Have read in many forums and sources about the generally poor quality of broadcast FM sound - usually attributed at least in part to the compressed signal - but also noted here and there are dramatic exceptions. Agree with all this and lament the sound in general - but my question is - how can one find the good fm stations (talking only sound quality) in a given area - is there any guide or data to quantify the compression each uses, or other factors? Seem to be lots of anecdotal or subjective opinions (which I happen to think are right), but woud love to find some diamonds in the rough in the LA area - suspect KCSN 88.5 may be one - but any suggestions how to identify them?
Try HD radio, I bought a cheapie unit and it was still the best radio I have heard, satellite radio included. Right now it's collecting dust, but that's because reception is so poor in my area, kept having to change channels depending on time of day, too many trees? Plus most channels have 2-3 different stations with different formats.
To get FM at its best, you will need an outdoor antenna. Winegard still makes some affordable fm only models (FM is between channels 6 & 7 in the VHF TV band). An older VHF TV antenna will work just as well. I use the smaller Windgard for receiving WABE (NPR) here outside Atlanta and it works great. I'm about 25 miles west of ATL. http://www.winegard.com/offair/radio.php AudioAdvisor also sells omni antennas that work well if you are near a metro area. Magnum DynaLab's is under $120 I think and an easy install. http://www.audioadvisor.com/products.asp?dept=60 Maybe this app might help you find some stations. With a good outdoor antenna you might be surprised how many you can find. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gothictech.RadioFinder&hl=en
I only use streaming Radio at home. Hundreds of choices of Genres, artists etc. Sound is not perfect, but very listenable, and it does not seem to be dynamically compressed much.
I have an old RS antenna in the attic I can get mant FM stations but, after buying a Sony HD unit that is all I listen to FM wise, great reception and lots of choices.
88.1-91.9 on the USA FM dial is where you will find the least compression and heavy limiting as a rule. Non HD Radio Classical and Jazz stations best and high school stations still left best. Religious stations, usually as bad or worse than the commercial side of the dial.
I remember back when the FM dial was nearly empty and most stations were commercial free. Ah, the good old day! Now it sounds more like AM used to -noise and ads and poor audio quality...except for HD radio and public radio. That, imho, is the only terrestrial radio worth listening to music on.
In the SF/Bay Area we are lucky in that we have a great jazz station, great classical station, great public radio stations, and several great college stations. I don't use or need an outdoor antenna. I did buy a while back a used BIC Beam box. That and my Fisher R-200 tuner are both near a window. I am able to pick up all of the the stations I referred to very clearly(well, the classical station is a bit weak, so if in stereo a bit of noise, but in mono crystal clear), and through the tube tuner it all sounds wonderful.
Very few radio stations have sound quality as the primary requirment for getting listeners. A rare few will make an effort in that regard, if they have an engineer who is also an audiophile. The effort is put into being the LOUDEST station on the dial, the reason being that as a listener scans by the LOUD station, they'll stop and listen more frequently than the will a softly-playing but higher-quality station. And a fringe-area listener might choose the LOUD station because it will cut better through the noise. So the audio get steamrollered, making the "loudness war" even worse than the source CD. Folks like Optimod, who makes the hardware compressors, do a great job in keeping fidelity intact, but it's ultimately up to the station's engineer to decide how that station should sound. Classical, jazz stations, etc. know that their listeners DO care about sound quality, so they make the fidelity effort that commercial stations don't. Radio is all about having listeners, nothing more than that. I haven't worked in radio for almost 20 years, but I'm sure things haven't changed all that much. And your tuner plays a large part of that, too. Dedicated tuners are a rarity nowdays, the FM section of most receivers is simply an afterthough, like AM used to be. They just don't spend the pennies to get a good sound. But with online streaming, satellites, digital stations, etc. the days of broadcast radio are certainly numbered. One station I worked at was AM stereo. Believe it or not, it acutally sounded pretty good.
