A

admin

Audioholics Robot
Staff member
It seems like I've spent the last month on the road. Denver, Turkey, Reno… it's been a busy time. Over the course of my life, I've lived in multiple states including California, Mississippi, and Florida (driving to and from them as well) and have spent time in very large markets like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Jacksonville. I regularly drive down the coast of Florida to see my Audioholics compatriots and north up to South Carolina to see my AVRant partner. What does it all add up to? A lot of time in the car listening to the radio. And what do I hear...? Alice in Chains.


Discuss "How Radio Sucks" here. Read the article.
 
smurphy522

smurphy522

Full Audioholic
Tom,
seek out a College radio station, usually the freshest and certainly the least media controlled. Then theres NPR (world cafe). Here in Houston I have not found too much offerings of "good modern" public radio. When I first moved down here, 1 year ago, I though "wow good rock-n-roll", better than Philly at least. Well now I have to say "it's just the same, played over and over, noyhing new". Great point though, especially about satellite and the likes of HD.

I would love to see what HD radio is about (read: try it). But so far I won't buy a $700 stereo receiver or $3,000 AVR to bring it home. I also don't think it can be easily integrated into my car system w/out total replacement of the head unit. I saw a unit the other day that made me laugh: a HD tuiner w/FM modulator, hmmm? Why play HD radio through a FM modulator, that would be defeating the purpose, would it not?

Love the site and your fresh views.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
J

Joe Schmoe

Audioholic Ninja
I haven't listened to radio since high school (27 years ago.)
 
J

Joe Schmoe

Audioholic Ninja
What about when you drive? That is the only time I do.
I still have a few old cassettes that I listen to on those rare occasions when I am on the open road. I never listen to anything in traffic (it is too distracting, and can mask sounds that are important to hear.)
 
Matt34

Matt34

Moderator
Strickly XM and Ipod in my truck. Southern Arizona has one decent radio station out of Tucson (that isn't country or in Spanish) and we barely get reception where I'm at.

When I lived near Kansas City they had a great rock station, 98.9 The Rock with Johnny Dare. The morning show was hilarious and they actually played good rock music, not all the Pop crap.
 
A

autoboy

Audioholic
A lot of people think the death of the radio has been the iPod. I don't agree. iPods are just too much work for Joe Consumer. You have to pick your songs, download them, organize them, upload them… it's a hassle.
Exactly the reason I don't use my iPod anymore. It is just a PITA to organize all that, pull out the boring songs you are tired of, find new stuff, and pay good money for all this. My Audi even has a SD memory slot and I can play my music from that, but since buying a SD memory card for it and putting some of my songs on there, after a week the only thing I use it for is audio books on very long trips alone.

I listen to quite a bit of analog radio. In the SF bay area there are quite a few good stations that I like, and even a new country station that is pretty good. I find i get tired of them quickly, but it works a whole lot better than fiddling with mp3s. Sound quality is so so but I can deal.

I also have XM radio, and I get it for free. I'm not sure why, it just worked when I got the car and has for 2 years. I initially thought I had a 3 month trial subscription, but it just keeps on going. :) Maybe my car came with a 3 year free subscription, but I never even had to register for anything. I find XM really nice when I travel out of my standard radio reception, and I use it mainly for talk radio to catch the news, or a program that I wanted to listen to, or just to get away from the boring old music I always listen to. There are a few good music stations, but their play lists are small.

The most disappointing thing for me with XM radio, is the sheer crappyness of the audio. The talk radio stations have the audio fidelity of a telephone, maybe worse, and the music stations are severely compressed to the point of being unpleasant to turn up past ambient listening volumes. There is a severe lack of clarity, highs are missing, mids are compressed, and the bass is muddy and lacking. I can immediately tell the difference between an analog broadcast and XM radio, the analog broadcast has much better sound quality and it easier to listen to, as long as the signal is strong. Actually a week ago I found that both XM and a local station were playing the same song, and nearly at the same point in time, so I switched back and forth to really get an idea about the difference, and the analog station was so much more dynamic, much more clear, and hugely superior to the digital XM. Maybe it is my XM tuner in my car, a Audi S4 with the premium Bose audio (it actually has tweeters so it sounds pretty good for car audio) but I could never listen to music this bad in my own house.

At home I listen to quite a bit of internet radio, mostly Yahoo LaunchCast, and I find the sound quality pretty good. Not nearly as good as CD, but it works for non critical listening. I wonder about the comparative quality of XM vs Internet radio. I've heard that XM is 32 kb/s for talk, and 64 kb/s for music stations, while most of my internet radio stations are 128kb/s, and even some up to 160-192 kb/s.
 
A

AbyssalLoris

Audioholic
I still have a few old cassettes that I listen to on those rare occasions when I am on the open road. I never listen to anything in traffic (it is too distracting, and can mask sounds that are important to hear.)
I rarely ever turn it up, so I don't find it distracting. Most of the time it is just background material and I don't pay attention to it. In any case, I agree that radio material is terribly boring. I moved recently and found a station that plays some rock (but nothing fresh) and has some form of humorous banter going on in the mornings. That is good enough to take care of my drive to work.

