Reaction is coming in over the RW transom to today’s HD Radio piece in the New York Times by tech columnist David Pogue.
“What the ads say is true: AM stations sound like traditional FM (most are even in stereo), and the FM channels sound like a CD. There’s no static, ever,” writes the “Circuits” columnist.
“I tried out HD radios at three points on the price spectrum … . They’re all great-looking and polished; HD radios have steadily improved year after year. The marketing doesn’t lie: HD Radio really does sound better than regular radio. AM loses the tinniness. FM gets richer and deeper.”
He notes reservations about the technology as well though. And Pogue also asked his 100,000 Twitter followers if they’d tried HD Radio and got only 16 responses. While many of those loved the audio quality and the extra channels, half complained about reception problems like the radio “hunting,” going back and forth between the digital and the analog channel. He also quotes responses from people within the radio industry who expressed doubts about HD Radio’s survival.
One friend of RW from outside the industry said the article did a good job making the technology’s concepts and problems understandable for a layperson.
Read it here.
