The Best HD Radio Receiver

RE: The Best HD Radio Receiver

2dogs — Tue, 27 Dec 2016 15:58:50 GMT

I own two of these Sonys. They're pretty good but very aggravating. Programming is not user-friendly. And when I have an electrical outage they had to be reprogrammed. I had them both going on at each end of my flat. On the NPR HD3 rock station, the one Sony was 1.5 seconds behind the other. I can't figure that one out at all.

I've had three different JVC HD radios in my car. Two got stolen. They've all behaved really well. So well, in fact, that I've considered replacing the Sonys with JVC car HD radios and use computer power supplies for the 12 volts.
I've been a radio geek all of my life, 1st Phone and all. I love HD radio and wish it would get greater adoption and have a wider range of receiver hardware. Thanks for the coverage.

RE: The Best HD Radio Receiver

dragonbill — Fri, 20 Sep 2013 19:23:02 GMT

Nice article. Yes, there are many cheap HD radios on the market. HD radio has a long way to go. The big push not is for the Artist Experience and iTune tagging. Of course the only radios that you would be able to "see" the album art, etc, would be vehicles to start.

As for the -20dBc, that is the norm, but stations can go to -14dBc without anything much thatn a letter to the FCC stating such. Anything higher requires "permission." One major reason stations do not increase their digital carriers is power costs. Though transmitter manufacturers are improving their boxes, it is not cost effective to purchase, install, and then upgrade in 2 years. Transmitters need to be upgradable!

BTW, Inovovonics makes a braodcast monitor, the Ino632, which is a very good radio. You will not see such a thing on the consumer market. In fact when we were looking to update a couple receivers for HD monitoring we were UNABLE to find a decent on in the consumer market! So, we stuck it to our budget and began forking out for the good ones.

Regards,

Bill

(Yes, I'm a broadcast engineer.)

RE: The Best HD Radio Receiver

DAB — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 21:44:30 GMT

Yes, it is a really different world than the one I grew up in.

We mostly used the AM/FM radio to keep up with local events, news and weather. The music in most instances was the filler they used to gain a listening base for the type of listeners they wanted. Each music genre had its own marketing audience and people selected the stations they wanted based upon the type of music they played.

The cassette player probably put the radio into a dying market. You carried the music you wanted and could drive for days without listening to the radio. The CD just added to the movement already underway.

The Sony walkman and the MP3 player fully cut most young people away from radio forever.

The digital radio might bring in some people, but with 24 hr news and weather available on your digital phones, plus music and video streaming make radio nearly superfluous.

I am not surprised by the dearth of good quality digital recievers. There is just not a very large market to make it worth the investment.

The times they have changed!

DAB