To judge by my e-mails, lots of you are struggling with the transition to digital broadcast television. So you will be thrilled to learn that much the same thing is happening to AM and FM radio.
It’s called HD radio, a system that makes AM stations sound as mellow as FM and allows stations to broadcast two or three audio streams over frequencies that previously carried just one. But HD radio isn’t new; broadcasters began using it in 2003. Today, 1,700 stations in the United States broadcast in HD, including 41 in Boston.
Yet according to an April survey by researchers at Arbitron Inc. and Edison Media Research, only 24 percent of consumers have heard of HD radio. Why so few? Partly because nobody’s forcing us to care.
Digital TV carries a drop-dead federal mandate. Major TV stations must halt analog broadcasts in February, so viewers must either convert their TV sets or take up knitting. But digital radio is optional. Stations will continue their analog broadcasts for years to come, so Americans can keep using their old radios.
Besides, analog radios are cheap. The earliest HD models, designed for installation in cars, cost $500 and up. When home HD radios came along, they were priced far above the magic $200 price point where ordinary consumers stop reaching for their wallets.
But now a host of HD radios that cost well below $200 are available. The simplest one I tried, the iLuv i168 HD radio, is priced at $90 and can be found for less at various online retailers. It’s pretty much a standard tabletop alarm-clock radio, with HD radio as its one distinguishing feature.
The Jensen JiMS-525i, with a list price of $150, steps up to the next level, with a feature that lets you use an iPod to capture data about songs you might want to buy. Push a button on the radio and the song is “tagged.” There’s a cradle on top for plugging in an iPod. Once you do, the tag data is transferred to the iPod. Next time you plug the iPod into your computer, Apple’s iTunes software shows you how to buy the music.
Anyway, that’s how it’s supposed to work. The tagging feature is compatible only with the newest models of the iPod. I own a pair that are one generation too old. I also tried a brand new iPhone 3G, but it doesn’t support tagging either. So if song tagging appeals to you, consider getting a new iPod to go with your new radio.
The Insignia NS-HD2114, sold only at Best Buy, costs $165, a little more than the Jensen unit. But Insignia boasts a lot more features. It’s a bookshelf stereo system with a pair of sep arate speakers. Hook it to a TV and it becomes a DVD player. It spins CDs, too, and has a USB port for playing tunes from an iPod or flash drive. It can all be controlled with the Insignia’s remote control, once you figure out its bewildering array of buttons.
Dialing up your favorite radio stations in HD may also require a little extra effort. All the radios come with a pair of antennas, for AM and FM reception. You’re likely to need them. Digital radios can be finicky about signal quality, and weak signals provide sound that breaks up at odd moments.
This was a problem when listening to WBZ, Boston’s powerful AM news station. Any old AM radio will pick up WBZ’s analog signal with ease; at night, I’ve listened to it in Chicago, 900 miles away. With the Jensen and Insignia models, I had to fiddle with the antenna a bit to get a steady WBZ digital signal in Quincy or Dorchester.
It was worth the effort. We all know AM radio sounds dismal. But you don’t know how bad it is until you hear the HD version of a familiar station like WBZ. Background hiss and crackle disappear, and the newsreaders’ voices are rich and resonant. The improvement is almost shocking.
Don’t expect a similar epiphany on the FM band. To my untutored ears, HD stations on the FM band sounded pretty much the same as their analog equivalents – except that some HD stations play more interesting music. Did you know there’s a Boston station that plays nothing but classic country music from years gone by and another that’s all Irish music all the time?
The switch to digital allows broadcasters to run additional broadcast streams – in effect, they can offer two or three separate radio stations with different kinds of programming. It means more ways for broadcasters to earn advertising revenue, but it also means better listening options for consumers.
The company that invented HD radio, iBiquity Digital Corp., lists HD stations in Boston and around the United States at its website, www.ibiquity.com. There you will find a number of eclectic offerings that aren’t on an old analog radio.
But nobody’s going to run to the mall and plunk down $100 for a new radio just to listen to an all-blues channel. In fact, people rarely buy a radio, just for the radio. Instead, we buy CD players or home stereo systems or new cars that just happen to have radios in them. In a few years, most of these built-in radios will feature HD compatibility, and we’ll wonder how we ever got along without it.
