Comparative Fidelity

[RBFC]

What are your thoughts on the comparative fidelity of different radio carriers:

1. Internet

2. Satellite

3. Over the Air


lee

 

[DWR]

I can not comment on Internet radio as I do not listen to it, but the other two I do. I find the fidelity of both Satellite and over the Air to be fine for having music on while concentrating on other things. Working around the house where say you are going from one room to another and not just sitting in your listening chair listening to the music. I prefer the Satellite over the Over the Air broadcasts, I get very good results from XM radio when run thru my DAC then to the system. The tuners provided by the satellite companies leave a lot to be desired as far as fidelity goes. The over the air listening for me has sadly dropped off to pretty much nothing now, I live on the fringe of the big city (Detroit) radio stations that I would listen to, there is a decent NPR station that plays Classical and Jazz, which I would listen to the jazz but I can not pull that station in from where I live. As for the commercial stations no I just can't take the same old same old over and over and then throw in the commercials, no thanks. Take that all for what its worth, its just my opinion.

Dan

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I do not listen to satellite radio but to the other two.

1. I really like the sound of a good FM broadcast but, unfortunately, there is little I can find. NYC has one remaining classical FM station and its programming is awful (especially at this time of year). Occasionally, they hit one out of the park but that is rare.
2. Internet streaming is wildly variable and, even at its best, is not as good as I would like. However, the program availability is its strength and, as a result, it is what I listen to mostly when I am not playing some form of disc or download.

Kal

 

[amirm]

What are your thoughts on the comparative fidelity of different radio carriers:

1. Internet

2. Satellite

3. Over the Air


lee

In general, #1 is the winner although in the specific, it might not be there. Let's examine them:

1. Internet. Audio is compressed using a popular compression format like MP3 or WMA/AAC. The key there is the data rate. If 128 Kbps (or 96 for WMA/AAC), it can sound better than the other alternatives. I have not done a survey but seems like there are a number of internet radios using 128kbps. Key here is that no bandwidth is taken up for error correction as the channel is pretty reliable relative to over the air schemes below.

2. Satellite. XM radio uses PAC and Sirrius HE/AAC. The latter is much better than the former but it is still a way of cramming a lot of audio bandwidth in low data rate channel. Specifically, techniques are used to recreate high-frequencies in HE/AAC that were filtered out of the source. Data rates are quite low due to dire need to have lots of (forward) error correction to deal with weak and noisy RF signals. Typical audio rates are 32 to 64kbps. I find the audio quality extremely poor for XM and unlistenable.

3. Over the air. As you know, we have both analog and digital versions of the same. Analog FM is band limited to 15 KHz and suffers from very poor scheme for transmitting the difference signal needed to create stereo. Multi-path distortion where the receiver sees the original plus delayed versions reflected from other objects can cause lots of fidelity issues (although there are good implementations out there to get around this problem for the most part).

Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) as used in HD Radio in US can be reasonably good. Broadcasters are allowed to go as high as 96 Kbps although many are using 48 Kbps. Lots of extra channel capacity is taken up by forward error correction. While I readily hear compression artifacts on HD radio, it is much less than XM and in most cases, better than analog FM in my car. The stereo image is much better as is the frequency response. Compression artifacts are there in the form of lisping, and some amount of pre-echo and modulation (underwater sound). HD radio also uses spectral band replication as explained for Sirius.

So in my book, internet streaming done at high data rate easily wins out. At high enough data rate of say, 256 Kbps, it can rival CD for non-golden ear listening .

 

[cjfrbw]

Not to touch off another pointless debate, but vinyl records played over FM are sublime sounding. FM is another mysterious medium that can lift above its weight class in terms of listening, in spite of alleged flaws.
I listened for years to my reel to reel tapes recorded from a Sony FM tuner to radio stations in New Orleans playing vinyl records.
I think a lot of the antiquarians still favor some of the old tubed FM tuners, along with some of the other doddering but nought beaten ancient technologies.