Anyone got any suggestions for talk/news stations in the Chicago area?
 
M

m_vanmeter

Full Audioholic
AM radio is talking heads sandwiched between long minutes of cheaply produced commericals. FM radio is vanilla pudding slopped between layer upon layer of commericals, all owned my mega-corporations who stream the same programming to all their stations.

The only over-the-air radio I can even attempt to listen to is public radio for content and NPR for news. It's the only thing "different" on the air-waves and at least the "commericals" are tastefully done and at a minimum.

The rest of the time I'm in a vehicle, it's music on CD's.

The "death of commerical radio" is greed. Make more money on free air-waves by consolidating play lists and minimize programming expenses. Take all the payola you can get and play the same old crap over and over.
 
H

Hawkeye

Full Audioholic
The "death of commerical radio" is greed. Make more money on free air-waves by consolidating play lists and minimize programming expenses. Take all the payola you can get and play the same old crap over and over.
Yep. Wasn't that the model pushed by Lee Abrams? Isn't he now a VP at XM Radio? Hmmm....
 
davidtwotrees

davidtwotrees

Audioholic General
I like Chicago's FM lineup

I listen to the radio in my vehicle. For music. I have about eight stations that I flip through all pop, rock, and one classical that let me listen pretty much commercial free to decent music that I don't hate. The only am I listen to is for weather on the 8's. The SQ is fine for a pick up truck. If I am stuck on a cd I will play it in the vehicle till I am saturated with it.
So, overall, I like Chicago's radio scene. WXRT is still an alternative station that has stayed as true as possible to the roots of FM without going bankrupt. They play some cutting edge indie type music and some classics as well.
At home my music server has internet radio but I don't really use it much. I've never been one for 'background" noise. I like to sit and pay attention when I am at the altar, er um I mean sitting in front of my rig.......
 
G

gromitXT

Audiophyte
If it's some variety and exposure to new artists that you want, I have to recommend Minnesota Public Radio's The Current:

website address url: minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/services/the_current/

(can't post as a link cuz my post count isn't high enough yet!)

I realize it's no help for listening away from a computer, but this station's really been great to have since all the radio stations have been bought up in the Twin Cities area...

-g
 
Hi Ho

Hi Ho

Audioholic Samurai
I don't listen to music on the radio at all. I too find it repetitive and boring. I use my MP3 player in my car for all of my music.

TomAndry said:
What's the deal with bluegrass anyway?
I wish I could find a decent bluegrass station. Most of those "bluegrass" stations play the stereotypical old timey Deliverance type which is not what modern bluegrass sounds like. Blue Highway is a good example.

I listen to talk radio most of the day at work. I find it to be much more entertaining than any music station.
 
J

Joe Schmoe

Audioholic Ninja
I wish I could find a decent bluegrass station. Most of those "bluegrass" stations play the stereotypical old timey Deliverance type which is not what modern bluegrass sounds like. Blue Highway is a good example.
I like Nickel Creek and The Duhks. The instrumental CD by Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder is also a great one.
 
Pwner_2130

Pwner_2130

Audioholic
It seems like I've spent the last month on the road. Denver, Turkey, Reno… it's been a busy time. Over the course of my life, I've lived in multiple states including California, Mississippi, and Florida (driving to and from them as well) and have spent time in very large markets like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Jacksonville. I regularly drive down the coast of Florida to see my Audioholics compatriots and north up to South Carolina to see my AVRant partner. What does it all add up to? A lot of time in the car listening to the radio. And what do I hear...? Alice in Chains.


Discuss "How Radio Sucks" here. Read the article.
So...you hate alice in chains?
 
Tom Andry

Tom Andry

Speaker of the House
I wasn't sad to see that album go out of rotation way back in the nineties but I wouldn't say I hate them. It just so happened that Rooster was the song I kept hearing on every station.
 
Pwner_2130

Pwner_2130

Audioholic
I wasn't sad to see that album go out of rotation way back in the nineties but I wouldn't say I hate them. It just so happened that Rooster was the song I kept hearing on every station.
Oh, I see what you mean..:D. I too hear Rooster all the time.
 
Slats

Slats

Junior Audioholic
the world needs more radio stations like this www.kexp.org part of their operating philosophy is to not play the same song twice in one day.
 

classer

Audiophyte
The simple solution to better "radio" is a music subscription service such as Napster or Rhapsody. Both have many streaming stations, some of which can be had for free. However, for about $15 per month, with Rhapsody you can download the contents of many streaming stations to an MP3 player that is Rhapsody DNS compatible. Some of these devices are quite inexpensive. The quality is "near" CD.

As you listen to a station, if you don't like a tune, you can just skip it. You can't do that with satelite radio.

Oh, and by the way, Napster and Rhapsody will both support 3 PCs and 3 MP3 players for one $15 per month fee. If you have multiple listeners in your family and/or multiple vehicles, that's a lot cheaper.
 
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