[BC] About this HD Radio receiver

[Robert Orban]

At 10:21 AM 12/13/2005, you wrote:
>From: Rich Wood <richwood at pobox.com>
>Subject: Re: [BC] About this HD Radio receiver
>To: Broadcast Radio Mailing List <broadcast at radiolists.net>
>Message-ID: <7.0.0.16.2.20051213105154.07457060 at yahoo.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
>
>------ At 08:14 PM 12/12/2005, Robert Orban wrote: -------
>
>I'm very surprised you didn't notice any artifacts. Especially on
>Classical and speech. I haven't heard the HD version of the radio. On
>my mono version the fidelity isn't good enough to detect the
>subtleties of a mix. With the car receiver, road noise blots such
>things out. That assumes anyone cares enough to process separately.
>Here they don't. For the time being, my part of the country provides
>no reason to buy an expensive HD receiver.


I don't think that the BA radio has a particularly high definition 
amplifier/loudspeaker system. It was obviously voiced to compete with the 
highly successful (although not really high fidelity) Bose Wave Radio. (I 
heard somewhere that Bose has sold over 2 million of the things.) In my 
original post, I didn't say anything about artifacts at all one way or the 
other except to observe that there was a definite audible difference 
between the 48 and 96 kbps streams. I can hear codec artifacts through the 
BA's internal audio system, but they didn't bother me with the 96 kbps 
streams. I described the 48 kbps as "entertainment quality" but there is a 
definite drop-off in quality compared to 96 kbps because the SBR is 
required to fill in more of the high frequencies at 48 kbps.

HD FM's big advantage in the Bay Area is that it kills multipath 
distortion. I have my BA hooked up to the same outdoor antenna I use to get 
digital television. I didn't even try the BA with the "wire draped on the 
floor" FM antenna with which it shipped. It's fortunate that it (like the 
Bose Wave Radio) has a 75 ohm FM antenna input available. I can say for 
sure that I was less bothered by the codec artifacts that by the multipath 
hash and grunge that plagues FM reception in the Bay Area. One pleasant 
surprise was that KCSM, our noncomm serious jazz station, was broadcasting 
in HD. It is unlistenable due to multipath at my location, but cleaned up 
perfectly when the radio switched to HD.

One odd thing I observed was that I heard excessive sibilance (which I 
believed you complained about) on a few stations, but others were just 
fine. The latest version of the Optimod 8400 HD software has an "HD De-Ess" 
control, which I realized (to my minor chagrin) we had neglected to add to 
the 8500. The next 8500 software release will include this control, and 
will, of course, be a free download.

Incidentally, contrary to what someone has posted, the BA does have a way 
of getting its output into a better audio system (through a rear-panel 
headphone jack). When I get the time, I will look into this. But it's not 
going to be immediately. I hope this is a clean feed and does not carry the 
equalization that the radio applies to its loudspeakers.

Bob Orban