 

[RBFC]

One of my best audiophile memories is from FM. The local classical station played the NHK recording of George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra playing the Sibelius Symphony #2. It turned out that it was Szell's last recording. I still have the cassette tape of this. The performance is legendary, and is only available today on Japanese CD:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbMco2wKNK4

Edited to add: Japanese CD may be OOP.

Lee

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

I gave up on radio years ago...AM and FM. Can't really tell you why I did, but it just kinda happened.

John

 

[Mark (Basspig) Weiss]

I used to design FM broadcast multiplexers, limiters and audio processors, so I may be biased.
That said, too much of FM broadcasting suffers from the Aphex Vigilante sound, that raspy, harsh, irritatingly constantly loud modulation. Even Classical stations are overdoing the volume leveling with Aphex Compellers driven hard into Orban Optimod 8100As, or the newer Optimod 8400, which is a digital box which, IMHO, sounds a bit better than the Orban 8200, but still not as clean as the 8100.
The processors I used to design produced a sound indistinguishable from the original CD source, as long as they weren't drive hard into compression.
Good FM reception is rare these days, since the 1996 Docket 80-90 drop-ins started crowding up the co-channels and short-spacing became the norm. It's a neat trick if you can A) find an FM station with processing AND programming that is not fatiguing and, B) that you can get interference-free reception of. Few good FM tuners on the market nowadays. I liked the Sequerra Model 1 and the Carver TX11. Accuphase also made a great tuner that had the selectivity and a good capture ratio to limit co-channel noise.
HD Radio is a crap shoot. Satellite is heavily compressed. Internet, pretty much the same. Better off listening to a CD.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I listen to classical out of Hungary and the Netherlands, jazz from New Jersey and Americana from the Pacific Northwest. Best of all is the most eclectic radio station in the world, WNCW, broadcast from a community college in the mountains of North Carolina. And I get it at up to 320kbps. Internet radio rocks, even when it swings.

Tim

 

[amirm]

I thought for fun, I sift through the various high-bitrate Internet streaming radios and post them here. What I found that is that in many instances, the online directories are wrong. Many for example say a station is 128kbps where in reality is 64kbps.

Here is the listing. I tested them all and they work in Windows Media Player. Take a listen and let me know what you think. The genre is mixed:

http://www.atlantis.fm/Listen_Live_WMP_StudioQ.wax (WMA, 128K) Rock Music

http://www.org.mk/radio/gotourl.asp?ID=10732&med=radio (128K MP3) Top-40

http://www.org.mk/radio/gotourl.asp?ID=10649&med=radio (MP3, 128K) Classical music

http://www.org.mk/radio/gotourl.asp?ID=9823&med=radio (WMA, 128K) Classic rock

http://ncradio.ru/streams/mp3-256.m3u (MP3, 256kbps) Rock

http://www.pulsradio.com/pls/puls-adsl.m3u (MP3, 192kbps) European Rock

http://www.xdevel.com/radio/radiosuby.asx (WMA, 128k) Jazz

http://www.m2radio.fr/pls/m2love.wax (MP3, 128K) French Rock

 

[RBFC]

Amir,

I have Windows Media Player 9.0 on my iMac. The top 40 station was the only one that played with any fidelity. Others skipped badly, while the mp3 stations buffered on and on without playing.

Is there a specific update you recommend? Running Leopard 10.5.8

Lee

 

[amirm]

Unfortunately, the Mac Media player is ancient and buggy.

Go to this directory: http://www.streamingthe.net/Happy-Radio-Teneriffa-98.7-FM-Deutsche/p/17794

Select 256/128 K from the drop down menu. Click on the blu play button, and a pop up shows up. There, you should be able to find an option that works for you.

 

[RBFC]

I got most of it to work! There are a few stations that give a "component necessary for playback is not available" message, but the others worked fine.

Thanks, Amir. You're bringing me into the 21st century, slowly and surely.

Lee