Is HD Radio Worth It?

I have HD radio in my car--was an factory installed option. I can say with 100% certainty that when I'm in NYC and able to pick up digital/HD broadcasts, the sound is much 'cleaner' over standard FM.

However, not worth the upgrade by any means. The primary reason for avoiding the upgrade is the limited number of stations broadcasting in HD.

And if you did find yourself wanting HD, consider a satellite radio subscription. Car/person or internet stream. More choice, high quality regardless of your location.

I've been a radio geek for at least 30 years. Consensus among my radio geek friends is that HD Radio is a solution in search of a problem.

I've taken the leap to satellite and wouldn't go back, but if you're happy with FM the way it is, you really won't gain anything by moving to HD at this point. There's considerable doubt as to whether HD will even survive, particularly in the face of the competition from satellite. The FM owners seem to think that what people want is a technically "better" system, but what the satellite network owners seem to realize is that programming is what drives people to a given system. Given that, I don't think I would bet on HD Radio at this point. Better to wait and let it shake out.

HD radio is nothing more than polishing a turd. Any fidelity gain is crushed by the fact that they'll still compress the shit out of already over-compressed music to make it louder than the next station on the dial.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

The compression issue is likely never going to be solved, as so much of the playbook followed by the popular music factory is centered on volume. Its not so much a radio issue as it is a music industry issue. I've pretty much abandoned the radio: my car stereo doesn't even have the radio wired up properly, I just use it to plug my iPod into the line-in port.

I've never heard of HD radio, but it seems doomed against the available-anywhere-ness of satellite.

Spooky, I'm also a die-hard FM radio listener, mainly 98.5.

If you're close to a station and have an audiophile receiver for around $500, you won't be able to tell FM from a CD.

When I lived in Toronto, I used to listen to the 2 good classical music stations, one public and one private.

Visitors to my place were stunned when I said it was FM and
not CD or a live person talking.

Hi Jeremy,

My understanding is that radio stations are pushing HD so hard because the FCC will eventually make them get off of standard FM band, since HD takes a lot less bandwidth than FM. Thus, it is in their best interest to get people switched to HD sooner rather than later, so that they can keep their listeners long-term. Yes, solution in search of a problem, but the FCC is busy installing a problem.

That said, I don't plan to buy an HD radio. If my stations disappear I will probably go to XM or something.

I pretty much live in my car. And I'd hate it if not for XM Radio.

Meh. An even crappier 'upgrade' than the digital radio taking hold in the UK.

That they're selling it as a sound quality issue (like anybody cares about that) means that they're not selling the extra channels. I assume if there was any decent new programming, they'd be talking about that instead.

I tried it out here in WA state. So far other than the $100 I spent on the radio, I can't tell a difference. It is still ad filled crap :)

It's just marketing, IMHO Jer.

Every radio station today, has a CD-Quality crisp sound, no matter the receiving gadget.

I've been hearing the ads for HD as well around here (Baltimore/DC corridor). I've gotta agree that I can't see them winning on a sound quality issue. Radio is all about the content. I *love* my XM - even if they're saddled with a few Clear Channel channels, I can easily program them out of the receiver. XM was the one option that I insisted the Wife get on her new car this year :) Given that it's a limited bandwidth scenario some of the channels are probably not as "pure" as a good FM station, but the possibility is there (as heard on their 'Fine Tuning' channel which broadcasts has a very high bit-rate, and in 5.1 surround).

The big win is three-fold for me. First, the content is excellent. The people programming the music channels seem to have a lot of freedom, and I've heard a lot of music that I probably never would have otherwise. The comedy channels are a great break from reality as well. Second, the ability to listen on-line is nice. I probably listen on-line in the office as much as I do "over the air". Finally, the meta-data is awesome. See #1 - I frequently channel-surf since the receiver allows me to flip thru the dials much like the TV-guide, switching only when I see something more interesting than the current channel. The same receiver (SkyFi2) also has the Tivo-like pause and rewind buffer. Great for running into the store real quick and not missing the punchline on the comedy channel :)

Reception is pretty consistent - there's the usual hollows where signal is lost briefly, but out here in the sticks it's always there, and they've done a great job covering most major cities with terrestrial repeaters that fix the problems of satellites and tall buildings.

About the only thing I can complain about is the monthly charge, but if it keeps the Clear Channel programming nazis and the crappy advertisers at bay, I'll pay it.

CDs are an approximation of its analog source. Granted it is a very good approximation, but an approximation none the less.

