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They're BAAAACK!

I wonder about San Antonio as well.
HD is better than AM quality any day, in my opinion.
 
Anonymouse said:
I wonder about San Antonio as well.
HD is better than AM quality any day, in my opinion.
Click to expand...

I would qualify that - HD-2 quality is better than HD AM any day. I would say a good AM signal chain with C-Quam would give HD-2 a run for its money, because it wouldn't have any compression artifacts. The only problem with AM is the receivers and interference in the receiving environment. HD AM is only suitable for speech. Music is virtually unlistenable on HD AM.
 
stan said:
C Quam AM is right up there with AM stereo and quadraphonic FM. Good luck with that.
Click to expand...

CQuam is AM Stereo. It's just the brand name that the last man standing in the AM stereo battle which started in the late 70's applied to their flavor of AM stereo.
 
rbrucecarter5 said:
I would qualify that - HD-2 quality is better than HD AM any day. I would say a good AM signal chain with C-Quam would give HD-2 a run for its money, because it wouldn't have any compression artifacts. The only problem with AM is the receivers and interference in the receiving environment. HD AM is only suitable for speech. Music is virtually unlistenable on HD AM.
Click to expand...

HD-2 is not a system. Why do you refer to it as a base point?

"HD-2" is the second of the possible HD channels on an FM station. The HD-1 channel is required to be the same content as the main analog channel of an FM. HD-2 and beyond are optional slices of the total HD bandwidth which is finite. So an HD-2 could share half the bandwidth, or only get a small sliver depending on how high a bitrate the operator wants to give the main HD channel. That is why different HD-2 and HD-3 channels sound better or worse.
 
DavidEduardo said:


HD-2 is not a system. Why do you refer to it as a base point?

"HD-2" is the second of the possible HD channels on an FM station. The HD-1 channel is required to be the same content as the main analog channel of an FM. HD-2 and beyond are optional slices of the total HD bandwidth which is finite. So an HD-2 could share half the bandwidth, or only get a small sliver depending on how high a bitrate the operator wants to give the main HD channel. That is why different HD-2 and HD-3 channels sound better or worse.
Click to expand...

Most people won't notice the difference if there are only two HD channels HD-1 and HD-2. I can, because I have better equipment. By they time they add an HD-3, all channels are suffering to point that analog FM sounds better. Typically - stations devote the same bitrate to all HD channels, but I've heard very low bitrate on HD-3's dedicated to NOAA weather radio and the like. You are right, they can allocate the bit rate any way they like. So assuming there are two channels, HD-1 and HD-2, the HD-2 will sound as good or better than an AM stereo station broadcasting in C-Quam and heard on a decent AM tuner in a low interference area. Although it is close, I've heard some very good AM stereo stations. But if Radio Disney adds a third HD channel, it will sound like the three HD channels on local KUHF and KMJQ that split bitrate equally between three. The compression artifacts are so bad I don't listen, even though I like the format on the HD-3's. Compressed audio soundling little better than streaming did on a 56k dial-up modem. Very fatiguing to listen to. But infinitely better than HD-AM music, where high frequency content in the music from percussion instruments aliases down to lower frequencies creating a really surrealistic and weird listening experience. Just about any AM stereo station I have heard sounds much better than the HD channels on a three way split. I think the HD standard allows for up to 8 channels, but I doubt any of them would sound very good.
 
rbrucecarter5 said:
Most people won't notice the difference if there are only two HD channels HD-1 and HD-2. I can, because I have better equipment. By they time they add an HD-3, all channels are suffering to point that analog FM sounds better. Typically - stations devote the same bitrate to all HD channels, but I've heard very low bitrate on HD-3's dedicated to NOAA weather radio and the like. You are right, they can allocate the bit rate any way they like. So assuming there are two channels, HD-1 and HD-2, the HD-2 will sound as good or better than an AM stereo station broadcasting in C-Quam and heard on a decent AM tuner in a low interference area.
Click to expand...

You are jumping to conclusions not supported by fact.

Most stations give the bulk of the bandwidth to the main HD (1) channel. Some may give a significant percentage to the HD-2, others may do a 60-40 split or something even lower for the HD2. If an HD3 is added, the most common thing I have seen is to take a piece away from the HD2, leaving the HD(1) with significant bandwidth.

Low bitrate HD channels start sounding like XM/SIrius channels. Compressed, full of artifacts and fatigue inducing. CQuam AM stereo had none of those "features" and sounded quite clean and nice. It just happened too late (Thanks, Leonard Kahn!).
 
Another option of course is to do HD in MP3 mode instead of MP1. With the extra 24k afforded by MP3 mode, it's entirely possible to have two very decent sounding music channels on HD1 and HD2 and a very decent speech channel for HD3.
 
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