls, digital processors, etc, then there is no way you can achieve true "high resolution" audio as the end product.

Also, whether your a giant broadcaster with disposable income to have all state of the art studios, or a tiny locally owned job, if you have any satellite sources, then almost all are MPEG compressed audio anyway. We all use the same receivers when we subscribe to a given service. So if your source is satellite audio, reguardless of how much $$$ you have to throw around on equipment, your already limited to a "non high res" source right there.

-Alan

Doesn't Ibiquity have some "Buy cheap now, pay much more in a year or two" program going to push HD Radio to broadcasters?

Prerecorded when? My DJs tell me the weather outside and about car wrecks on the freeways, and so on.

A lot of AM stations aren't broadcasting more than 5 Khz anyway. It's very obvious when you have a radio that passes 10 Khz. Some sound great but others like my Disney station sound like telephone quality.

1) Don't know, but quite possible. They stand to gain (or loose) ALOT of money on this deal.

2) Sometimes during the same day, sometimes days or weeks in advance. Using some clever trickery, its possible for them to given current time/temp, even when pre-recorded! But, chances are if you hear current info, its live.

3) True. However, not ALL are at 5Khz, and any engineer worth his salt would ensure that the audio processing passes the full 10Khz audio bandwidth (while maintaining NRSC-II standards of course).

For a really good read, check this out:

http://www.opengeek.org/2005/03/hd-r...ation-and.html

Its a little dated, but a good read. Especially my favorite paragraph is about middle of the page:

"The additional choice potential FM IBOC brings to the table is it's strongest attribute, making the HD Radio moniker a bit misleading. Overall audio will not be "high definition" in the sense that HDTV is higher definition, because the peak bit rates available at this time limit the overall quality of the audio received. Instead, the HD Radio system only conveys the perception of higher bandwidth audio, due to the hybrid encoding system and it's artificial spectral reproduction of the higher frequencies."

-Alan

The major problem with AM is that HD radio doesn't work if there's a station on an adjacent frequency. That means it will never work at night. AM stations are simply turning digital off when it gets dark. Since it's dark more than light during a lot of the year, I don't see how anyone could think this is a practical method.

The bit rate is 96 Kbps. To me it sounds about like a 128 Kbps MP3. You can certainly hear some slight swirling distortion on the high end if you listen carefully but it's a definite improvement over FM. The extra 5 Khz (along with the dynamic range) makes it sound less like radio and more like a CD.

Hmmm....I respectfully disagree. I don't have golden ears, but I can DEFINATELY tell artifacts from all but the highest bitrate MP3s. I have never heard "HD Radio", so I can't comment whether these artifacts are audible or not, but.....

If you have audible artifacts in the high frequency content of the audio, doesn't that negate the whole "HIGH DEFINITION" audio badge its been given? When I think "high defintion" audio, I think of SACD or DVD-A, not 128Kbps MP3.

Isn't that 96Khz bit rate the maximum? Should a station choose to offer multiple programs per carrier, then that bitrate (whatever the maximum is) has to be sliced up. As the amount of individual content increases, the given bitrate per individual content will have to decrease.

-Alan

Well, the 'potential' quality will be less. Over the years the most important paramater of broadcast audio is "How Loud is it, and How Much Area can I cover?. This means that lots of analog compression has been used on most of the major market stations. If you happen to have a power amplifier with quasi VU meters, look at them while listening to most FM stations. You'll find they don't waver more than a couple of dB no matter what the music content. FM has been bad ever since it went mainstream. What you are hearing is not the potential FM is capable of. I don't know if there are any stations left that do not overcompress, even including the weak ones below 92.1 MHz on the dial. Loud sells advertising. This being said, if you are trying to receive quality on a car radio, you are in trouble immediately because what you hear most of the time is multipath or 'picket fencing' that causes most of what you hear to be distortion.

With a good directional antenna, and a good, non analog compressed source, FM can sound wonderful.

The trouble with supposed 'HD' is that it is a very compressed medium. Even if you happen to catch a DJ/Station engineer that cares about the quality, and you have a good receiver, you will be limited to the quality of , I believe, 64Kb/s quality, which means lots of DIGIGAL (not analog) compression. 64Kb/s is what you get on the top tier stations of XM, and as I said, that is just not good quality.

