Tuesday, June 26, 2007

HD Radio: The "HD" must stand for "Half Dead"

Legendary radio programmer Lee Abrams is not impressed with HD radio. And if the man who made his name ushering in the heyday of some legendary rock stations -- for example, one of my all time favorites, WRNO, "The Rock of New Orleans" -- says HD radio is looking a lot like a boondoggle, I am inclined to listen.

Even if he has, as chief programmer of XM satellite radio, a horse in this race.

Anyway, Abrams says in his
latest blog entry:

Got an HD Radio. What a piece of crap. In the MP3 player world, this particular unit looks like a Heath Kit from 1968. I’m sure there are cooler models, but the $59 one I saw was pretty bad. Fred Jacobs, a respectable consultant recently wrote about how HD radio programming is being thrown away. Well, you can add the hardware to the list of reasons that the HD boys better get their s*** together of they’re looking at AM Stereo---where you could hear static in BOTH channels!
A FEW WEEKS AGO, I was in a Radio Shack in one of the Omaha malls and wanted to check out their "Accurian" HD Radio. Check it out, not actually pay $159.99 (after rebate) for the thing, which is really just a basic stereo table radio.

After looking around the store a few minutes -- as unengaged staff stood behind the counter for an equal amount of time -- I found the thing on a shelf in the middle of the store, in the middle of rows of shelves holding various boomboxes and clock radios.

Turns out it was a wobbly, unattached-to-anything shelf -- as I discovered when I tried to turn the radio around to see the rear connections. Fortunately, my middle-aged reflexes were still quick enough to catch the radio -- and the shelf -- before anything hit the floor.

And if you realize putting a radio toward the back of a metal framed retail space in a metal framed megamall isn't exactly the best way to ensure clean HD radio reception . . . you know a lot more than the Radio Shack people. Who didn't even bother to hook up a better antenna than the included cheapo length of wire.

I managed to pull in exactly two HD signals, both on FM. I didn't manage to pull in the HD signal on the local 50,000-watt AM blowtorch. And if the regular programming on your average local radio station these days is less than compelling, trust me, the "HD-2" station piggybacking on the primary signal will be even less so.

IF YOU WANT a digital jukebox with no announcers and no sizzle, go buy an iPod. At least that will be your digital jukebox with no announcers and probably at least a little sizzle.

And that "digital-quality sound" everybody keeps hyping? Ask yourself: What exactly is digital quality? "Digital" quality depends entirely on the number of "digits" you put into a sound file, and that varies wildly in the "digital" universe.

In the case of HD Radio, it sounds like regular FM, just with a little less background noise and a little bit wider stereo separation. Your CD player will not be worried about losing the "digital quality" war with HD Radio.

So, given that the radio conglomerates are trying to sell us marginally better-sounding "digital quality" versions of the same old crap we increasingly aren't listening to -- and given that their marketing prowess does not exceed their programming prowess -- give Lee Abrams and all the other HDetractors a cigar.

This thing has AM stereo written all over it. In other words, a big, BIG flop.

AND IF YOU NEED even more proof, note that the manufacturer of probably the highest-quality portable and table radios out there, Tivoli Audio, is not rolling out an HD Radio model yet.

It is, however, rolling out two WiFi radio models. That's big, assuming the greed-crazed record labels and their associated lackeys don't kill off Internet radio first.

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