HD Radio Tuner.........

[dvjorge]

Hi guys,

I want to change my old tuners by a HD tuner. I live in Miami which has a lot of HD FM stations. I don't know if a HD tuner can get CD quality and be a lot better than analog tuners. Please, I need advice from people who have experience in this matter. All my prefered station already tx in HD. I listen to a lot of radio, if HD technology is better, less noisy, and better frequency response, then this is the way I want.

Thanks,
George.

[Mr Peabody]

HD radio will be far from CD quality but it should be an improvement over typical FM because HD is digital and will not have all the hiss or static. HD radio also offers addition stations a regular tuner is not able to receive.

I've seen a couple radios on display but have been waiting to get one.

[elapsed]

The best tuners, bar none: http://www.magnumdynalab.com/

They went XM though. You may find this interesting:

Why did Magnum Dynalab choose to produce an XM Satellite Radio Tuner versus an HD Radio Tuner?

What is most important to mention first is the fact that the term 'HD Radio' does NOT stand for 'High-Definition Radio'. 'HD' is merely a trademark developed by iBiquity Digital Corporation, the developer of HD Radio, with no direct reference to a higher decoding rate of the digital signal. Rather, 'HD' more appropriately stands for Hybrid Digital, which describes the process of HD Radio locking onto a station - first locking onto the analog signal in mono, then stereo, then trying to find a digital signal. If digital signal reception is lost, the radio will revert to analog, the same way a car radio will go into mono operation from stereo when signal strength is insufficient for stereo. Much of the success of this system property relies on proper synchronization of the analog and digital audio signals by broadcast engineers at the transmitter. In part due to this variability in broadcast quality (versus the consistent quality of the XM signal), we have not elected to proceed with an HD Radio device. To put an exclamation point on our decision, extensive listening tests with prototypes we have created in our lab have not resulted in sound quality that is consistently satisfactory for us to adopt this technology.

http://www.magnumdynalab.com/xmradiotuner-609t.htm

[dvjorge]

What is real is one of the station I listen to is now broadcasting in HD, and the sound quality is a lot better than before when they were analog. I am not clear about this technology yet. There are two HD tuners in the market. I don't know if popular brands like Sony, Pioneer, etc are interested in make HD tuners.

[Mr Peabody]

I wonder if that Dynalab info is only part of the story. If the HD radio signal goes back and forth from analog to digital, then how is it able to multicast on the same frequency when it goes into analog. And, it is no secret the XM's sound isn't anything to write home about. There have been many a post here as to the disappointment in XM sound. XM uses compression that negatively impacts sound quality.

A lot of whether HD radio stations sound good will depend on how they send out the source. For instance, if they play an actual CD the sound should be pretty good. Where if they play mp3 or some other compressed file, it won't sound so good.

[hifitommy]

http://positive-feedback.com/Issue30/sangean_hdt.htm

ultimate sound quality is vg but not like having a hamran kardon citation 15. BUT the noise is vanishingly low and i didnt mind paying about $180 for it. i have seen it at fry's for $150, a VERY attractive price.