None of this has been the case for at least sixty three years. Add in the terrestrial noise floor of the Medium Wave band, and it makes current performance of AM even worse. Wax on nostalgic and theoretical all you want. Reality is; AM since the late 60's has been an inferior form of aural media.Indeed the original minimum performance specs for AM were 100hz to 5 kHz but with THD not exceeding 5 %. However, since at least the early 1950s major market stations took pains to make their facilities sound as good as possible, which meant audio with the maximum freq response possible from about 30 Hz to 15 kHz with THD not exceeding 1 % and S/N better that 60 dB.
Modern AM audio processors since the 80's start rolling off high frequencies at 5kHz, 8+dB down at 8kHz and a brick wall filter at 10kHz. The reason is to reduce the chances of low pass filter ring. If you can't hear the difference between 5kHz and 12kHz, your hearing is likely degraded.Depending on the program material this produces Hi-Fi perfomance in wide band radios. And since the response of most wide band radios max out at just over 10 kHz,
Again, you're being nostalgic. Compare even your wide band AM tuner with a good quality FM station, streamed, or even by good ol' CD. Reliving your youth is not the same as actual comparative quality.the fact that the FCC rule change in the 1980s reducing AM audio from 15 kHz to 10 kHz made little difference in these receivers - they still sound good even today.
Nope, that's a radio nerd wives tale. I worked with Bob Carver back in the 80's while he was developing his AM stereo/FM stereo reference tuner. The test AM stations we used across the country were all over the map in audio performance. The problem with AM, maybe more so than even FM, is the transmission system bandwidth can adversely effect the audio. Old phasors, poorly maintained transmitters, narrow band ATU's, all have an effect. The add in program directors and station owners who insisted on asymmetrical modulation, 124% positive and 99% negative peaks up against the wall, and stereo separation was terrible, and distortion, unacceptable. These are just some of the reasons Bob said the year of R&D on his AM stereo tuner was a complete waste of time.As I have said on other posts, in general, if your AM sounds bad it usually because your radio sounds bad, maybe like the AM tuner of my Kenwood car stereo: all the stations sound the same regardless of the station's processor settings. The radio's IF bandpass is so narrow that it's hard to hear the letter "s" at the end of spoken words, not to mention significant distortion that's introduced.
Gramophones are nostalgic, not musical. AM's chance at doing music ended back in the 70's, so call that nostalgic.By the way you mentioned: "people used to think gramophones sounded musical". You have to put this in perspective of the technology of the times, as well as an individual's personal taste. You would be amazed at what a mint condition 78 RPM record sounds like when played through a modern system fitted with a high quality diamond stylus designed for 78 RPM playback...no it's obviously not up to modern standards but it's perfectly "musical" and pleasant to listen to...I have a couple of Glenn Miller records on the original Blue Bird label I found in a thrift store that I discovered had probably never been played (at least not with a "steel needle"). I never though a 78 could be so quiet...
I could bang pots and pans together and call it musical. To regular people, it's nothing but noise.