Listening to a digital source over an analog radio, because of the bandwidth, is as good as it gets (unless the station is using an analog source.

HD digitally compresses and otherwise "dehances" the signal and compresses it into less bandwidth to allow more stations to use the same spectrum.

Therefore, HD will eventually become of lesser quality as the FM and AM bands are "rebanded" to allow for more broadcasts.

Like what you hear now?

Stay with what you've got until HD radios are standard equipment and the new channel alignments are implemented and you have no choice.

NOT worth it, but I don't have it either.

For $150 I would spend my money on satellite radio. HD radio is only on a few select stations and I doubt that you will see your public radio station putting out an HD signal but it is on Sirius. I have gone both routes and have to give my two thumbs up for Sirius.

Meh. I have Sirius my wife's vehicle, and the signal is awful. Going under a bridge loses the signal, driving too close to some trees loses the signal. My XM rarely loses its signal, and even works in parking garages and my garage (even though it's antenna is located in the front of my car, but the sirius one is on the back of my wife's, nary a foot away from a clear sky.)

The other, much more important issue, is that Sirius has DJs that talk incessently, whereas XM just plays music. Sirius is just FM radio via outer space. Most of the programming is indistinguishable.

HD radio sucks. If you have it in your car, and for some reason it can't pick up the HD signal, then it'll drop back to normal analog FM. But there's a difference in the broadcast time between the two, so it'll jump about 10 seconds forward or backward as you go between HD and analog radio. This could happen driving under powerlines, behind a building, in the mountians. Some stations fix this by time delaying their analog broadcast to sync it, but most don't.

It's been reported that people have returned their cars which came with HD radios because it was "broken" because of this time sync problems.

Then again, with satelite radio you are paying per month, which sucks.

I say, stick with FM analog. It works.

Personally, I have a factory head unit that plays MP3's from a cd. I can load up a few hundred songs on one CD and listen for hours and hours.

I'd never fork out the cash for anything like HD Radio or XM as long as I can use WinAmp and StationRipper (kinkaardschok FTW!)

NPR is the only thing even close to tempting me. Then again, having 4 audiobooks on one CD is quite nice as well.

HD Radio is very noticeably better quality than standard FM Radio and if you live in a city where your favorite (free) stations are broadcasting using HD then it may be worth considering. Here in the Twin Cities many of the larger commercial radio stations now broadcast in HD and so does Minnesota Public Radio. However the receivers are still quite expensive (including car radios) and personally I don't think that they are worth the cost yet. When the receivers prices drop to a much more reasonable (nominal) level then HD should take off (which is still a big IF). The obvious advantage is that you don't need to pay a monthly licence fee to listen to the radio. The radio broadcasters are caught in the situation where they first need to invest $$ in HD technology even though there are very few HD receivers in order to create a market for people to buy more such receivers - which it turn will hopefully reduce prices. This is a long-term gamble but I don't think these broadcasters have much of a choice.

Very few new cars come equiped with HD Radio, in fact only one that I am aware of (a luxury car), so I doubt anyone is actually returning their car HD radios. This situation is also a major impediment to HD radio becoming successful as commute time is a significant local market radio audience.

I’ve never heard anyone say “Gee! Your car radio sounds terrific!” to any of my buddies who do have HD radio, even those whose cars came with built-in 78 brand-with-an-umlaut high-end speakers & enough sound system wattage to run a drink blender. Indeed I don’t think they or their passengers particularly notice the audio quality of their radios at all.

Not noticing is probably an artifact of our low-brow musical tastes & NPR/talk radio habits. Were we listening to material where real quality was an issue things might be different, but then we’d probably also not be listening to radio at all. For quality audio we rely on now-standard 6 CD changers & iPods wired in, get exposed to new stuff through friends or regular old FM.

Those that are serious about their radio, for show tunes or talkshow hosts or gay/arabic/socialist special interest material, then it’s one of the two sat. services. And for those of us who regularly do long commutes away from our preferred radio fare the satellites come in handy for those stretches with only christian, country, or Radio Delilah are available.

But tooling around town, buzzing back & forth to the office, $100-$150 for better sounding more-of-the-same doesn’t cut it. That’s money better spent on iTunes or new CDs or getting the car properly cleaned for once, not an aftermarket radio with a half dozen slightly special stations.

I wanted to upgrade the "head" unit in my 350Z to allow an iPod adapter. While I was at it, the wife convinced me to try HD radio (primarily for NPR classic music, which I like), so I got the JVC HD unit. I figure I paid an additional $30-40 for the HD as an experiment, which wasn't unreasonable. Unfortunately, the experiment was a bust.