Alan is absolutely correct about multiple (digital)compression algorithms being cascaded in the usual link. First the music is reduced to maybe 128 Kb/s for the file server. Next, it may go through some kind of digital mixer. Then it may hit a digitally compressed Studio to Transmitter Link, and then it gets further compressed to go over the air. Most all compressers are trying to process real audio signals, not re-synthesized audio from another compresser. This means quality deteriorates much more quickly when going through the same number of analog stages. If the signal were converted to digital immediately (uncompressed), and then go through stages where the signal is not re-compressed digitally until it hits the analog FM transmitter (or a non-compressed digital carrier), it would be of much higher quality than 'HD'.

Digital has the potential to give virtually perfect audio quality if it used only lossless compression. Instead, it is being used to force music through gymnastics that destroy its sonic potential.

This is just playing with words. If I perceive something to be higher quality than it is higher quality, period. So what if they use trickery to reproduce the higher frequencies? That football player running across my HDTV screen is actually a bunch of low resolution 16x16 pixel blocks but I don't notice this unless I pause it.

I do think they shouldn't have used the term "HD radio". At best the term has no meaning and at worst it's misleading but that's what probably makes it perfect for marketing the format. :rolleyes:

As I said, you can definitely hear artifacts if you listen carefully and to my ears they sound like 128 Kbps MP3. I have never said it sounds perfect, only that it defintely sounds better than regular FM which hardly sounds perfect.

I agree the "HD Radio" term is stupid and misleading but fortunately a bad marketing term doesn't affect the sound.

If I understand it right, stations are giving 96 Kbps to the main channel and 48 Kbps to up to two subchannels. I don't know if they can break the 96 Kbps channel into two channels. Even the subchannels sound approximately as good as analog FM.

WOW. Not sure I follow you on the first paragraph. If I understand you correctly, you mean that advertising works wonders, and that the "placebo" effect placed on "HD" by the manufactuers really works (they tell you its superior, so already you assume, and expect it is).

As to the second paragraph, I concur. It is GROSSLY misleading as HiDef Television really has done wonders to improve the end products quality. I believe they just "jumped on the HD bandwagon" and labeled it "HD" even though in its current implementation there is no real "High Resolution" content at all.

Bob Smith-Are you an engineer as well? You seem to have a VERY firm grasp of the overall radio model. And yes, we compress the hell out of our audio as well (not by my choice). If I were to ask ANY of the non-technical employees here their definition of "dymanic" is, they would probably say "loud.". LOL

-Alan

-EDIT- Just to add to this; I find it ironic that on a "high end" audio forum where discussions of the subtle nuances of music reproduction are discussed that HD content in its current form can even be considered "HiFi".

Assume? Expect? No. I have a Recepter radio on my desk and headphones on my head right now and "HD radio" sounds better on every station that isn't piping their crappy FM mix into their digital channel. You can read my other posts for many more details on exactly what I'm hearing.

I don't believe I have been brainwashed by advertising since I didn't even know digital broadcasting existed in the U.S. until a couple of weeks ago when someone mentioned it on another forum.

BTW, scowl-I'm not trying to argue with you, PLEASE don't think I am. I am actually enjoying the discussion.

And thinking about it some more, I think part of the reason we disagree about the "percieved quality" of "HD" may have to do with our personal preference/hearing abilities.

For example, I am in my mid 30's. I haven't had my hearing tested since the military, but I'd be willing to bet the high end of my hearing range has fallen off dramatically. What does this mean? I probably cannot tell the difference between a 15Khz (FM) and a 20Khz (CD) signal. They both sound pretty much the same to me.

However, I CAN hear the digital artifacting of alot of compression schemes (unless it is sufficiently high).

Therefore my preference is to the audio quality of a good FM signal over a compressed raw audio signal. I do not like the amount of analog audio compression present in the modern day FM signal, but it is less offensive to me than the amount of artifacting present in the modern day digitally compressed audio signal.

I know lots of people that have extremely large MP3 collections on their computers. Personally, I don't. I just don't like the sound, unless the bitrate is extremely high, in which case, I'd rather pull out the CD.

Don't get me wrong; MP3 (and MP3Pro, and AAC+) were the greatest thing since sliced bread when it comes to online streaming audio, where listener bandwidth is at a premium. I have done lots of streaming audio, and am amazed as the quality it can produce, but again, personally I believe these high digital compression schemes produce a GOOD sound (but not a GREAT sound), but have NO BUSINESS being labeled as "high definition" audio.

Given the choice between "HD" radio in its current form, or the "non-HD" FM broadcast, I'll take the analog FM signal.

