[BC] I got my HD radio

[Dennis Cope]

Why in the world would anyone buy an HD radio that costs $500.00 dollars
just to receive HD radio?
The BA doesn't even have line outputs to send it to a decent stereo
system....

I don't even have an HD station within 90 miles of where I live and having
talked to several station owners, they have no intent of installing IBOC,
EVER..

Dennis
WESR, WCTG



>I just purchased a Boston Acoustics receptor. Look for more detailed
>reports in other forums. Initial reaction - disappointment. By the time
>I got home with my purchase it was too late to evaluate AM.  For FM WNYC
>(PBS) and most of the Clear Channel stations where 'perfect' if you
>considered blend. The bad part is that means the blend is so subtle that
>there is no real discernible difference. WPLJ (ABC) also fits that
>category and remains the loudess most obnoxious station in the market.
>Their IBOC signal seems to proove that there is a lot of L R clipping
>happening.

If there is ANY L/R clipping appearing in the HD channel processing of a
station, then someone made a big mistake setting up the facility or the
processing. In Optimod HD processors, there are no clippers in the HD
channel so you couldn't purposely add L/R-domain clipping even if you
wanted to. L/R clipping is just about the worst thing you can do to a low
bit rate codec because the codec starts wasting bits trying to encode the
clipping distortion.

The only peak limiting in an Optimod HD processing chain is the look-ahead
limiter right before the output, and the output waveform of the look-ahead
limiter looks nothing at all like the output of a clipper. If you see
clipping at the processor's output, this would have to be caused by
clipping in the source mastering process, insufficient headroom in the
program chain somewhere before the on-air processing, and/or overdriving
the processor's A/D converter if the unprocessed signal is analog, which is
rare in major markets these days.

(BTW, I am awaiting delivery of my Boston Acoustics Receptor. I order it
from Crutchfield and expect it by the end of the week.)

Bob Orban