In Houston, most FM antennae are south of downtown, but I commute NORTH of downtown (min 30 miles from most FM antennae), so the HD signal strength is VERY poor; during a 25 minute commute, I am in-and-out of the HD signal 5-10 times. Some funky "intermod" effects can occur at the cusp between analogue and digital (echoes, delays, etc)which ARE mildly entertaining.

Despite what they say, HD sound quality is NOT QUITE "CD" quality (it's 96 kbps, same as the default MP3 or AAC compression schemes) but it IS much much better than standard FM. [maybe they should say "MP3 quality"]
However, I DO like it a lot, WHEN I can hear it.

I need to research the transmission schemes the local stations are using; I suspect they are NOT yet using separate amps and antennae (the HD requires a linear amp; an added cost for FM stations). I think this is why the HD signals are weak, esp. the NPR signal.

Unless and until the signal strength gets better (e.g. stations separate the FM and HD amps and antennae), I have two choices: (a) buy an Radio Frequency (RF) amplifier and splice it into the antennas coax (and cross fingers), or (b) turn off the HD and listen to the iPOD until things get better.

Note: I am a Ham Radio Operator (K5HAR), so the RF amp wouldn't be too daunting, but I am mildly piqued that the HD was oversold. I might be able to get an RF amp which will also work on the VHF/UHF Ham radio bands to talk to satellites and the Space Station in case it doesn't work for HD; I need to research that.

Fundamentally, I can't see any reason for a non-radio geek type to invest in HD until the signal strength is at least as reliable as standard FM. Better quality doesn't matter if you can't receive the signal. Before you buy, make sure you can hear it WHERE YOU ACTUALLY DRIVE.

BTW the iPOD controls and sound are TERRIFIC on the JVC ARE TERRIFIC. Very happy with that part, even with the standard Z speakers.

I would take FREE over satelite any day. you guys are dorks. just like cigarettes, you never stop paying for your habit until the day you die. next we will see a CD that plays ten times THEN you have to press a button on your CD player to RENEW the LICENSE for the privelege of playing the CD you bought for $10

satelite is a rip off, you guys are dorks

Hello

Take a listen to my tests at
http://www.neilschubert.com/HDRadio/hdradio1.html

Don't confuse HD Radio with HD TV! I was very skeptical about HD tv at first, but the technology of computers has made it much better than my first views of it in 1998. HD TV has some big bugs, like the aspect ratio issue, as well as how to record it easily at a consumer level (aka VCR). Transmit power needs to be increased to the same level as conventional analog UHF television. I think that additional FM audio stations should occupy the VHF band, if analog ever does go off the air (doubt it will, the date is now 2009!) Once power is increased, I will fully embrace HD TV. So, for those of you who used to hear me whine about HD TV, this is the ok to mount a UHF antenna on your roof and GO HD!

HD radio, on the other hand, has not improved reception. It is causing very big technical issues for the broadcast community. I will be putting out a page on my site called "in band on somebody else's channel (IBSEC)" which explains why the technology is NOT compatible with the existing FM channel plan, and will therefore "Betamax" as a technology. I'd have it out there now, but I "saved over" it.

It's ironic that someone mentioned bandwidth - HD radio actually occupies more bandwidth than a standard FM broadcast. For those who are discussing sound quality, you should see my HD page at:
http://www.neilschubert.com/HDRadio/hdradio1.html
or go to http://www.hd-radiolive.com/
These are actual tests I did while driving a 75 mile trip between Appleton and Milwaukee, wisconsin and Milwaukee and Manitowoc, Wisconsin. I bought a radio just to evaluate the technology. Simply put, I heard NO improvement whatsoever.

Sound quality is not improved one bit (pun intended), due to the the common fact that HD radio uses a lossy compression scheme (somewhat like mp3). The reason that radio has issues with sound quality has to do with the way the audio signal is processed to get it on the air, NOT the quality of the FM signal. FM radio has had better quality in the past, but has gone the way of the recording industry - crank it and clip. That's why CDs and even well made mp3s sound better than FM. FM itself is not the problem - it is digital audio processing used at the station that is the problem.

