HD radio is it for real?

geepondy

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Apr 15, 2001
Messages
4,896
Location
Massachusetts
Anybody experience it? Is it as clear as satellite radio? I was visiting ccrane website where they advertised a Bose HD radio and I look at the HD radio stations available in my (greater Boston) area and surprising there are quite a few including a couple of am stations. Not sure how they do HD radio from am. It sounds intriguing.
 

JAS

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Nov 16, 2002
Messages
1,304
Location
Rosemount
I tried the Boston Acoustics Recepter HD. I bought it from Radio Shack's webpage. I couldn't return it fast enough. I experienced constant dropouts.
 

cerbie

Enlightened
Joined
Feb 28, 2006
Messages
556
Very little 'real' information, use of 'CD quality' as a buzz word...sounds like crap to me for FM.

For AM it might be compelling (look at an AM reciever wrong and you get interference), but FM typically sounds poor due to compression and limiting more than being a poor way to give you a signal (XM and Sirius also can't do better than good FM). If you wish to test that, see if you've got any FM stations around that play classical--they'll typically have it done somewhat well.

I could be wrong, but I have a feeling that if it were really good, there would be no trouble finding actual facts about how it well it works, along with absolute and perceived quality (beyond advertising), like you can find for Sirius and XM's offerings. One way they could make it sound better, too, is to not have the digital stream compressed and limited in such excess as the standard FM one.
 
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