-Alan

-Edited for content-

There is a European standard for AM and Shortwave, called DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale).

They are still in the (end of the) developmental stage, so very few DRM radios are available yet. They do sell a computer software program which lets you use a computer's soundcard and a slightly modified receiver (12 KHz RF output) to receive it, and it also allows for some technical "spying" on certain parameters. This allows early-adopter people to share some technical feedback on the reception.

Does anyone know if something similar is available, or in the works, for HD Radio? It might be fun to see if we could DX some out-of-market stations, with a high-end AM radio.

BTW, I think all of our (Bonneville International Corp) stations in Salt Lake are on, except for AM820. KSL1160, and the FMs KSFI, KSL-FM and Arrow103.5 are operating. A couple of others are on, as well.

Hey count me in on this too:

I have been checking out the Recepter for a few weeks now :)

I think the thing that really torks me about "HD" radio is just the title...

Even though people don't always agree on forums, I think we can all agree that just about everyone that frequents these forums are fairly well educated, or at least have a pretty good idea on the technical aspects of audio production.

My problem is, the casual consumer is not.

Oh, I have NO DOUBT that HD will be successful. Its just sad that I believe it will be successful due to the ignorance of the common consumer. Since the current "trend" and buzzword of the day is "HD" the consumer will buy into it, of that I am sure. I am pretty sure the general thought of your average consumer will be along the lines of "Since HDTV is sooooo good, then HD Radio out to be just as good of an improvement in quality", which from a technical standpoint, just isn't true.

Although I believe the potential is there for a potential improvement in quality, knowing the current crop of broadcasters, it will never achieve its true potential, but don't worry, it will sell.

-Alan

FirebirdTN

our concern on AVS should be to evaluate its technical performance and see if it really delivers the promised improvements

Many companies have invested heavily in this technology (Clear Channel is big on HD Radio) and they are watching the rollout and public acceptance closely

Of course most people have better hearing.

I can too. I can also hear much worse things in the best FM reception like hiss, low dynamic range and a smeared stereo image. I can get perfect digital reception even with stations that sound fuzzy and crunchy in FM analog.

Most of the artifacts I hear in HD radio are on the very high end (cymbals and wind chimes) which causes a slight swirling sound. Since you can't hear anything above 15 Khz, you might not notice them at all.

You'll have to listen to HD Radio and judge for yourself. I have for the past couple of weeks and the choice is crystal clear, especially with the stations I listen to and the music they play. I don't want to listen to mono recordings swimming in hiss. I don't want to hear the fuzzy FM reception I get before the digital fades in. I want to enjoy the upper 5 Khz of my hearing while I still have it. :D

All of the above sound better than FM radio.

I hate the term "HD Radio" and I cringe every time I type those stupid words next to each other, but it doesn't change what I'm hearing right now which is a song by Count Basie recorded live in stereo in the late 50's. Before the digital blended in, it sounded like a blurry mess of instruments playing in a room full of air conditioners, but now I can hear every instrument including the rattle of the bass and Basie muttering to himself as he tended to do.

Have you even heard (cringe) HD Radio yet? I say hold your judgment until you hear how bad analog FM really sounds.

I did the simple DRM modification to my Japan Radio NRD-525 a couple of years ago. It worked well on really strong solid signals but fading signals were just agonizing to listen to. I don't think it was practical and I stopped tinkering with it after a couple of weeks.

Unfortunately most if not all AM stations turn off HD at night. Interference from remote stations on neighboring frequencies wipes it out. :(

Alan,

Matter of fact, I am an engineer. Presently I am the analog electrical engineer at one of the companies making LCOS microimagers. In one of my past positions, I was responsible for the audio system circuitry for distribution of NBCs stereo distribution via Ku band satellite. For at least 10 years, what you heard from NBC came through my FM subcarrier audio card.

I've always liked FM. I got my first tuner (a Meisner 8C) which someone gave me when I was 11 years old (in 1959) and couldn't believe that kind of sound could come out of a radio. At that time there were only about 4 FM stations in the Tampa Bay Area, and only a couple of them were independent and not simulcasting AM programming.