If you live in Canada, you will most likely not experience poor sound quality on FM, as Industry Canada still has regulations that pertain to audio quality, proper emphasis and stereo separation.
The US got rid of these in 1984 when a bill passed allowing TV stereo. Quality improved for a few years, then got caught up in a volume war, and then got digitized. The "fuzz" people hear on radio is actually high audio frequencies being digitally clipped. The quality is degraded even further when the station's automation system uses minimumally encoded lossy audio compression (like mp3 at 96k). Add to that a flurry of new CDs that are recorded "already clipped" by the high-quality RIAA standards that no longer exist in the recording industry. What you get is crappy sound on FM.

Most HD Radio broadcasts are sending you the exact same over-compressed signal that they are broadcasting in analog. Bad sound sounds bad, whether Digital or Analog is the medium. The blend circuit in many car radios fades to mono when the signal strength drops - even though two channels can still be received. Many radios have poor analog tuner designs which pick up multipath, AM noise, and have poor stereo separation (FM analog has 60 DB separation, but the average radio seems to only get to 28-30.

As far as signal is concerned, this is how I see it:

A simple explanation is this: Where I live, I can recieve approximately 95 FM stations - that's almost one for every channel space, plus a few on different antenna angles. Yes, I have a good radio - a Toyota Car Radio (made by Matsushita "Panasonic") attached to an outdoor FM antenna. With the exception of a few stations that are washed by local high-power towers, I get a station on every frequency - 92.1 92.3, 92.5, 92.7, 92.9, 93.1, 93.3, 93.5, 93.9, 94.3, 94.5, 94.7, 94.9, 95.1, 95.3, 95.5......you get the picture. I have access to as many FM stations as XM has. The FCC (pre-clinton era and back to WWII) had properly allocated the FM dial on a grid-like setup, so that stations would never interfere with each other. On a good radio, you usually get spacing capability like this(based on signal strength): 92.1 92.5 92.9 93.3....Each strong station must be at least one space apart in order to pick up the other. This is the average home stereo, and many audiophile tuners, and most stock stereos in cars (although they have been improving). A genuine sony walkman made after 1994 can only differentiate like this: 92.1, 92.7, 93.3, 93.9. 94.5.....

With HD radio, the station occupies about twice what a normal FM station would occupy. So, as an example, with 94.5, 94.3 and 94.7 are blocked by the digital signal. The sony walkman will pick up audible noise from 94.3 and 94.7 in strong reception areas. The average radio will pick up 94.5 well in weak signal areas, but may have multipath noise when close to the transmitting tower. While this may be a minor issue, the analog is actually degraded to make the digital look good!

Now, the other issue: Anywhere beyond 50 miles from the 94.5 example, there may be an analog transmitter on 94.3 or 94.7. In my test examples, there are both. While 94.5 analog may cover the full 50 miles or longer, the digital gets jammed up by the analog from either 94.3 or 94.7, or the digital from 94.1 or 94.9. In other words, the digital can never cover the entire range of the analog, and is thus, limited to about 1/4 the power of the main analog channel.

The point: Digital does not improve frequency response or Total Harmonic Distortion. It does improve signal to noise, but only when it works. The problem is that where analog has very little noise, digital works. At the point at which digital dies out, analog is still going. Analog gets noisy way beyond when digital drops. So, nothing is improved other than making a big mess of the FM dial, and jamming up reception for people in between cities.

The engineer that nobody has ever heard of,

Neil Schubert

Ironically, seems that HD radio hardware is available primarily for in-car use, which is where it makes the least sense. Because when transmitted in "hybrid" mode, i.e. along with the analog signal, the digital signal is fairly severely compromised. In the FM band, it is 23 dB or more down compared with the analog, which obviously makes it far less robust. See page 4:

http://www.ibiquity.com/i/pdfs/Waveforms_FM.pdf

In the AM band, in hybrid mode, the digital signal strays so far beyond the standard AM channel allocations that they can't transmit at night. So again, heavily compromised solution.

There's no talk of ending analog broadcasts, so unless some broadcasters decide on their own to go all-digital, the hybrid mode is what we'll be stuck with for the foreseeable future, is my guess.

Another reason why in-car use won't show HD radio off very well is that the acoustic environment is ridiculously bad in a running car. With about 70 dB SPL of backgound noise much of the time, if not more, who could possibly hear the difference in quality between digital and analog FM? Same goes for the little overpriced table radios the manufacturers seem to favor for now. It's like pretending to detect the difference between HDTV and NTSC TV on a 5" screen. Either will look just great on a tiny screen. If someone tries to tell you they notice a big difference, I'd be skeptical.

So if there is a difference in audio quality, it won't be apparent until good tuners for home stereos become available.

