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RE: A magnificent swan.

69.34.124.222

Vinyl Rules!

In Reply to: RE: A magnificent swan. posted by sgmlaw on February 23, 2008 at 05:41:46

I politely disagree with your universal condemnation of ALL US FM stations. Have you not ever listened to any public radio stations? Most of them are at the low end of the band, but a surprising number, at least in central and western North Carolina have translators operating in the commercial range (above 91.9 on the dial). Many still provide live broadcasts from their studios and/or play CD's rather than buy the NPR satellite downloads.

And these stations sound really, really, good, particularly on the live broadcasts.

I am fortunate to live in an area where I have access to not one, but TWO public radio stations play mostly CD's or live studio broadcasts and pull almost nothing off NPR's satellites. And you can easily hear the difference between a good FM tuner and a not-so-good FM tuner on these stations.

Yes, it depends on where you live and if there any public radio stations in your area that offer this kind of programming, but please DO NOT lump every FM station in the US into the swan's cesspool.

--------------------

Posted by sgmlaw (A) on February 23, 2008 at 05:41:46

n Reply to: RE: Rel Precedent for President or lot of...hype posted by freder29 on February 22, 2008 at 02:45:10

If I could have but one perfect tuner on a perfect signal, it would be a Precedent. It is the one tuner I was never able to acquire. It is insulting it to compare it to a MD.

However, tuners of this pedigree - and indeed all the great first-rank classic tuners - are completely wasted on the existing U.S. commercial FM band. The prevailing signal processing quality is THAT bad. It's really crap anymore.

Unless you are getting it for peanuts, go for something more modest. You'll will NOT hear the differences on most signals . . . perhaps no signal . . . between it and a more modest instrument. $2,000 + is not peanuts. Even the Macs and 10B are gross overkill today. Spend a small fraction on a KM-60 or Eico 2200, and enjoy what you can. Spend the savings on something more sonically productive.

You are otherwise asking a magnificent swan to swim in a cesspool. Today, there are better things to do with one's money and expectations. You'll never experience the beauty of it.

Follow Ups:

RE: A magnificent swan. - ancient tones 04:32:03 02/26/08 (2)
Vinyl Rules! Is one of the stations that you are referring to WNCW? I'm new back to FM and is sounds good to me, much more listenable than the internet feed.
- RE: A magnificent swan. - Vinyl Rules! 14:33:06 02/26/08 (1)
  Yes, WNCW, the Isothermal Community College station at 88.7 broadcasts an extremely good-sounding signal with little compression. They don't offer much in the way of NPR programming, and since you listen to them, they mostly play CD's and they do have some live broadcasts from their studio. Their website is www.wncw.org and they list their programming on their site.
  Ditto for WDAV, the Davidson College station at 89.9. They are also a great sounding station. During the week they are mostly a classical music station and their source is mostly CD's. They do offer some NPR programming, as they are the station we listen to when we're in North Wilkesboro to listen to "A Prairie Home Companion" and "The Thistle and Shamrock" on Saturday evenings.
  And we have a college station here in North Wilkesboro that uses NO COMPRESSION! The station is WSIF at 90.9, but they are a very low power station, around 1,000 watts. They have an Optimod 8100A1, but they don't use it because they LOST the manual for it and no one at the station knows how to operate it, so they don't do ANY signal processing! 90% of their programming is from 3 different Philip's CD players I've seen in the studio and the other 10% is live broadcasts of local bands from their studio. Most of the local bands aren't that good, but we're the home of MerleFest every April (www.MerleFest.org) and during that time period some of the MerleFest artists will play from their studio. The sound is incredible, better than any CD you'll ever hear. Unfortunately, WSIF does not have a web presence so the only info you can find about them at on the www.radio-locater.com site.
  When we're in West Jefferson, WETS at 89.5 is in Johnson City TN, and they broadcast from East Tennessee State University and they have some incredible programming during the day, and they do several live broadcasts each week from their studio.
  It really appears from this thread and from similar postings over in the FM Tuner Group in Yahoo that those of us out in the "sticks" are more likely to have an opportunity to listen to a good FM station than many in large urban areas.
  ---------------
  Posted by ancient tones (A) on February 26, 2008 at 04:32:03
  In Reply to: RE: A magnificent swan. posted by Vinyl Rules! on February 24, 2008 at 20:54:26
  Vinyl Rules! Is one of the stations that you are referring to WNCW? I'm new back to FM and is sounds good to me, much more listenable than the internet feed.
  Edits: 02/26/08 02/26/08
  - RE: A magnificent swan. - ancient tones 17:11:47 02/26/08 (0)
    Thank you for the good info. I'm in Asheville, so WNCW is probably the only station you listed that I can receive. I do travel over that way on occasion and to Johnson City area. If you like bluegrass music, which I do, this whole area has several interesting stations. Tri-Cities with WETS and an AM station the plays classic country and bluegrass. Also, an AM station, maybe 850, that plays bluegrass only. I listen in to them when I travel I-40 towards Hickory. It's in the Catawba river valley area. Anything other than the usual commercial stuff is fine with me.
It IS sad isn't it, but see my earlier post 'OOO Sez' - Timbo in Oz 13:46:11 02/25/08 (0)
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/tuner/messages/7920.html

