What's with Yamaha ?

[Jack N]

I don't understand why Yamaha isn't putting HD Radio tuners in their receivers. Yes, I know the Z-11 is going to have one, but I'm not going to spend my next eleventy-three months worth of salary to buy a receiver. Yammy puts XM in most of them, but why should I pay for signal when I can get it free ?

I've stuck with Yamaha for a long time - maybe it's time to switch. What competitors put HD Radio in their receivers ?

 

[MDS]

None that I've seen so far. Receivers incorporate XM and Sirius tuners but no HD radio tuners yet.

 

[fmw]

Pardon my ignorance. What is HD radio?

 

[OttoMatic]

Pardon my ignorance. What is HD radio?

It's a means for your regular old radio station to transmit digitally using the same frequency.

According to the Wikipedia entry, it stand for "Hybrid Digital" rather than "High Definition."

 

[Adam]

A quick Google search found this Denon with HD Radio.

I know that I've seen others, but I just can't remember which brands they were.

 

[gene]

Yamaha did have it in their RX-V4600. It's not a must have item since at best there are 2-3 local FM stations broadcasting in any given area, and most people listening to AM/FM don't care about a fidelity improvement. After all, most people listening to XM radio actually think its sounds just fine

 

[jliedeka]

I think the HD feature would at least be a tie-breaker when I upgrade my receiver. I think it would be cool to see the title and artist of a song on the display. I also wish CD-Text would have been more widely supported for the same reason.

 

[fmw]

I think the HD feature would at least be a tie-breaker when I upgrade my receiver. I think it would be cool to see the title and artist of a song on the display. I also wish CD-Text would have been more widely supported for the same reason.

My wife's car has a radio that decodes those things. We have one radio station, apparently, that transmits it and I've seen the station call letters show up on her radio display. I had no idea the radio was receiving digital music. I just assumed the subcarrier was transmitting station information.

 

[Seth=L]

Not many American stations have digital broadcasting or RDS, that is while you always see the European equivilents to the receivers available here with DAB (digital audio broadcasting) and RDS on them.

 

[Jack N]

For those who don't think there are many radio stations broadcasting HD signals in their area, I would suggest that they check it out. Here is a listing from just the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. There are 29 HD possibilities and list just keeps getting longer.

KNSR: FM 88.9 Public=HD1; Collegeville
KSJR: FM 90.1 Classical=HD1; St. John's University; Collegeville
KNOW: FM 91.1 Public=HD1 HD2=Classic HD3=unknown; Minneapolis-Saint Paul
KQRS: FM 92.5 Classic Rock=HD1 HD2=Blues; Golden Valley
KXXR: FM 93.7 Rock=HD1 HD2=Comedy; Minneapolis
KTCZ: FM 97.1 Adult Album Alternative=HD1 HD2=Acoustic Adult Rock; Minneapolis
KSJN: FM 99.5 Classical=HD1 HD2=Jazz HD3=News Talk; Minneapolis
KTLK: FM 100.3 News Talk=HD1 HD2=Classic Country HD3=Sports Talk KFAN-AM; Minneapolis
KDWB: FM 101.3 Top 40=HD1 HD2=Dance Party; Richfield
KEEY: FM 102.1 Country=HD1 HD2=New Country; Saint Paul
WLTE: FM 102.9 Lite Rock=HD1 HD2=News; Minneapolis
KZJK: FM 104.1 Jack Mix=HD1 HD2=Smooth Jazz; Saint Louis Park
KQQL: FM 107.9 Oldies=HD1 HD2=80's; Anoka
WCCO: AM 830 News Talk=HD1;Minneapolis
KFAN: AM 1130 Sports Talk=HD1; Minneapolis

From where I stand, there's no good excuse for receiver manufacturers to not incorporate an HD tuner. Before I upgrade my receiver, the new one must have HD radio. Why should I upgrade if a unit doesn't have what I want ?

 

[Jack N]

As a follow up to my last post, a quick search on the web shows that there are 1,502 different radio stations across the US broadcasting at least 1 HD possibility. Check it out for your area.

http://www.ibiquity.com/stationlist.php

 

[MDS]

Before I upgrade my receiver, the new one must have HD radio. Why should I upgrade if a unit doesn't have what I want ?

Hard to argue with that but what about the opposite. Why should I upgrade to a receiver that has lots of features I find useless (like XM and Sirius tuners) and will never use?

I wouldn't mind if a receiver had an HD radio tuner because I *might* use that from time to time but there is absolutely no way under the sun that I will ever buy an extra antenna and pay $10-15 per month for radio. Radio is free and that is about what it is worth.

 

[davidtwotrees]

Or the OP could go with seperates, and use a standalone tuner like this.
HDT-1 HD Radio Component Tuner

 

[fmw]

Or the OP could go with seperates, and use a standalone tuner like this.
HDT-1 HD Radio Component Tuner

That seems like the best approach to me. That way you can have the other features you want in a receiver or processor and simply add this component. It doesn't seem likely that manufacturers would include many digital radio tuners as a standard feature in receivers in the near future.

 

[jcPanny]

HD Radio

Most FM station transimit some info like the call letters, artist, song, etc. allong with the audio signal. The Chevy Cobalt rental car I drove this weekend would decode this info and show it on the display for nearly every station (all that transmit the signal). This DOES NOT mean that the car has HD radio or that it is receiving a digital signal.

 

[davidtwotrees]

I briefly owned an Onkyo T450RDS Tuner. It had the RDS capability. Virtually all of the stations in the Chicago area output the call letters, and usually the name of the band and what song was playing. It was a cool feature. I don't listen to much radio........and now my server has internet radio which is much nicer imho............so I sold the Onkyo for $150