Still, multicasts are available already, so that's one reason to think about it. Not for the car, necessarily, but in situations where the signal strength won't be a problem. I'm waiting for a home stereo component tuner to become available. Then I'll snap one up pronto. As to satellite radio, please. Do we really need another monthly bill to satisfy our endless list of addictions?

On the spectrum use question, in hybrid mode, an IBOC FM station uses spectrum up to +/- 200 KHz (actually +/- 198.402 KHz) of channel center, which is twice the width of standard FM channels. In essence, each FM station that transmits HD radio is using up the guard bands around its frequency allocation, at low power, to transmit the digital info.

Not much different from what DTV does in the terrestrial bands, if you think about it. As long as analog TV is still with us, digital TV uses previously "tabboo" frequencies. It amounts to the same thing. In some cases, a digital TV station uses the channel adjacent to its analog station, and typically at much lower power. This is almost identical to the way IBOC works, in terms of spectrum use.

Hybrid IBOC AM broadcasts go way out to +/- 15 KHz (actually +/- 14.717 KHz) of channel center. So, of course, that won't work at night. AM channels are 10 KHz wide, and the digital stuff makes them 30 KHz wide. At night, where AM broadcasts travel far, the digital spetrum would create unacceptable interference. But if analog AM is removed, then this scheme would be good for AM, because it reverts back to a 10 KHz channel width.

I'll get one soon, for in-home use, where I can hope to detect a difference in sound quality, and where I can be confident that any new multicast stream I'm tuned to will continue to be receivable from one minute to the next.

Hey guys.
Some very good posts on HD. I was researching it in order to see if it was worth getting. But after reading this, I will stick with a conventional HU.
Thanks guys.

I wonder how many times the format will change, making digital radios with one format obsolete and requiring you to buy new radios to keep up with new formats. Already, the US has decided to embrace the proprietary "HD" format instead of the "DAB" format that's been adopted in the UK and elsewhere.

After trying out HD radio, I'm firmly in the "it ain't worth it" camp. In the areas where digital reception is possible, analog reception is perfect. Here, the analog sounds better than the compressed digital-- granted, I cannot stand the swimmy sound of overly compressed audio and prefer static and noise over it. Satellite radio sounds awful, and I hate that the broadcasters are pushing FM down to that quality with the HD system.

The only advantage HD has is with multicasting. But, good content on a secondary channel is hard to come by, and the ever-growing number of alternatives still makes it a hard sell.

HD Radio is a fraud and a farse - HD Radio/IBOC causes adjacent-channel interference and has only 60% the coverage of analog. HD radio sales a anemic, and the general public is not buying into this joke. HD radios need dipole and loop antennas mounted outside, to even have a chance to pick up the same old terrestrial radio junk on the HD channels.

Sirius and XM are not better sound quality than HD-Radio. HD-Radio gives you close to CD quality sound for *FREE*. It is *much* better quality than regular analog radio. It is a no-brainer.

Jeremy, did you ever buy (or choose not to buy) an HD Radio receiver?

I wrote up a set of reviews of the current set of receivers on the market (tabletop ones, that is) for the New York Times that ran last Wednesday.

Much of what's said in the comments here doesn't track what I've seen with actual, shipping radios.

I haven't done anything yet, no.

I've fiddled with my Accurian receiver, and there are important traits:

--HD is like regular FM mostly, but with less noise. You will likely not tell any difference in the car, but at home it's very nice, especially for acoustic or jazz or classical.

--The selectivity is phenomenal on the Accurian at least. This means that an amplified or attic antenna in a mixed area will net you a lot of extra normal FM stereo channels as well. FM tuners had cruddy selectivity before...maybe they had to get their act together for HD. Anyway, this is an important bonus, at least on the Accurian.

--The high-end phasing and stereo imaging isn't all messed up like on satellite radio. Witness it for yourself: bring some good headphones around to the sat. shops....I got naseous from the compression sizzling and bubbling...I'm happy to have picked HD over Satellite. XM bubbles and Sirius sizzles, I think....I can't take it...ears are too good.

HD Radio/IBOC causes adjacent-channel interference and has only 60% the coverage of analog. The HD channels are only low-bitrate streams of the same repetitive material. HD radios require dipole and loop antennas, and reception is still problematic. Consumers are not interested in this joke:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22hd+radio%22%2C+%22internet+radio%22%2C+xm%2C+sirius%2C+podcast&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

Well i'm not sure about HDRadio and the part that worries me is that they might decide to charge a fee, if it becomes popular. And as far as Xm or Sirius radio, no chance i'm not going to pay for radio...........

