HD Radio Review

i think HD Radio has potential for cars, but for home, you might as well just use internet radio. the upper frequencies of HD radio sound a little tinny, which is quite disssapointing to me.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Auvio
• HD
• radio
• tinny
• analog
• digital
• FM
• AM

[Sansui350A]

HD Radio is shit in homes AND cars (I made the mistake of dessecrating my '78 vette by putting a JVC HDR-1 in the dash (already was setup for a 1-DIN)). HD and anything else digital sounds like shit... major waste of cash mate, MAJOR waste... oh, on the GODD side, some HD radios do Stereo AM...

[Sansui350A]

@Sansui350A also, the sound from HD seems to have a "warble" to it... sounds like shit

[lmull3]

@Sansui350A this makes me wonder what Dolby FM sounded like, lol

[lmull3]

@Sansui350A it seems so. digital radio in general just sounds like crap unless it's a pretty good quality internet radio station which is still a little "kbps-y", lol. AM radio is pretty useless in my area. we have no stations i can get reception from around here, none. so i rely on FM, internet radio stations, and Pandora sometimes.

[Lachlant1984]

We use DAB+ digital radio here in Australia and there are a number of DAB+ radios that can also connect to the web and play internet radio stations, yet I've not seen on YouTube or on the HD Radio website any dedicated hardware receivers that can also receive internet radio stations via Wi-Fi, are you aware of any such HD/IBOC radio receivers that can do this?

[Aviator14]

for some reason on AM mine sounds tinny and horribly distorted.

[Aviator14]

It looks like they copied insignia NS-HDTUNE design

[xmaddictstechnstuff]

I've noticed on my Insignia portable HD Radio. That the HD signals seem to have a bit more bass response vs analog.

[Lachlant1984]

@mattluvsvox921 Even if you have a digital receiver connected to a digital amplifier via digital cables you're still listening to analogue because we hear in analogue, our brains process analogue sound only, the equipment converts digital signals to analogue, the speakers produce sound in analogue. How can using the digital outputs on the receiver improve the sound quality when the sound quality on HD radio isn't any good anyway?

[Lachlant1984]

@RexTheCyberdog Besides, if you use the digital connections and you're listening to a radio station that doesn't broadcast in HD Radio, what do you hear? Does the receiver convert analogue signals to digital for the digital outputs?

[Lachlant1984]

@RexTheCyberdog How can using the digital connections on the back of the receiver make a difference to the sound quality? If you use good quality analogue cables and a good amplifier and good speakers you'll get very good sound quality from analogue sources, particular records and FM radio.

[lmull3]

@mattluvsvox921 fuck optical, fuck digital audio. that's where audio technology is regressed as far as the fidelity of sound is concerned. modern receivers are made of garbage, therefore you'd be feeding garbage from the HD radio into a garbage receiver. guess what comes out of those speakers. garbage, lol. also, it's not analog composite....it's analog RCA.......composite is video. you realize that analog is better too....any real audiophile will tell you that.

[RexTheCyberdog]

your hearing the same quality sound because you hooked it up to a 40 year old reviver with analog composite cables... try using the digital coax or toslink connection with a receiver that supports it... i guarantee it will sound a lot better.

[Lachlant1984]

Is that the same HD radio tuner that Vwestlife used in his video demonstration where an electric water pump of sorts was causing no end of interference to the signal and taking it out? HD radio is really not getting all the positive feedback the people behind it want it to, in some respects I'm glad we don't have HD radio in Australia, we're using DAB+, in my opinion it sounds far better than AM but no better than FM, it sounds currently like a low quality MP3 file.