Dane, I do have an inexpensive HD Tuner and a couple of HD radios and could provide an example. However, I am not sure what such a sample will tell you. HD Radio in the United States is so variable in its quality. For example, on FM, the HD programming can be divided into multiple programs and the bandwidth that is allocated to each program can vary. One of the Christian stations here in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, has four HD channels. One of our public stations has three HD channels but one is the BBC and they allocate very little bandwidth to it so it sounds a little like a lower bit-rate MP3. Some radio stations seem pretty good about not compressing the HD program while others seem to feed pretty much the same signal to the HD program as to the main analog program so the difference is just less noise. . From what I have read, DAB is clearly a superior system, but it uses an additional frequency band that broadcasters here did not want to risk.
In my opinion, HD on AM radio here is not very good. A good HD signal on AM sounds very nice, almost as good as an analog FM signal, but the AM signal has to be so good that the analog signal would sound pretty good if it was not restricted in bandwidth because of the HD signal. I bought a Carver tuner that was capable of receiving AM Stereo back in the 1980's here, and the sound quality was pretty good. HD AM radio sounds better, but it takes so little to disrupt it that it doesn't seem all that practicle. Another frustration of mine is that I can't find a good HD Tuner any more. I bought one from Amazon that listed for $99 but is now sold for $35 and it isn't bad, but it has a permanently connected wire antenna for FM with no obvious place to connect a ground. My system is in a basement and I have an outdoor FM antenna, but there is no simple way to connect a 75-ohm coxial cable to it. The HD table radios I have all have coxial cable connections so I never thought to check if the tuner had a 75-ohm connection. The wire antenna would be adequate above ground level. I have some electronic knowledge so I've experimented with making a connection to the 75-ohm cable available in the basement, but the connection is not very efficient. I saw a Sony tuner available used but it was at three or four times the original price, and there were some bad reviews associated with the seller. Finally, here in the Twin Cities in Minnesota, apparently HD is not a part of many of our stations' backup transmitters. A number of our bigger stations are on a couple of tall transmission towers, and when they do maintenance on the towers, the analog signal is transmitted from a backup site but no HD. This has been a somewhat common occurrence this summer for some reason. Even with all this, I like HD because the sound can be good, and it opens up the potential for additional programming on our FM bands. After reading all of this, let me know what sort of samples you might like or if you would simply like a good and a poor example. Best regards, Steve Jacobson On Wed, 24 Jul 2013 11:48:52 +1000, Dane Trethowan wrote: >Hi! >Does anyone out there have a HD Tuner? I'm looking for some samples of HD >radio so if someone could provide then I'd be most appreciative. >I can return the favour perhaps by providing some samples of DAB+. >********** >Dane Trethowan >Skype: grtdane12 >Phone US (213) 438-9741 >Phone U.K. 01245 79 0598 >Phone Australia (03) 9005 8589 >Mobile: +61400494862 >Fax +61397437954 >To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to: >pc-audio-unsubscr...@pc-audio.org To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to: pc-audio-unsubscr...@pc-audio.org
