[BC] RAIN report: HD Radio s Creative Thinking

[Robert Meuser]

Yada Yada Yada.

None of this makes any difference. Radio is irrelevant until it can become on 
demand like other media. Audio quality has long been a non issue.

R

DANA PUOPOLO wrote:
> AAC plus is one of he better ones. Indeed, I listen to it every day (via XM).
> That said, I still hear artifacts all the time. So does my wife.  I'm a 51
> year old man who's HF hearing I'm sure has declined over the years. Younger
> men (and women) likely hear them even worse.
> Unless I actually READ the tests (and their results), I assume notning about
> them. By the way, I can pick out BR reduced audio that's under 256K  when
> compared with the original source with near 100% accuracy using headphones I
> know (Grados).
> I recall reading years ago that Bell Labs (at least I think it was them) was
> trying to determine the optimum bandwioth to use for sound reproduction (this
> was in the 1930's). They set uo a "high quality)"  (for the time) audio system
> and ran essentially double blind tests of different audio bandwidths. They
> were surprised to find that people overwhelmingly preferred narrow bandwiths!
> This ran contrary to what they thought people would like.
> 
> Finally they realized why: The audio reproduction equipment was flawed, even
> though it was the best available. So, they built a stage with an orchestra.
> The orchestra sat behind an acoustically transparent curtain.Between the
> orchestra and the curtain was a set of louvers that could be opened or closed
> without the audience knowing which position they were in. When closed, the
> louvers attenuated all highs over 5 kHz.
> NOW they discovered the audience overwhelmingly preferred the full audio
> bandwith over the narrow band audio. Had these scientists not been the
> visionalies we now know them to be, we might have been STUCK with inferior
> reproduced audio for generations.
> 
> Quite frankly, FM stations could make 'near digital' sound tomorrow by turning
> down their audio processing a few notches. The fact that they do  not want to
> will ultimately kill them!  Listeners have choices now that simply didn't
> exist  years ago, and they are goig to these alternatives in bunches. HD radio
> will not change this. Besides, how many stations take theiHD channel and put
> audio on it with a 5 db dynamic range? The majority, I'll wager. Why HAVE a
> near High Fi medium if you're going to trash it out of the box?  Remember, no
> listener can undo the changes  (damage?)  caused by audio processing. Analog
> FM has a 50 db dynamic range, give or take. 40 db of this is wasted by the
> average FM station.
> HD radio has an 80 db dynamic range.  70 db of this is wasted by the average
> HD station.  Why bother with HD if you're going to trash it so?
> 
> I'm not hardly going to visit the dueling codec arguement now; that's a whole
> topic upon itself. Let's just say that I'm sure the coding used by Starguide 
> duels with HD's coding to some degree (unless they happen to be identical).
> Let's also say that the MP2, MP3 and/or WMA coding used by the various HD
> based audio storage systems  every station uses these days also duels with HD
> (I know that CC uses MP2 with Prophet) does as well.
> 
> -D
> 
> ------ Original Message ------
> Received: Sat, 15 Oct 2005 02:21:28 AM PDT
> From: Robert Orban <rorban at earthlink.net>
> To: broadcast at radiolists.net
> Subject: Re: [BC] RAIN report: HD Radio s Creative Thinking
> 
> At 09:18 PM 10/14/2005, you wrote:
> 
>>From: DANA PUOPOLO <dpuopolo at usa.net>
>>Subject: Re: [BC] RAIN report: HD Radio s Creative Thinking
>>To: Broadcast Radio Mailing List <broadcast at radiolists.net>
>>Message-ID: <041JJoej66912S09.1129350957 at cmsweb09.cms.usa.net>
>>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>>
>>I have heard AAC plus, and even at 96K can clearly hear its artifacts.
>>I would wager that most women can (clearly) hear them too. But after all,
>>women only represent 55-60% of the audience, so why do they matter?
>>When you remove 95+ % of anything, it's not going to sound nearly as good as
>>the original.
>>
>>So my comparison IS valid!
> 
> 
> While you are of course entitled to your preference, you seem to be 
> unusually sensitive to SBR's artifacts, at least according to the 
> double-blind listening tests made by Coding Technologies, not to mention 
> 3GPP2 (3rd Generation Partnership Project 2), ISMA (Internet Streaming 
> Media Alliance), DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting), the DVD Forum, Digital 
> Radio Mondiale, and 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), all of which 
> have standardized on aacPlusV1 or aacPlusV2 and/or accepted the aacPlus 
> codec as part of their system specifications. I am suspect all of the 
> listening panels included women, as these are all serious organizations and 
> did not make their choices frivolously.
> 
> Bob Orban 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> This is the BROADCAST mailing list
> To send to the list, email: broadcast at radiolists.net
> For sub changes, archives and info on this other lists:
> http://www.radiolists.net/
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> This is the BROADCAST mailing list
> To send to the list, email: broadcast at radiolists.net
> For sub changes, archives and info on this other lists: http://www.radiolists.net/
>