"Tony Meloche" wrote in message
...

Horse hockey. I'm not saying Leonard's suit didn't hamper the
reality of AM stereo, but if it had become a mainstream thing, "stereo
lo-fi" would have never held it's own against "stereo hi-fi" (FM).
Especially when the FM stations went to virtually ALL types of
programming during the seventies. Prior to that, FM was classical,
alternative (including what was known as "AOR") and as a vanguard,
country.

Nobody loves good old AM radio like I do, but there is no accident
to the fact that AM radio today is very largely 24 hour news, sports,
and talk radio formats. That had a whole lot more to do with changing
technology than it did with Leonard Kahn. Classical music will always
sound tremendously better on FM than AM because of the frequency
bandwith. Classical music (as one example) in AM stereo will sound like
stereo AM radio broadcast of classical music. A pale imitation of
stereo FM broadcast of classical music.

Tony


There is absolutely no reason why AM stereo could not be just as high a
fidelity as FM stereo, and in fact was in many cases. What gives AM
broadcasting the characteristic 'telephone quality' sound it has is mostly
the receiver. There is some pre-transmitter processing to limit the
bandwidth used, but it doesn't need to be there for purposes of transmitting
the signal, only for purposes of limiting said bandwidth. In Portland, we
had several AMS stations with full frequency response (50-15K) just as FM.
And AMS signals didn't degrade the way FM does when in the downtown area or
on the 'dark side' of hills. Admittedly, AM signals can be noisier than FM
on the fringes, but they are better in hilly terrain for the most part than
FM.