Receptor Radio HD from Boston Acoustics pumps the digital
By Paul Miller 
posted January 5th 2006 1:09PM
posted January 5th 2006 1:09PM
Sure, HD Radio is great and all, but it's even better when you have a receiver for those digital broadcasts. Boston Acoustics has one of the first tabletop receivers for the standard, the Receptor Radio HD, which goes for $500 and is just eager to light up its blue display and tell the world of its love for digital radio, along with the station and program information imbedded in the digital AM and FM signals.
I have one of these HD radios and whilst HD radio does a great job at removing the hiss from FM signals, the actual audio being broadcast by all the local channels here is the same highly compressed (meaning dynamic range limited), stereo-separation-limited rubbish that is sent out over their regular FM transmitter. Until they start broadcasting 'CD quality' and omitting their heavy compression circuitry from the broadcast path, HD radio is no better than a good FM signal with less hiss. DAB in Europe is far better today and far cheaper!
NOW THIS IS COOL...
I don't know what to say the awesomeness is pretty much self-explanatory.
Help me buy one of these babies and get some free music in the process...check out my site.
IBOC, or as marketers would call it, "HD", would be great if it didnt completely destroy the signals of adjacent radio stations. "HD" is a solution looking for a problem – radio's problem isn't sound quality, its programming and content.
The content issue is definitely a big problem. The start of the solution for AM/FM is multi-casting, which HD does. Though it's still up to Big Radio to provide and their track record thus far isn't so great.
Is this a Tivoli knock off? They look A LOT alike! I like these simple designs though.
tivoliradio.com I think.
Not "one of the first tabletop radios": it's the FIRST tabletop radio.
Passantino writes that IBOC (in-band, on-channel, the technical name) or HD Radio (the trademark brand name) destroys adjacent radio station signals. That's a really weird claim. So the FCC and adjacent radio stations are pretending that this new technology, in use by 600 stations in the U.S., isn't damaging but it is? That's some axe you have to grind. Where's the engineering proof?
The FCC, NPR, radio chains, and a lot of engineers have been looking at IBOC for several years. If this were true, why would the parties who have everything to lose by this problem ignoring it?
HD radio is a joke. HD does not stand for Hi-Def it is just a buzz tag like X or Xtreme. In truth it is digital radio. The audio is compressed and as a result has the potential to sound worse than existing analog broadcasts. The station I work for uses uncompressed Wav files for it's current broadcasts.
I have never seen a compelling argument about what HD radio will do or fix that makes it worth an expensive hardware upgrade. When I got my HDTV and started watching football in 720p w/ Dolby Digial 5.1, I felt justified in my expenditures because the product IS that much better.
Tivoli ripoff indeed!
The real appeal of HD radio isn't quality, it's quantity. Because a digital signal can be compressed, it opens up a large chunk of bandwidth for each station to toy around with. Part of that can be used to send text data like song/artist info, current weather and traffic conditions, school closings and the like. But the real benefit is the ability of stations to broadcast 2 compressed digital signals in the space that used to be reserved for one analog signal. That means twice the content compared to current radio. Who knows if that will really translate into more diversity, but the possibility exists.
Glenn Fleishman: either you aren't aware of IBOC's treachery becuase you have been sucked into the marketing hype brought on by Ibiquity, or you simply know very little about the technology.
IBOC is a digital transmission that sits on the sidebands of an existing analog channel. Broadcasts (on FM) are encoded in 96kbps AAC+. Additional channels (if in use) are then split from that bandwidth (i.e. 2 channels = 48kbps each).However because the FCC allowed stations in markets to be short-spaced, a station broadcasting with IBOC at 92.5FM creates loud "digital hash" on 92.3 and 92.7FM – rendering them unlistenable. In rare cases it can even affect second-adjacents - more frequently so on AM.
Why does this matter? becuase for the first time the FCC is licensing stations to literally broadcast and destroy nearby station's signals. In fact, it's so bad that IBOC on the AM band MUST be disabled at night.. So if you enjoy listening to an out-of-market station or first adjacent channel to another signal, you can say goodbye to it.
Hailed as a savior, IBOC will only accelerate radio's death.
As a clock radio its controls are outstanding, but the sound quality is dark at low volumes. I eagerly bought one of these radios the day it came out but sadly had to return it. At low volume any noise in the room muffled what I was trying to listen to. I had to turn the volume way higher than I wanted for late night / early morning listening. It sounded great at higher volume, but was worthless as a clock radio at those levels. There is bass control, but turning it down to -6 did not fix this problem.