Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their analog tuners

bob adams

Well-Known Member
This post over on the Wrath of Kahn site.

http://www.wrathofkahn.org/

This man Kenneth Hill sounds like the kind of technically oriented person that should be on the FCC Commission. If Leonard Kahn says he's the real deal he probably is.
 
I have to say that I don't really understand the issues raised here -- I don't know what iBoc is for instance -- but I do feel that little the FCC is doing recently has anything to do with promoting good programing or good sound, so I would be happy to write my congresspeople, because I listen the radio alot. I am upset at how homogenised most radio has gotten -- more and more stations owned by conglomerates who simply are using their frequencies to make money with sindicated programs, which absolutely no local or interesting programing -- and all the FCC seems to do is penalise people who use off color language, especially if they are not politically docile.
Will this guy stand up for real local radio stations and their listeners?
If so, would you explain this issue in non tech terms and put the whole thing on the General Audio section -- I think this is a topic of interest to more than tuner users.
 
Nat

Welcome to the TUNERS section of AK. I am working on an answer for you but have to do some other stuff this morning. It's a complicated issue so it takes some time to explain. You can get some answers by looking at the Digital (IBOC) Radio News thread I started several weeks back. It's in this section. Another good thread here is
A Subject Nobody Wants to Talk About.
 
I believe that IBOC is a coined acronym for the big broadcast conglomerates (Clear Channel, etc.). I think the prognosis for all (at least, all high-quality) analog broadcasting is poor, as the bandwidth is now considered SO valuable for digital, wireless stuff.

EDIT: Oops, I was, of course, thinking of MSBM above. Thanks Bob A for correctly defining acronyms.

Unfortunately, I think I have enough analog tuners now :-( Well, I would still like to get a Scott, but I think I'll pass on a REL or a Marantz 10B if either (or both) happened to come my way...
 
Last edited:
Still holding out hope.....thanks Bob!! I'll definitely write. And might even pick up that Sony ST-J88 I've been dickering with the guy about.

In the 'Industry Update' section of the latest "Stereophile" there is a report on satellite radio. Obviously is written by someone who has a vested interest in satellite radio, as he states that Philadelphia has no classical public radio FM station. An outright falsehood. I am listening to WRTI, 90.1 as I type. I wrote a complaint about same to the editor, but am sure it will never see the light of publication.
 
I actually know Ken Hill, but not that well. He's more of a friend of a friend. His son is a Tennessee state congressman in the district south of me, so he has some political connections. I do know that the Christian educational station he has in this market, WHCB-FM, is a class act, and that he is very knowledgable about radio technology.

Here's some information on IBOC: http://members.cox.net/fmdxweb/iboc.html
 
Nat here's a start

PART 1

At the heart this issue is the move from AM/FM analog broadcasting to AM/FM digital broadcasting. This controversy is not about satellite based digital radio transmission (XM and Sirius). It is about terrestrial (land-based) transmissions of AM/FM digital signals.

Last year the FCC gave approval for radio stations to use the digital method known as On Band In Channel (IBOC). The Ibiquity Corp. is the sole proprietor of this technology. All companies that build IBOC transmitting equipment or use this equipment to transmit a signal have to pay Ibiquity a licensing fee.

The larger broadcasting companies like Clear Channel are championing IBOC. Many of them have installed the digital broadcasting equipment and are at times broadcasting with it. For these companies, the main selling point for the switch is better signal quality to the end user (you and me). This sounds plausible. Think of how great HDTV looks compared to standard analog signal TV.

But there are always two sides to the story. Here's the other side.

You cannot just snap your fingers and make the total switch to digital. Therefore the FCC has mandated that as the switch is made, all stations with digital broadcast capability also broadcast an analog signal. This dual broadcasting will go on for a number of years. That is why if you are listening to a station that claims to be broadcasting in digital you can hear it on your analog tuner. You hear the analog portion of the broadcast. But as that station is broadcasting in digital they are probably causing interference to other adjacent stations on either side of them. Why is this?

Under analog broadcasting each FM station is allowed 200 KHz of total bandwidth or 100 KHz on each side of its assigned setpoint on the dial. There are 100 assigned setpoints along the FM band from 87.5 MHz to 108 MHz. Each separated by a little more than 200 KHz of bandwidth. Two stations can have the same assigned frequency setpoint only when they are so far apart that their signals do not interfere with each other. As an example, my favorite PBS station, WNCW at 88.7 MHz may have the same frequency assignment as your favorite station hundreds of miles away. They don’t interfere with each other because the ranges of their signals don’t overlap.