FM got its first bad hit when FM stereo came out in 1962. The combined FM subcarrier/SCA subcarrier sidebands reduced the SNR of FM by about 20 dB. The quality of FM is mainly due to the trading bandwidth for power. An FM station takes about 156 KHz of bandwidth to transmit two 15 KHz stereo channels. The way IBOC works is by placing low bandwidth sidebands removed far enough away from the FM carrier that they cause minimal interference. In the same way, the amount of energy caused by the FM carrier into these sideband signals is minimal, and a little error correction takes care of problelms with them.

The trouble is the lion's share of the channel bandwidth and power is taken up by the FM carrier itself, and in order to use what's left over, the audio has to be compressed into a 64 or 96 Kb/s channel, which is not high quality.

Europe didn't have to bend to the broadcasters who didn't want to give up listners to the existing FM service. They went to an all digital network using COFDM which gives them the flexibility to do it right.

In any event, digital compression is what is ruining audio these days. The public is quite happy with Ipod audio, and there is no reason (commercially) to provice more than this by broadcasters.

As I said earlier, it is too bad that the RF spectrum is being used for quantity instead of quality. If we were able to use the whole 200KHz of bandwidth available to an FM station for a digital approach, we could have true high quality audio over the airwaves.

Alan, I agree with you about what a crackup it is to put HD radio on the "High End Audio" forum. It amazes me what people are willing to spend on silver plated oxygen free audio interconnects to connect their ipod to their stereo system. I guess it's true what they say---Quality Doesn't Sell.

Bob Smith

I wish I knew how to use that quote function like you just did, separating each comment....OH, well....

1) Actually, I am not saying EVERYONEs hearing is as bad as mine, or that mine is substantially bad, but you would be surprised just how "bad" most peoples hearing really is. I recall something my father told me years ago, and think its pretty funny actually, especially conerning some of the discussions that go on on HiFi audio forums, which was this: "By the time you are old enough to afford HiFi, you are too old to appreciate it". So true...A typical males hearing is substantially attenuated at the high end by age 20.

2) Don't know if I can or not. I have not heard HD yet, but I sure can pick out a MP3 blindly, sometimes even at 320Kbps CBR bitrates. Generally, 320 is pretty good quality to me, and 256 even sounds good as well. I do NOT like 128kbps MP3s, but the point is NONE of these can rightfully be called "HD".

Also, your touting HD recpetion as if it is so superior to the traditional FM signal. When they come out with a mobile HD radio, unless they make some SUBSTANTIAL improvements, boy are you in for a shock. If you get 8-10miles out from the transmitter, your receiver will swtich back to analog mode, which carries a usable signal out to 35+ miles. Also as mentioned earlier, part of the problem they are having is keeping the digital and analog in sync, so that when your receiver does go from one to another you end up missing 5 seconds of audio, or repeating the same 5 seconds over again.

3) Your right, I haven't heard it so I can't really state specifics about what I think of the actual audio quality. However, I can talk about it from a technical standpoint.

Keep in mind, I am not saying it sounds bad or is crap (I don't know, I haven't heard it yet), BUT my problem is from a technical standpoint, it is touted as something it clearly isn't (High Definition/High Resolution Audio)

4) I disagree. I do NOT think 128kbps MP3s sound better than a good analog FM signal. Again, we really can't argue this point as I said earlier, this is based on personal preference, and I think age has alot to do with it (not hearing loss, but what you are used too, more on this in a second).

5) I am at a disadvantage here, no doubt. I haven't heard it, BUT from a technical standpoint believe I am qualified to discuss its limitations. Again, do not misunderstand me; I am not saying its "junk" or whatever, I am just saying it is being advertised something that it clearly is NOT.

This discussion back and forth between you and me sure is borderline the typical "you can't agrue against high quality speaker wire if you have never heard equipment of sufficient calibre that will take advantage of the benefits of such wire". I argue that I don't need to own a $50,000 pre-pro and amp to discuss the scientific properties of a conductor.

I like our discussion, but do hate the disagreements.

Back to point #5, where I think age has alot to do with it; If your young, and grew up with MP3 audio as the "norm", (the iPOD generation as Bob Smith mentioned), then you will be less offended by digital artifacting. However, I believe if you grew up prior to the "digital craze" (as I did), that good sounding analog audio, or lossless digital audio will be less offensive to the ear than high digital compression audio. When me anyway, that is DEFINATELY the case.

In the end, I wouldn't have had a problem if they would have simply called it "Digital Radio". I am sure its not bad. Maybe it does in fact sound quite good as you describe, but technically........it is FFFAAAARRR from true "High Definition" audio.

