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Old July 18th 03, 11:15 PM
ChrisCoaster
 
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Default BEST sounding FM stations in your area

Criteria are good dynamic range(not over-compressing), limited or no
use of EQ and special fx(echo, verb, stereo expanders).

I'm in Stamford, CT, so the best sounding stations I pick up are 95.1
WRKI up in Brookfield, CT, 96.3WQXR classical - NYC, 99.1 PLR in New
Haven, Q104.3 from NYC, and 106.7light FM, Lon GIsland.

The above stations prove that FM can sound good, and they also play
their music at the correct speed, in stereo, and without editing out
good bridges and solos from songs. Their volume is a little softer
than, say, Z100 or KTU, because they don't compress near as much as
those two stations. But their true fidelity makes them worth cranking
up.

-CC

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Old July 22nd 03, 04:03 PM
WBRW
 
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I'm in Stamford, CT, so the best sounding stations I pick up are 95.1
WRKI up in Brookfield, CT, 96.3WQXR classical - NYC, 99.1 PLR in New
Haven, Q104.3 from NYC, and 106.7light FM, Lon GIsland.


106.7 "Lite FM" WLTW has commendable dynamic range for a major-market
AC station, but their audio quality is let down by the horrible
digital compression artifacts in their music, which is stored as
low-quality 192 kbps MP2 files on their computer system. Especially
on songs with intense treble content, the "gritty", "sizzly",
"twinkly" artifacts are prominent enough that you can even hear them
on a clock radio with a 3-inch speaker. On a hi-fi stereo system,
WLTW sounds even worse, as the low-end "grunge" and distortion typical
of a clipping-happy Optimod or Omnia become obvious.

Of course, commercials sound the worst on just about all radio
stations these days, because of the multiple digital compression
schemes they are put through. By the time they get on the air, some
sound as bad as a 32 kbps MP3 or WMA file.

Stations that play their music direct from CD and their liners and
commercials from carts (yes, I said CARTS), and who don't use any
digitally compression in the link between their studio and their
transmitter, generally have the CAPABILITY to sound the best, as long
as their audio processing is up to par and was adjusted by somebody
with an ear for crisp, clear, dynamic sound with accurate stereo, no
distortion, and no clipping "grunge".

Of course, there's no reason why *AM* stations can't sound great,
either, as long as you're using a high-quality radio, such as the
popular GE Superadio III or one of the many car radios with AM Stereo.
A well-designed, well-processed AM Stereo signal can easily meet or
exceed all of the performance specifications of typical FM stations,
and many listeners consider it to sound even better than FM because of
the different type of processing that AM Stereo stations use. The CRL
"Amigo AM" is the best-sounding AM Stereo audio processor, with the
older CRL units a close second. The Optimod 9100 series is also very
good for AM Stereo, but tends to lean towards maximum loudness instead
of maximum quality.

Here's a little MP3 sample of an AM Stereo station using
well-configured CRL processing, as received on a $29.99 Sony AM Stereo
Walkman. You may laugh, but I think you'll find the sound to be
surprisingly crisp and clear, with good Stereo imaging:

http://tinyurl.com/hmtm

Even better are some of the powerful AM Stereo stations in JAPAN, such
as 100,000-watt JOLF on 1242 kHz in Tokyo:

ftp://ftp.amstereoradio.com/aircheck...n/jolfclip.mp3

Of course, AM and FM's audio quality both pale in comparison to *TV*
audio, which at least with all-analog broadcast signals, can sound
much better, because there's generally no "loudness wars" on TV. If
you have a stereo TV or VCR hooked up to a good stereo system, you'll
be amazed by just how good it can sound, particularly for music. TV
audio also gives you Dolby Surround Sound from many programs, which is
virtually unheard of on the radio (the closest thing were the few
"Quadraphonic" FM stations in the '70s).

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Old July 25th 03, 03:16 PM
WBRW
 
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Default

PS you mean http://tinyurl.com/hmtm to be http://tinyurl.com/htm ,
right?


No. TinyURL abbreviates long URLs into four-letter codes.

For example, the URL used by Google to let me post this message is:

http://posting.google.com/post?cmd=p...m% 26rnum%3D4

Feeding that mess into TinyURL resulted in the creation of this
shortcut:

http://tinyurl.com/i0b6

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Old July 29th 03, 07:42 PM
ChrisCoaster
 
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Default

(WBRW) wrote in message ...
As far as TV goes, the music video channels have done exactly what the
major market FM radios have done: dynamically compressed the crap out
of their audio. This wreaks havic on matrix surround decoders such as
Pro-logic, because the phase differential requires significant
amplitude to be effective. So the front-to-surround signals just seem
to "bllllend" together, what I call "Velveeta surround"!


The last time I had cable TV, there was an inexcusibly large
difference in loudness and audio quality between the channels, and at
least 1/4th of them were in MONO.... including MTV!

And don't forget that the vast majority of today's music is highly
compressed, clipped, and distorted to begin with, on CDs, and of
course, encoding it into MP3/WMA/etc. makes it even worse. Even
supposedly 'soft' and 'relaxed' songs like Norah Jones' hit are
produced and mastered with highly limited dynamic range and clearly
audible clipping distortion (for example, during the 'loud' bridge
sections of "Don't Know Why" -- that grungy distortion in Norah's
voice is that way *right on the CD*).

Also, for the past decade or so, "Digitally Remastered" has become
nothing more than an euphemism for "highly equalized and compressed".
Even supposedly "pristine" albums like Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the
Moon" have been subjected to this auditory mangling, all for the sake
with making them more "competitive" with the consistent loudness of
today's music. Alas, this is the reason why people are still buying
turntables... when you have the choice between a dynamically superior
original LP and a smashed-and-trashed CD re-release, of course the LP
is going to be preferred, even by people who aren't astute enough to
know the real reason why.

BTW, if you've wondered why digital photographs, even at high
resolutions, just don't look as natural and realistic as traditional
film photography, that's because of the limited VISUAL dynamic range
of the digital camera. This effect is componded by the fact that most
digital cameras store their pictures in JPG format -- which is a form
of "lossy" compression, just like MP3 for audio.


_______________________
And then to really rub it in Ana Log's face, those "Digital Remasters"
are of the original LP lacquer cut - dynamics lost forever. Which is
WHY I'm such a digital kludge in the first place!

-CC



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Old July 29th 03, 07:42 PM
ChrisCoaster
 
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Default

(WBRW) wrote in message ...
PS you mean
http://tinyurl.com/hmtm to be http://tinyurl.com/htm ,
right?


No. TinyURL abbreviates long URLs into four-letter codes.

For example, the URL used by Google to let me post this message is:

http://posting.google.com/post?cmd=p...m% 26rnum%3D4

Feeding that mess into TinyURL resulted in the creation of this
shortcut:

http://tinyurl.com/i0b6


Now you know why I never made it in IT - too many nitpickin' rules!

-Chris

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