Let’s take the example of the frequency 88.7 MHz further. Stations adjacent to this frequency are at 88.5 MHz and 88.9 MHz. When you see the term adjacent station that’s what it means. These stations don’t interfere with 88.7 because 88.5 broadcasts using the bandwidth from roughly 88.4 to 88.6 MHz. WNCW at 88.7 is using 88.6 up to 88.8 MHz. The station at 88.9 is using the bandwidth from 88.8 up to 90.0 MHz. As long as each station is broadcasting inside its assigned bandwidth all is well i.e. no interference.

Under the new FCC rulings concerning IBOC broadcasting, each station can now use 400 kHz of bandwidth or 200 kHz on each side of a station’s assigned frequency. Using the example of our three stations at 88.5 MHz, 88.7 MHz, and 88.9 MHz can you see that their signals will now overlap? Any IBOC station using the full 400 KHz of bandwidth will cause interference to any adjacent digital or analog station.

The obvious question here is why would the FCC allow this to happen? The consensus opinion among IBOC critics is that the FCC and the big broadcasting companies (called the main stream broadcasting media or MSBM for short) want to thin out the airwaves. The MSBM doesn’t want competition. A few of the major players want to own the entire bandwidth. When the FCC mandates the switch to all digital broadcasting many of the smaller independent stations are not going to be able to afford to pay the licensing fees to Ibiquity or buy the IBOC transmitting equipment. They are going to be forced to shutdown. This will go a long way in solving the newly created 400 KHz interference problem to adjacent stations.

Part 2 will address why the MSBM needs to have 400 KHz for each new digital station. I’ll post that later tonight or tomorrow unless there are questions about this part.
 
Last edited:
IBOC - The Inside Story

mhardy6647 said:
I believe that IBOC is a coined acronym for the big broadcast conglomerates (Clear Channel, etc.). I think the prognosis for all (at least, all high-quality) analog broadcasting is poor, as the bandwidth is now considered SO valuable for digital, wireless stuff.

Unfortunately, I think I have enough analog tuners now :-( Well, I would still like to get a Scott, but I think I'll pass on a REL or a Marantz 10B if either (or both) happened to come my way...

IBOC is actually Ibiquity Corporation's (The company behind IBOC) acronym for In-Band On-Channel Digital Audio Broadcasting, AKA "HD" radio.

Here's a URL for their technical page: http://tinyurl.com/7j8z9 and you can get to their home page from here.

IMHO, what you will read are all lies and misrepresentations. AFAIK, the BEST signal data stream they can broadcast on any of their subcarrier channels is 328K :tears: , not a high quality signal.

The two major problems with IBOC are as an IBOC broadcaster uses more channels available to him on a single frequency (like if 94.1 wants to broadcast multiple IBOC subcarriers), he has to drop the data rate for each additional IBOC channel broadcast, so you could end up with a 32K or a 56K data stream being sent to your IBOC tuner. Who wants to listen to something this bad? You can get better sound from a a $19.95 WalMart MP-3 player. :sigh:

The second major problem is that almost no stations properly set up and calibrate their IBOC equipment and their signal "bleeds" into adjacent channels on both side so the hypothetical station at 94.1 makes stations at 93.9 and 94.3 virtually unlistenable. In extreme cases I've read postings in the FM Tuner Group in Yahoo about an entire 4 to 6 Mhz section of the FM spectrum being knocked off the air by a poorly engineered IBOC station. :puke:

A significant number of bits from the original digital source (say a regular CD) are lost in the BEST of the IBOC encoding schemes and this is apparantly acceptable to some: Read message 32540 in Yahoo's FM Tuner Group where a "Mr. Einstein" writes that 256K sounds perfectly good to him through his tube amps and expensive speakers. I'm sorry, but I have to politely disagree with him.

IMO, Ibiquity is now at a crossroads regarding their corporate survival: GM and Chrysler have contracts locked up with XM Radio and SIRIUS, respectively and I'm not aware of a single car manufacturer currently offering an HD radio in their product line. I do know that Panasonic makes one for the aftermarket. And the Proton table radio is the only HD radio I'm currently aware of that can be purchased for home use.

Ibiquity has sold millions of $$$ of their stuff to the big commercial chains of the basis of "Better than CD Sound Quality" but it is technically impossible for them to deliver on this promise. I'm certain their sales people pitched this system to the station's top management and owners and bypassed the engineers, as so often happens when big companies purchase questionable technology (I saw this happen many times at GTE when I used to work for them).

