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HD Radio


Dzldoc

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I have had HD Radio in the car and in the home with a table top model for over a year now.

The sound for FM is a little better. But the real advantage, of course, is the "extra" stations that you can listen to, ie the HD-2 channels.

The only way you can listen to Smooth Jazz now in the Dallas area, is on the HD-2 channel.

So far, no "Rock" FM station has put Album Rock on their HD-2 channel. They do play some rare tracks, but these are mixed with commercial hits, making the experience, dicey.

I would like to see the Public Radio outlet and the Classical station offer HD-2 channels, to give more option, ie, the playing of much more movie soundtracks. As is, all we get are the 'BIG" name soundtracks ONLY. Like Star Wars and the like. So there's room for improvement there.

Now, as for AM HD --- I HATE AM HD ! ! ! It is obnoxious, for the News/Talk/Sports programs.

The radio station engineers have a long way to go before they figure out how to tweak the AM HD broadcasts. I wish the HD radios would have a default option so that NO AM HD channels would ever be accessed. There is -one- AM station that plays Big Band and Standards, and for that one AM station, the HD is just fine! But for some reason, that station does not broadcast in HD after dark.

Price wise you can get HD Receivers in your car far as little as $119 from discount houses like Crutchfield.

For the home, I got my Accurian Tabletop HD Radio from Radio Shack, on an after Thanksgiving Super Buy, for $125.

I do not what the futrue hold for HD radio, but I needed to upgrade my car stereo, so that was a good fit. And it's noce to have a tabletop AM/FM radio.

There's hope that down the road some Rock stations will really get with it, and play deep album cuts --ALL- of theime time on anHD-2 station. Anyways...it's "FREE" radio. :D

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I was given one just recently as a gift, but I haven't put it in my car yet. It's the JVC KD-HDR1, which was just about the first one to come out for cars, if not the first. My girlfriend got it for about $120 online. I bought my current car last year and it still has the stock tape deck, which works fine enough, but someone thought I needed an upgrade, heh.

The thing about HD Radio is we're kind of in a chicken-or-egg situation as far as programming. Stations are pretty behind because many think it's a white elephant due to slow sales of HD units. However, the price for HD units has been high at the outset, like any relatively new technology, and people haven't been buying receivers that don't tune them in to much extra fare - or any at all, depending on where one lives. Even in a major market such as Washington, DC (my home radio and television market), programming has been fairly slow to take off that isn't just a relay of the main feed, or canned fare, or canned fare/past format of station. Signal power has also been an issue, with some complaints of limited range with the multicast. I'm hoping that good things will happen for HD Radio, as I don't feel like paying for satellite, even though it has many fine offerings. Regular terrestrial radio has enough problems at the moment with the decline in ads and pay-for-performance issues at hand, not to mention the bigger problem of running musical culture into the ground, generally. We'll see.

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I was given one just recently as a gift, but I haven't put it in my car yet. It's the JVC KD-HDR1, which was just about the first one to come out for cars, if not the first. My girlfriend got it for about $120 online. I bought my current car last year and it still has the stock tape deck, which works fine enough, but someone thought I needed an upgrade, heh.

That's the car unit that I got. At 20 watts RMS, it's got some power.

That JVC model is listed as $129 now.

And there's a new JVC KD-HDR30 for $159.

There's a new kid on the block, the Dual XHD6425 for $149 with USB input.

Or, the Dual XHD6420 for $129 without the USB input.

What I really appreciate about the Dual HD car decks, is that they give you ---12--- AM presets, along with ---18-- FM presets. We've got a lot of News/Talk/Sports AM stations in the area, and ---6--- presets are just not enough. I do not know if the Dual can allow a preset to an HD-2 channel or not. The JVC does not offer that. You must first land on the HD-1 channel each time, and then manually push a button to go the HD-2 station.

Sony & Jensen also have HD models.

SONY CDX-GT720 $199

JENSEN HD5212 $159

HD Car Receivers and Features

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