[BC] About this HD Radio receiver

[Robert Orban]

I got my BA Recepter today and spent about 90 minutes playing with it. It 
didn't mute during that time. Like some others, I turned the bass down (to 
"-4").

The San Francisco market is well equipped with HD FM stations, including 
several already programming their HD-2 streams. Probably the most pleasant 
surprise was the smooth jazz station at 103.7, which was programming 
uncompromising music for serious jazz lovers on its HD-2 stream (some 
classic bebop when I was listening).

Some stations were programming title and artist; some were not.

The biggest audible difference between the analog and digital sound (other 
than the disappearance of clipper hash overlaid with multipath hash -- this 
_is_ the Bay Area, after all) was on hip-hop and classic rock stations, 
where the digital brought out the punch in snare drums and restored mix 
elements (like tambourines) that the FM pre-emphasis limiting has greatly 
subdued compared to the original mix. As far as I could hear, most of the 
stations were processing properly, with separate peak limiter chains on the 
analog and digital signals. They did NOT sound identical if one knew what 
to listen for (transient impact on percussion and better HF response).

One station had diversity timing problems and several stations did not have 
their analog and digital loudness matched well enough to minimize the 
obtrusiveness of cross fades.

I substantially preferred the sound of the stations running 96 kbps on one 
HD stream to those running 48 kbps on two streams. 48 kbps is certainly 
"entertainment-quality" but it doesn't have the clarity of the 96 kbps streams.

Bob Orban

At 12:08 PM 12/12/2005, you wrote:
>From: Robert Meuser <Robertm at broadcast.net>
>Subject: Re: [BC] About this HD Radio receiver
>To: Broadcast Radio Mailing List <broadcast at radiolists.net>
>Message-ID: <439DBFB2.7090904 at broadcast.net>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
>Willie:
>
>There is more to the radio than you might think.
>
>R
>
>another independent owner
>
>WFIFeng at aol.com wrote:
> > In a message dated 12/12/2005 9:17:53 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> > tom at bosscher.org writes:
> >
> >
> >>  So, I heard on this here forum that Crutchfield is selling the over
> >> priced Boston Acoustic HD radio. We'll, I'm a curious kind of guy and I
> >> want to to see what the big boys are up to. The Internet portal of
> >> Crutchfield took my money, and within three days I had the radio.
> >
> >
> > I just checked out the site... interesting, but frankly a little 
> lacking for
> > info. The radio sure isn't very "feature rich", either. It is, 
> essentially, a
> > bare minimum table radio with "HD" functionality added in.
> >
> >
> >>  Except... After 30 minutes or so, it quits? Am I suppose to pay an
> >> additional subscription fee to Ibiquity? (Um, just kidding)
> >>
> >>  Anyone else have any infant mortality with this unit?
> >>
> >>  (Pull the power for a while, and it will come back for 30 min)
> >
> >
> > Tom, there is a space for you to write a review. Nobody else has, so 
> you can
> > be the first. You should share your experiences with the rest of the 
> "buying
> > public". Did it only do this in HD mode, or did analog also conk-out? 
> Did the
> > display go blank? We Engineers like to know all of the symptoms.
> >
> >
> >>      Tom, hey that was worth $ 500, Bosscher
> >
> >
> > I can't believe that... Absolutely incredible. I can't imagine the
> > "$200-a-foot speaker cable-buying audiophools" even falling for this one.
> >
> > No, Tom, I'm certainly not putting you (nor anyone else in this Forum) in
> > that category... I know you only bought it for curiosity's sake, and 
> because
> > you're an Engineer. You weren't looking for ultra-high fidelity, you 
> wanted to
> > evaluate the unit on its merits (or lack thereof, especially in this 
> case.) I
> > hope they give you a "cheerful refund" for your trouble.
> >
> > Willie...