On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:52:13 -0700, Harry Lavo wrote
(in article ):
"Sonnova" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 9 Jul 2008 15:25:01 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):
wrote in message
http://theaudiocritic.com/blog/
H"D Radio FM/AM Digital Tuner
Sony XDR-F1HD
This is a $100 (thats no typo) tuner that blows away
the classic super tuners of McIntosh, Marantz,
Sequerra, Accuphase, etc., according to FM experts who
know more than I do."
He referes to this in depth technical review:
http://ham-radio.com/k6sti/xdr-f1hd.htm
It had to happen - the complex, expensive analog filters in their IF
strips
that made the classic high performance FM tuners what they were, get
replaced by a DSP that costs a few bucks.
Now, if there was only any reason to bother to listen to FM, except maybe
in
my car. :-(
BTW car radios are the intended major market for this technology.
So true. It wasn't always that way, though. When I was a teen (early
1960's)
living near Washington DC, stereo FM had just come in. In those days,
there
were only a handful of FM stations in that market and they were
w-i-d-e-l-y
spaced on the dial so nobody was using compression and nobody cared if the
stations overmodulated a bit, so no one used limiters either. The two
college
stations, one belonging to American University (WAMU) and the other
belonging
to George Washington University (WRGW), followed the live music concert
scene
in DC. On any given summer Friday or Saturday night, the National Symphony
or
one of the President's armed forces bands (Army, Navy, Air-Force, Marines)
would be playing at the Watergate down by the C&O canal (Watergate had a
different connotation then) in front of the Lincoln Memorial. People would
pull-up alongside the floating bandshell in their boats, or sit on the
steps
leading down to the river or just spread-out blankets on the grass and
listen. Couldn't attend? Tune in on FM and hear it live (complete with the
sound of airplanes from National Airport taking-off and landing overhead).
It
was marvelous. People today have no idea how good live FM could be in the
early days. It was like having a good pair of Neummann U87 microphones
running from the Watergate to your stereo system! In the winter, most of
these concerts moved indoors to the State Department Auditorium and were
broadcast from there which was even better because of the hall acoustics
(and
no airliners).
If you'd like to get an idea what the Watergate concerts were like in
those
days, watch the beginning of a movie with Cary Grant and Sophia Loren
called
"Houseboat." It sort of begins at a Watergate concert where Sophia's
character's father is a visiting Italian symphony conductor.
Then of course there was the WQXR "network" which, in the early 1960's
relayed (via the receive-and-rebroadcast method) programming from WQXR in
New
York City to a chain of stations going north into New England and south to
DC. It was a little noisier than the local live broadcasts. The 'QXR
affiliate in DC, was (IIRC) WMAL-FM and their chief engineer told me once
(because I called and asked) that they received their feed by
rebroadcasting
the signal they picked-up using a high-gain single-frequency yagi antenna
from the Philadelphia affiliate. So what we got was an FM signal that was
captured by the Philly station off the air from WQXR New York, and then
they
rebroadcasted it and WMAL picked up that rebroadcast and then
rebroadcasted
it themselves, so there were TWO FM outlets between my FM tuner and the
originating FM station in NYC. No matter. What we got (while it lasted)
was
live broadcasts of the NY Philharmonic from Lincoln Center, concerts from
Carnegie Hall, and smaller ensembles directly from WQXR's studios. It was
glorious!
I really miss those live stereo FM broadcasts and I was saddened to see,
the
last time I was in DC, that the powers-that-be had allowed the band-shell
barge at the Watergate to sink. Youngsters today wonder why we old farts
think that the world has gone downhill since our youth. Well, its because
it
has!
Hear hear!!
Thanks for bringing back the memories. I moved into the NYC area right
after grad school in 1963...and boy, the sounds!
I am currently fortunate to live in western mass where WFCR
broadcasts....they only do opera and Tanglewood live, but their signal is
not terrible compressed and they feature top quality classical and
jazz...with my Carver TX-11 or Fisher 90C tuned in, it is hard to tell I'm
not listening to CD. I can turn up the volume on a performance and have no
hiss or noise, and reasonable dynamics. So I guess I am one of the lucky
ones.
Harry
You are lucky. There is simply nothing like a broadcast of a live concert.
The knowledge that the music to which one is listening is going on RIGHT at
that second as you listen-in may form some sort of psycho-acoustical bond
with the broadcast that simply isn't replicated when listening to "canned"
music, no matter how effective or perfect that canning process might be. Live
broadcasts generated an excitement and a sense of anticipation (as well as a
sense of participation) not present in canned playback. Sure, it's an
illusion, but isn't that what hi-fi is all about? The Illusion of a live
performance in one's listening room? I'd trade all of my "state-of-the-art"
gear to be able to go back to my attic room in my parent's house for ONE live
Watergate concert in 1962 over my Eico HFT-90 FM tuner, my Knight-Kit stereo
FM demodulator, my pair of Knight-Kit 18-Watt mono integrated amplifiers and
the bass-reflex speaker cabinets my dad made for me, each holding a Knight
KN-812 12" "full-range" speaker and a Layfayette horn tweeter. Crude, yes,
but none-the-less satisfying to my then 16-year-old ears.