-Alan

Despite the low bitrate, HD Radio is a very significant improvement over analog FM to my ears. Even the 48 Kbps subchannels sound fine and are more pleasant to listen to than any analog FM station I can pick up right now, probably because they're not level-compressed and frequency-limited. I doubt that increasing the bitrate will improve the sound enough to impress a significant number of listeners.

I'd really like to hear from someone else who has listened to HD Radio. I've listened to every station in my area for hours over the past couple of weeks and I think I've done a good job describing the good and bad things I've heard. Some posters here seem to be convinced that it can't possibly sound this good and I must either be an Ibiquity shill or on drugs. :confused:

Naaaa, I didn't say it doesn't sound good (I don't know; I haven't heard). My main arguement is that it is an oxymoron; HD radio is NOT HD!!! If it had SACD or DVD-A quality audio, THEN it would be true "HD".

They should have just called it "Digital Radio". I'd have been perfectly content with that.

-Alan

VERY COOL! I have only been doing engineering since the early 90s, and these days I do more computer/network security work than actual studio work!

I did want to acknowledge your post, I almost spit coffee all over my screen! You are sooooooo right about quantity vs. quality. You wait and see, instead of a single channel with the highest bitrate audio, they will cram as many stations in as they can (more selection, more advertising dollars, even if the quality goes down).

Also, that comment about what people are willing to spend on silver plated o2 free intereconnects to connect their IPOD with just cracked me up!

-Alan

The 128 Kbps MP3 files I have here at work are far more pleasant to listen to than any FM reception I get here at work or at home. Now if you can choose to ignore FM's constant hiss, low dynamic range, limited frequency bandwidth and mediocre stereo seperation, then the best FM reception might exceed the quality of 128 Kbps MP3. My brain cannot simply ignore those things.

I'm afraid I'm a few years older than you and bought my first CD player when I was 28. Even worse, I spent almost ten years destroying my hearing listening to punk bands every week. But then you were in the millitary so maybe both our hearing is shot! :)

Look. absolutely no one here is defending this stupid brand name Ibiquity came up. They didn't call it iRadio or Digiradio or HQ Radio so let's all agree on that and concentrate on the product itself.

I'll concede and let the discussion continue on the product itself. I just wanted to add my 2 cents worth and make it absolutely clear that "HD" does NOT do for radio what "HD" does for TV. Thru our many posts, I am confident this point has been made numerous times.

Before I throw in the towel on this discussion, I just want to point out that you say "Now if you can choose to ignore FM's constant hiss, low dynamic range, limited frequency bandwidth and mediocre stereo seperation, then the best FM reception might exceed the quality of 128 Kbps MP3. ".

I don't know why your getting constant hiss and mediocre stereo seperation, but in a properly setup FM audio plant, these issues are NOT present. Not sure what the stations near you are doing, but if this is the case, its clearly WRONG. I have seen many a time when the stereo pilot injection level has been improperly adjusted which will cause the stereo seperation issues. As to the limited frequency bandwidth, *most* people our age would not miss than last 5Khz. A blind test on this would be interesting.

Lastly, and most importantly, you have a VERY valid point on FM's low dynamic range. Enjoy your dynamic range while you can on HD, because its only a matter of time before the powers that be start compressing the hell out of it to reduce the dymanic range of HD content down to a few dB like the current FM analog signal has been (and I agree with you, its WRONG to do it, but as Bob said earlier...LOUD sells).

-Alan

Sorry that we sort of skipped over your reply; I did want to address this, as I can't STAND IT when a reply of mine gets lost in the middle of an ongoing discussion.

Anyway, I am not familiar with DRM, but wonder if its similar to DRE? We are actually going to implement DRE on one of our stations as a "test run" within a month or two. From what I have read, it seems more technically sound than IBOC (still have more research to do), but the benefit to us (the broadcaster) is we don't have to add alot of high priced proprietary (ibiquity) equipment, and can utilize our current plant's equipment in its implementation.

I expect the results to be VERY good, but I doubt it will catch on in the main stream as "The Man" has not invested in it, but rather in IBOC.

More info on DRE here:

http://www.dreinc.com/products/products.html

-Alan

I'm probably getting hiss due to the compression every FM broadcaster applies. Listeners don't want to hear complete slience. The hiss tells them they're receiving the station.

What is the maximum stereo separation I can expect from FM? 40 dB? 50 dB? You know that stereo seperation in FM is dependent on frequency and degrades over 8 Khz? Decoding a FM stereo signal isn't easy and it's never perfect.