Lots of concerts, and o'seas tapes too!!!!! I agree about OB's of acoustic music being better than CD.

You CAN listen on-line, data reduced though, click below

In most of the Aussie capital cities we also have the Musical Broadcasting Society station, but Canberra has ArtSound FM instead. A teeny bit of compression, and a tube transmitter, and lots of local concerts in 2-mike stereo!!!!!!

http://www.artsound.com.au/index.htm

The ACT's ABC classic FM transmitter coverage for 'adequate reception' is about 6000 sq miles! BIG transmitter!

Warmest
Timbo in Oz
The Skyptical Mensurer and Audio Scrounger
And gladly would he learn and gladly teach - Chaucer. ;-)!
'Still not saluting.'
http://www.theanalogdept.com/tim_bailey.htm
- listen online to ABC Classic FM (Open in New Window)
The College Band - sgmlaw 11:19:48 02/25/08 (4)
"Have you not ever listened to any public radio stations?"

Uhh . . . yes.

It's called the college band these days, and resides at the low end of the dial. It is all I listen to and is still the best sounding portion of the FM band. This is due primarily to the fact that many low powered college and community stations use older "hand-me-down" commercial station equipment, some of which is still tubed, and it is not as digitally processed as major commercial stations.

But sorry to say, even across the college band, compression is used, even at the smallest community stations. And all the NPR stations are also using digital down feeds and stored content for programming. More compression. It sounds ok, but is nothing like it was in the 1970s. On VERY rare occasion, one of the Philly college stations will offer live performances, which sounds a little better still. One very low power community station around here will play vinyl or go live from time to time, but it is still compressed before it hits the tower. Sounds good, but not like the golden era.

A live performance or analog media broadcast uncompressed over a tubed FM transmitter, received on a great tuner, sounds better than CD. And that was the prevailing broadcast format in the 1960s and 70s.

Unfortunately, that is dead in the US, at least now where I live in the WashDC-NYC broadcast corridor.

The digital age has gotten the masses so used to a lower standard that I guess the college band does sound nice in comparison.
- RE: The College Band - BFitz 15:55:33 02/25/08 (3)
  It would be really helpful if you describe exactly where you live, and what stations you are referring to. To make statements like the one above is implying you have traveled the entire US and can speak for living in every town and listened to every FM station.
  
  Also telling people what you antenna setup is, and what reference tuners you have currently tried in the last year on this endeavor would be interesting.
  
  I hate to bring this up, but if you were listening to FM in the early 60's, that was 48 years ago. Is it possible that your hearing has changed in that time?
  
