[BC] AM Stereo

[Kyle Magrill]

The argument that AM stereo sounds as good or better than FM is moot.   
Candidly, I don't buy it based on my observations, but even if it were true, 
it came about 15 years too late to save AM. The die was cast when 
FM had superior performance at a low cost starting in the 1970s.  By 
1980, AM was already in a deep hole as a music medium.   For hi-fi or stereo
to have had an effect, it would have needed to be rolled out in the early 1970s
to blunt the rise of FM stereo.  The technology of the day made it expensive 
to build a hi-fi AM system, but even the cheapest of FM radios could sound 
good, so AM's undoing was partly a combination of lack of available, low cost, 
technology and starting much too late in the game.  Perhaps if the FCC had been
a little more farsighted and approved Kahn AM stereo in the ealry '60s, things 
would be better for AM now, but who can know for sure?