I knew that we'd get digital radio in the US eventually but I hadn't paid much attention to it, I assumed it would eventually turn up. It has, and we appear to have a lemon. I can't see why we got suckered into a non-standard system when there are international consortia that have been developing standardized systems. The result is a system that appears to be technically suspect (single-source technology) and which is expensive to buy into (relatively few receivers, all costing quite a lot of money for what they are).

The "HD" is deliberate misrepresentation -- is used by the marketing people to imply "high definition" when it means nothing of the sort.

At least I now know why a local AM news station's audio quality took a dump when the moved to their new state-of-the -art broadcasting facility. They used to broadcast in AM-stereo (kind of odd, my car radio's the only one I've ever come across, but it actually worked). When they moved they went back to mono and the audio feed got a lot of noise on it, sounding as if it were produced on a 1970s era portable casette recorder. Now I know -- they've got a "HD" feed.....didn't anyone bother to listen to this stuff before going overboard investing in it?

Oh well, there's always the Internet.

HD radio is great. The sound is terrific. If you have not heard it please don't comment. You people that spread falsehoods about the technology and havn't experienced it yet, do damage to the search for better technology.

I purchased the Sangean HD component tuner (HDT-1) for less than $ 200.00. It is actually the most sensitive and selective tuner I have ever owned. There is nothing you can say to convince me that HD is bad. I receive things I never could before. With HD I get 2 or 3 extra HD channels along with the analog channnel. The HD is clear and wide, as far as dynamic range is concerned.

As far as the transmission range is concerned. HD does not need as much wattage as the analog signal. Remember only ones and zeros are tranmitted. long with a good error correction, this hybrid system is exactly what they said it would be, a great addition to the traditional FM band!

I can't wait for someone to come out with a portable, so I can buy one. There is nothing wrong with the HD system. Just about every station in the New Jersey area is using it and mixing the formats too. Great way for some of the alternative platforms to be heard. I get stations from as far away as New York (60 miles)and Philadelphia (40 miles). The range is fantastic!

I agree, HD sounds great. In New York I am getting about 20-25 HD stations at full quieting, and this is with the built in antenna. I would not use it in a car for background noise reasons. The technology is coming of age, and it is free! The new Cambridge Soundworks HD radio is excellent and even elegant, with immense fidelity and crispness, and even good bass. There are multiple antenna input choices as well as an optical output to go straight to DAC or digital speaker system.

I own 2 Boston Acoustic Receptor radios. One by my bed, and one in the office. I decided to plunk down the extra $$ because I read a lot of good stuff about HD Radio. I live about 40 miles outside of New York City and I could barely pick up anything in HD. When it did...it just wasn't that different. Really, there was no discernible difference in quality. Bummer. I returned the HD radio and picked up the Tivoli Model Satellite Radio http://www.amazon.com/Tivoli-Model-Satellite-Table-Sirius/dp/B0007R6L8G
Sirius is so cool. We actually sit in the livingroom and listen to it at night...there's so much content. I love being surprised by what will come on next. And I'm a person that streams my iTunes library to my stereo. I just want to hear something new...or some old stuff that I don't have. We just love Sirius and paid the lifetime fee (we hate monthlys!) Anyway, that's my experience with both. Hope this helps.

-Drew

Guy, above, is an HD Radio shill.

It depends on your area. If you have multiple stations broadcasting in HD then definately get one. You'll get extra stations you can't get anywhere else via the multi-cast feature. For instance where I live, I get a "new country station" and an "all 80s" station that didn't exist before. Obviously, if you live out in an area with no HD stations, then there's no point. And if you're in an area with only one or 2 HD broadcasters, then it just depends on how much of an early adopter you want to be.

Just remember, Clear Channel and all the others are selling off their over the air broadcast stations.

Wanna bet they buy up XM and Sirius, and make it "same old, same old"?

I am from bay area and I am having much difficulty receiving signal. I use a dipole and want to get an outdoor antennae; finally learned, from here, about the signal. The stations here are clear and they don't have commercials or djs. The programming is excellent, I just don't know what is the vested interest of how does the station make any money? Who pays, or how is it profitable? No commercials and constant wonderful programming. Anyone?

z

I'm a 30-year audiophile. I say this only to give some credence to my ability to evaluate high-end home audio sound quality. For what it is worth, here's my take on HD Radio.

I listen to all kinds of music, from jazz to classical to pop, country, and everything in between. I use vinyl, cd, and fm radio. It is sometimes nice, as at least one person mentioned above, to let someone else choose the music. You can select that someone else by changing stations. Thus, radio sound quality is important.