Actually I am getting something of a blind test. Some of the stations in my area are putting their frequency-limited (and compressed) FM mix into their digital channels. It's perfectly obvious because when the digital blends in, I hear absolutely no increase in the high end from these stations. In fact it would be hard to tell the digital has kicked in at all if I didn't hear improved stereo seperation and the lack of hiss. These stations are obviously set up wrong.

I think it will be even worse than that -- they'll keep the full dynamic range for the music but keep the COMMERCIALS AT FULL FREAKIN' VOLUME. That's what my HDTV stations are doing and it's no fun at all.

I am a radio production director and I am supposed to be able to hear small audio imperfections. If I actually can is debatable (G)

On the "Boston" radio the one HD FM station in NYC without a secondary channel (WPLJ) absolutely sounds better when the HD kicks in. I don’t hear any noticeable difference with the other HD FM stations when their HD kicks in and their sub-channels sound essentially the same quality wise as the main channels. There are some sonic differences but you could chalk them off to the different audio processors each channel is using.

I really don’t hear any “Bad mp3†audio artifacts from any of them. WOR-AM HD clearly sounds better than the analog signal WITH some strange high end metallic thing going on but you soon get used to it and I prefer it to the analog.

I have a few wide band AM radios and they all sound better than the “Boston†radio even when it switches to AM HD. So I say a big thumbs up for FM HD but not so positive for AM HD

In the distant future the AM analog my be shut down and they could put 50KW of pure digital on the AM channels..THEN you would have something!

FirebirdTN,

My perception, in reading your exchanges with Scowl, is that you are describing and comparing ideal FM broadcasting sources rather than real FM radio as received on typical mid-priced A/V receivers.

I have not heard HD radio yet, but i too dislike the metallic, swirling artifacts that come with MP3. But I also appreciate realistic dynamic range and noise-free audio.

I believe Scowl is simply stating that the "HD" radio (I hate that term too) benefits far outweigh the penalties, when compared to received FM broadcasts.

I would expect differences similar to watching 480i television broadcast digitally (with MPEG-2 compression) vs. analog. The analog potential far exceeds most folks reception capabilities (reception issues and equipment quality combined) and should be better than the compressed digital offering, which is sourced from the same analog original in the first place. But what we see is a tradeoff between analog artifacts (multipath/ghosts and interfering noise sources) and digital artifacts (pixelation during periods of very high motion content).

Most TV viewers might rather put up with random occurences of pixelation than constant ghosts and noise.

This comment right here should have been the way to go. True HiDef TV is a completely different production plant. In the future, the analog transmitters will be shut down, and the broadcasts will be purely digital. This was the right way to do it.

Radio (ClearChannel) decided they wanted to jump on the "HD" bandwagon, and for whatever reason ($$$, not enough frequency allocation,etc) it was decided to invest in the IBOC method of relaying "digital audio" instead of a completely new plant for "HD" audio. Okay, I have no problem with that, but its NOT High Definition audio.

I didn't say it doesn't sound good (this is subjective anyway, even if I did say that, it wouldn't mean jack, it depends on what you find offensive to YOUR ears), and from what some of you are saying from various sources, *some* stations maybe doing it correctly, and some definately wrong (this is what I was affraid of in my initial post-the source material problem).

But the fact of the matter is, since its a Hybrid, compromises *have* to be made.

In the early days of FM, in order to maintain compatibility with all the MONO FM radios on the market, they had to come up with the convoluted method or decoding stereo at the receiver end while maintaining full compatibilitiy with all mono radios. The end result was good, but did have its limitations, and ultimately, quality was sacrificed for compatibility.

All I am saying is the same thing is happening here. I didn't say it doesn't sound good. I didn't say it "can't" sound good.

All my point was that it IS NOT "high definition" period. It can't ever be. Its too bad they didn't take the route that HDTV took, and got a whole new band for *true* HD content as opposed to placing an low bit-rate audio stream on the FM carrier and slapping the term "HD" to it.

My main gripe, is the uneducated consumer will buy into it *just because* it has those two little letters in front of it: HD.
And my second gripe is coverage. Its non existant. Get any distance from the transmitter, and that digital signal is gone, and your back to analog. This is just the nature of the trade-offs required to do this hybrid broadcast, instead of doing it right (a whole new band solely dedicated for HD Digital radio).

-Alan