  I can easily hear differences on good tuners in the Albany NY area listening to 5 public and 5 local college stations. I know many other tuner hobbyists that enjoy good sounds on high end tuners in other areas of the country. Please understand many may not agree with your *opinion*.
  - Re: How good FM Stereo once was? - Marantzguy 16:25:01 02/25/08 (2)
    Hi, BFitz:
    
    I was not fully aware of just how great some FM stereo broadcasts were until I recently decided to audition some tapes I had made from local stations in the mid seventies. I was quite surprised to hear how excellent some of these items were and in addition to the overall quality of the tapes I made "live" from the air, on one or two, it is possible to hear the low frequency thumping of footfalls as the DJs walked around their turntables.
    
    In addition to this, I also recently acquired a very rare recording made by some unknown entity, of an original live broadcast over KPEN with James Gabbert. The program consisted of a live performance featuring the "Mighty Wurlitzer", housed in the old San Francisco Paramount Theatre. Gabbert broadcast this performance on May 30, 1964 between 1:00 AM and 2:15 AM that morning. There were no interruptions during the broadcast.
    
    (This particular Wurlitzer pipe organ was the largest one of its kind ever to exist on the West Coast at that time. The old SF Fox Theatre had been torn down the previous year, unfortunately. It also had a great pipe organ in it during that fabulous era.)
    
    I remastered the recording and made it available to David Jackson, whose amazing site "San Francisco Broadcast History" now features the file.
    
    Yes, there was something definitely "magical" going on in the good old days of FM stereo broadcasting and we did not have much compression and limiting in the way of a good quality signal back then, either.
    
    Thanks
    Richard Links
    Berkeley, CA
    - The Mighty Wurlitzer organ at San Francisco's Paramount Theatre, 1964 over KPEN (Open in New Window)
    - RE: Re: How good FM Stereo once was? - BFitz 09:59:37 02/26/08 (1)
      Hi Richard;
      
      That's a great story, glad to hear you were able to save the recording. Perhaps you can convince a local station to play it over the radio, so you can do an A/B comparison on one of your tuners?
      
      Of course, a good source always tends to shine through the delivery vehicle. I think a big part of the FM radio problem for pop stations today is that the source content is so compressed to begin with. Further compressing an already compressed song is a recipe for horrible sound.
      
      The best way to see who's compressing and who's not is to get a tuner with a deviation meter, like the Kenwood KT-8300. You see it sit there at 100% for many pop stations in my area. But not the good stations playing classical, folk, and jazz. On those it bounces wildly between zero and 100%. All it takes is one great station to justify a really nice tuner.
      For instance, I really enjoyed the Mountain Stage performance last night of Elvis Perkins and Mary Chapin Carpenter on WAMC. The tuner is fed by an APS-9 antenna, roof mounted, pointed at the transmitter located on Mt. Greylock in W. MA.
      My Pioneer F-28 meter was reading a signal strength of 80dBf. The F-28 MPX detector output fed my custom made LM4500 outboard MPX board with my bud Ray's output filter design and my final buffer design.
      It sounded great, and was a very enjoyable performance. I know there was likely some A/D > D/A involved along the way, but it certainly was engaging and satisfying for me.
      Bob
      - RE: Re: How good FM Stereo once was? - Marantzguy 10:15:54 02/26/08 (0)
        
        In Reply to: RE: Re: How good FM Stereo once was? posted by BFitz on February 26, 2008 at 09:59:37
        
        Thanks, Bob:
        
        I cannot wait to audition more of my old open reel captures of FM stereo and FM mono broadcasts of the past!
        
        Just grateful that I preserved some of this stuff!
        
        Hell, 34 years and counting in some cases!
        
        I also have a couple of reels of FM broadcasts I made off the air in '74 or so featuring David Dunaway's programs about his and my hero, Pete Seeger.
        
        This Wednesday evening, PBS is airing a wonderful documentary about Pete called "The Power of Song".
        
        It should be pretty phenomenal. You can see clips on this over on You Tube, too.
        
        Richard Links
        Berkeley, CA

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