Enter HD radio.

To enjoy the improvement that HD radio has over regular FM, you need a good component tuner. These tuners are now available and connects to your audio system in the same way as does a cd player, i.e., via a line input with RCA-type interconnects.

Voila! You can listen to either regular FM or HD broadcasts. The larger the market, the more stations you will find broadcasting in HD. For example, in the Dallas Ft Worth market, there are over 25 FM stations broadcasting in HD.

Let me get to the main point of my comments in light of all of the comments that followed from Jeremy's question "Is HD Worth It?"

Yes. In fact, a resounding yes. The sound quality is better.

HD Radio is definitely worth having if you like listening to radio at home (broadcast, cable, and/or satelite). If you want better sound quality than regular FM can offer, HD is a good choice. The improvement in reception and overall sound quality is stunning. It has enhanced my enjoyment of FM radio as a music source.

The better your other equipment (amps, speakers, etc.), the better HD radio will sound compared to regular FM. I particularly noticed an improvement in the highest and lowest frequency ranges. Subwoofers peform much better with an HD signal.

So as to end my comments, I will not go into other details of what makes HD radio better than regular FM. However, if someone wants more elaboration, I'll try to respond.

My main concern is better reception of weak stations (that also broadcast HD) at home. Will the Sangean home tuner help? Any other component HD tuners available?

I don't believe the sound quality of HD radio will be superior. I have a very good audio system. I listen to the classical music NPR station out of Bemidji MN. The quality is excellent. I also have a very large CD and LP collection. I have an advanced audio work station with a professional external DAC and Steinberg WaveLab 6 recording and editing software. This has allowed me experiment with all manner of lossy codecs at various bit rates.
I have not found a lossy codec that comes anywhere near CD quality, or analog FM radio for that matter. There are certain types of music that are an absolute torture test for lossy codecs. The worst is high treble voices in ambient cathedral spaces with large pipe organs. The effects of all these codecs are most unpleasant. The only codec I have found that consistently delivers CD quality is the lossless FLAC codec.
I have a lot of opera DVDs and they have a CD quality PCM track. The quality of that track is head and shoulders over the Dolby digital track, which uses lossy AC 3 compression. I can't imagine that this digital radio scheme will satisfy those of us who want to use radio for critical listening with very high fidelity systems.
I have made numerous trips to the UK, and had a chance to evaluate DAB. I used BBC radio 3, which broadcasts in the highest bit rate, for the comparisons. I used a good Sony tuner for the FM signal. The audio system was capable of excellent fidelity. I can tell the sound of the FM signal was superior by far to the DAB signal.
If anyone needs further convincing, Dolby labs developed lossless compression algorithms for Blue Ray and HDDVD discs. If lossy AC3 really was CD quality, do you think they would have gone to the trouble to develop a new algorithm?
This digital radio is another example of the current technical headlong race to the bottom.

Hi,

As all of the above are bashers of the HD radio and proponents of the XM. I would've gone with XM years ago, except I have this HUGE problem with paying a subscription fee for radio, even if I can listen to whatever I want whenever I want. I recently trashed my cable TV since the internet now allows me to watch my shows on the network sites. I've gone from a $160.00 a month cable bill for 1200 channels that are mostly repeats and usually don't have anything I want on them to a $45.00 bill for exactly what I want when I want it. My problem with XM, when I paid the extra to get it in my rental cars, was that it was the same basic thing. I found myself listening to a handful of the many choices on the stream. If they were to offer channel packages for a lower subscription, I might be tempted.

Personally, I can't wait for HD radio to catch on. I work in military radio systems and I can tell you that a digital radio signal can reach much farther than an analog signal due to the much better receiver sensitivity. In analog radio, voice will reach farther than data due to discrete signal levels. In digital radio, a data stream will reach MUCH farther than the analog radio voice. This means that, as the HD radio environment matures, you'll be able to pull in radio stations from a further distance on a lower power footprint from the transmitting station than before. Hopefully this will even take care of the deadspots in the rural areas where the only thing you receive is the beyond-line-of-sight AM signals, or at least make AM radio more interesting again.
I don't presently have an HD radio even though the local stations do seem to broadcast in HD and I've borrowed a friends to check it out. It is nice to be able to drop to the HD2 or HD3 on your favorite station if a song you don't like or commercial comes on. As with any new technology, you don't want to buy into the first iteration for a couple of reasons. First and foremost is the cost involved with getting it. The first buyers foot the bill for development costs and then the price drops so that the rest of us can buy it. The second reason is that you want to wait for others to find the bugs in the system and then the manufacturer to fix them. It is sad that even hardware has gone to the Microsoft business model of release and revise with "upgrades" and patches. I'm anticipating installing an HD radio in my car right after the first of the year as the tuners have come down significantly from when I started looking at them and the local stations I listen to broadcast in HD.