Thanks to all for the fast and interesting feedback - and, yes, good points that HD or similar may be the way to go, the need for an outdoor antenna for optimum reception, and the general state of poor FM quality - although as the post just above notes, classical and jazz/blues etc know their listeners care about sound quality. And that was really my original question - not so much how to improve reception or evaluate other sources - I just wanted to know if there was a way to identify (and even better, quantify) which broadcast FM stations use less compression and have better audio quality. Maybe it's a lost cause, I'm just trying - thanks again for the input
To my ears HD Radio is worse than the most compressed MP3s that I have ever heard. HD Radio hurts my ears within just a couple of minutes. I recommend everyone to stay clear of HD Radio.
Thanks - this info does help, and is consistent with my experience. Why should this region of the dial use less compression - is there a technical reason, or is it a by-product of the classical/jazz/NPR - type programming usually found here? Very interesting point.
It's inherently bad or limited or compressed BY DESIGN. That's too bad, cuz FM radio was the basis of my childhood Rock n Roll education. FM radio stations (even digital / HD stations) use variants of replay gain technologies, which averages and limits and compresses the audio output, because they want to even out and average the sound and frequency response of their transmission, so that 1 song doesnt have a noticeably different loudness and volume from the next song or commercial or person talking. They mostly care about the overall averageness and volume consistency of their transmission, and nothing else, as they dont want wild volume swings, so they average everything out. Just accept it. FM has a real world frequency response of ~ 40Hz to 15000Hz, and AM is a sucky 200 Hz to 5kHz range. But I guess most car stereos and car speaker placements and DSP try their best to compensate for the inherent shortcomings as best they can for this reality. And dont get me started on the 'true' bit rate of satellite radio... Public Radio, College Radio and NPR are a good nostalgic supplement to lossless music playback and CD playback in car stereos, as CD players still have frequency responses beyond 20-20000 Hz, from a lossless song file
---------------- Most NPR stations broadcast in very good quality and I have recorded many a concert with good results. Your ears will tell you if you have a quality signal or not. The reason for an outdoor antenna is to capture enough rf to get to full fm quieting which could be better than 50db. If you have a mono/stereo switch and it sound better in mono, you are not getting enough rf most likely. What ever you can pick up in your car, the omni Magnum Dynalab should also do very well. I love my Winegard, though.
I will not reveal the source, but a casual acquaintance of mine is an engineer for one of the top radio audio processing companies. I once told him I thought one of the top-rated LA stations sounded just awful on the air, and he admitted that this station was using one of their processors -- but they had disregarded the manual and basically cranked up a lot of compression and EQ in order to make their station "stand out" on the dial. Apparently it worked: the station is consistently in the Top 5.
FM today is the AM of old. With worse processing. AM Stereo should have been legalized in 1973. And would have benefited from better receivers for AM and AM and FM would have been more of an equal.. In the older days, FM Stations much of the time made their money from SCA (Subcarriers, meaning Subsidiary Communication Authorization) Examples of how this was used. Background Music use in Stores and Offices pre Satellite. Cue channels, Data and Paging Services. FM by 1967-1969 was making enough billing to survive independently of the sister AM Station. Then AM and FM would have been more equal and separate to justify unique programming.
Haven't looked into FM in quite awhile, as I currently live in "the sticks", and it's very difficult to get a decent signal through the air at all, BUT.... It used to be that you would start off by figuring out IF there was a decent quality station (format and signal) that you could receive in your area, THEN figure out what you needed to do to receive it. If no such signal existed, don't bother. There were only a few stations that had that reputation in a given area. I had a friend who was into high quality FM back in the late 70's, and I got my info from him. No clue what I would do now. If there was, then you had to figure out if it was worth investing in the antenna and tuner that would pull it in. My 2 cents.
After many years in automotive, I can say "absolutely not." The OEMs often kill the frequency response so that nobody ever ever hears any kind of noise and God forbid complains. AND they want the radios cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. So a lot of tuners just suck. Ugh, I hear ya!
On the other hand, I gotta say that in L.A. 103.1 "The Sound" is actually pretty good in HD. I actually wrote their station manager and got a reply-seems they aren't on the "smash it flat" bandwagon thank goodness.
I use the Fanfare FM 2G wand antenna. I have it mounted outside but I used it inside before as well. Being a wand antenna it is pretty easy to mount against your house without needing to have a mast. It cost me slightly over $100 when I bought it years ago. Scott http://www.fanfarefm.com/fm2gant