regards,

Jamie

I disagree vehemently of your appraisal with the signal quality/strength. I get all the hd.1 signals perfectly. I bought a powered antennae and the signal refused to come in. I used the included dipole and got better results with that than the powered antenna, but not good enough. I bought a thicker dipole which works great, when it works at all. I bought a special antennae for HD Radio and it doesn't work at all. So I think the answer is an outdoor antennae...Here in the SF Bay area there are hills and valleys for the wave to bounce so it definitely won't go far.

Can anyone comment on the quality of AM stations over HD? I live and drive very close to downtown of my city - range isn't a problem. I'm interested in getting higher quality audio for the 4 or so AM stations I listen to.

My wife just got a $100 HD car stereo. To those who say they can't tell the diff between HD & FM analog broadcasts...your ears have turned to tin. Tho my wife left standard speakers in her car, HD radio is sparklingly wonderful...a clear difference. S/N is higher & stereo spread is more precise. Experimenting with treble, bass & loudness controls, you can isolate frequencies & see dramatic clarities that FM analog never had. Setting controls normally, orchestras show greater depth, violins are creamy, not sharp, solo oboes are woodier, clarinets & flutes have more presence, & bassons & basses have rolling texture in their deep tones. I will soon get HD radio in my cars with better speakers. I know excellent speakers will show even grander differences between digital & analog FM.

Your post is over a year old before I read it... But, I came to the same conclusion as you: HD radios are expensive and I'll hold off on getting one.

HD may be a farce. The Accurian Tabletop HD radio I have rolls off the high end of the regular FM audio and limits the channel separation. The HD has to sound better than analog FM.

It's easy to verify by connecting an analog FM into the AUX input and comparing the same Regular FM station.

Way to go NAB.

I recently added the Sangean HDT-1 radio receiver to my system. I am disappointed in the quality of HD sound on the FM band - digital compression is obvious when comparing HD to Analog signals side by side. The sound flattens out in HD, taking the free and expansive dynamic of a good FM Analog signal and compressing it into a dull, one-dimensional soundstream.

What use is additional programming if the result is that all channels are of lower sound quality?

I just got the Sony xdr f1hd tuner at frys for $99. I got to say on this radio FM reception is surperb, and HD sounds even better. For $99 bucks I found it well worth it. I have one for the office and will be getting another for home too! Here is a review: ham-radio.com/k6sti/xdr-f1hd.htm

I think HD radio will be very successful, with its ability to put multiple subchannels on one FM band it will offer the variety people are looking for without the pricy subscription of XM/Sirus (which may or may not exist in their entirety after the merger). Anyway, I think that if you're thinking about doing it, and you have stations in the area with HD content I would go for it. If you're still iffy, wait a year or two, I am sure that HD radios will start to come down in price and now that the big conglomerates like Clear Channel are moving toward HD the others will soon follow suit if they are not doing so already. But I do have serious doubts on satellite's ability to stay in the game. Unfortunately they've taken the concept of radio and twisted it around. Sure there are less ads, but I really don't want to pay for the service. Plus it costs about the same to upgrade to satellite as it does to HD right now, so which is cheaper in the long run? HD doesn't have a monthly subscription, bottom line.

I just purchased an HD radio today because most of the stations in my area (and I live in a relatively small city) all broadcasting in or are about to be broadcasting in HD.

To me the big advantage over satellite is that HD radio is free. I can't ever imagine paying for radio so Sirius and XM have no shot at getting my business. I do listen to a lot of talk radio on the drive home which I'd like to hear better. There are enough HD stations in L.A. to easily justify the cost.

I read a lot of negative comments about HD Radio and some are certainly justified. Like others, I have been disappointed with what stations have done with their HD2 channels where I think a little imagination could have made HD a real competition. Most of the stations in my area that broadcast HD have used their subchannels as sort of variations on a theme. In other words, if their main FM broadcast is music from the '80s or '90s, its HD2 channel will be songs from the '60s, etc. If broadcasters can find better, more innovative ways to use the HD2 channels, i.e., content that can't be gotten anywhere else, HD might have a chance.