Now these IBOC stations are pressuring Ibiquity to deliver the listeners and there's none out there in radioland. I can tell you in the corporate suites of Clear Channel and Infinity and others, blistering calls that could melt a phone are being made to Ibiquity demanding to know why they made this huge investment in equipment that was supposed to bring in a new wave of iPod-savvy listeners and most IBOC stations can count their new IBOC listeners with less than two hands. People's jobs are on the line at these broadcasters and you've probably seen the press rumors that several of the giant radio chains are looking at divesting themselves of some stations and downsizing. This is merely a short-term strategy that will allow to keep their stock price propped up (been there, done that myself) :)

Ibiquity is so desperate that at the beginning of December they launched a "trade-in" program so you could buy a new car radio or Proton (only current choices AFAIK). I tried their site and learned that a Marantz 10B or a McIntosh MR78 or a REL tuner have zero trade-in value. So, if anyone here has one of these tuners they would like to trade in for an IBOC radio, I'll pay you the princely sum of $100 for any of these tuners, sight unseen! :bigok:

And let's not forget the politics here. The current administration has significantly cut back programming funding for the public radio and TV stations in the past 6 years because of it's perceived liberal bias, yet they provided literally millions of dollars in funding to all Public Radio stations that would permit them to purchase an entire Ibiquity IBOC system at almost no cost to the station. The only "catch" was that these funds COULD ONLY BE SPENT on Ibiquity's IBOC equipment and NOTHING ELSE, including better analog broadcast equipment or better programming. Given all the revelations coming out of Washington recently and the recent resignation of the Republican Congressman from CA for accepting millions of $$$ in bribes from a defense contractor, I'll let you draw our own conclusion here. :nono:

When I priced a Denon 3805, a respectible A/V receiver, I got a price that was slightly less than half the average price of the last 30 days of sales on eBay for this model. So only a idiot :nerd: would even consider taking Ibiquity up on this offer. So this leaves me thinking the same bozos that pushed Dolby FM, Elcassettes, "Digital" cassettes, and the MiniDisc digital recording format re-assembled at Ibiquity so they could add another dismal failure to their resumes.

In closing, I CAN say one good thing about IBOC: Congress and the FCC have shown no interest up to this point in appropriating the 87MHz to 108MHz frequency spectrum and IBOC has likely helped here in deflecting Congressional interest in auctioning off this frequency spectrum like they plan to do with TV's VHF and UHF spectrums. and look how many of us still don't have an HDTV set. :cool:

© 2005 by Timothy M. Britt (timbritt@cyber-wizard.com)
 
Last edited:
Quoting Vinyl Rules

Now these IBOC stations are pressuring Ibiquity to deliver the listeners and there's none out there in radioland. I can tell you in the corporate suites of Clear Channel and Infinity and others, blistering calls that could melt a phone are being made to Ibiquity demanding to know why they made this huge investment in equipment that was supposed to bring in a new wave of iPod-savvy listeners and most IBOC stations can count their new IBOC listeners with less than two hands. People's jobs are on the line at these broadcasters and you've probably seen the press rumors that several of the giant radio chains are looking at divesting themselves of some stations and downsizing. This is merely a short-term strategy that will allow to keep their stock price propped up (been there, done that myself)

Tim where are you getting your infomation? I mean from the sound of your post, Ibiquity and the biggies like Clear Channel sound desparate. If it's true it's the best news I've heard in months. I knew that Clear Channel had their bonds lowered to junk bond status. I knew the retailers had no radios to sell. But I didn't know they were as bad off as the sound of your post. Are you in the business?
 
Last edited:
bob adams said:
Now these IBOC stations are pressuring Ibiquity to deliver the listeners and there's none out there in radioland. I can tell you in the corporate suites of Clear Channel and Infinity and others, blistering calls that could melt a phone are being made to Ibiquity demanding to know why they made this huge investment in equipment that was supposed to bring in a new wave of iPod-savvy listeners and most IBOC stations can count their new IBOC listeners with less than two hands. People's jobs are on the line at these broadcasters and you've probably seen the press rumors that several of the giant radio chains are looking at divesting themselves of some stations and downsizing. This is merely a short-term strategy that will allow to keep their stock price propped up (been there, done that myself)

Tim where are you getting your infomation? I mean from the sound of your post, Ibiquity and the biggies like Clear Channel sound desparate. If it's true it's the best news I've heard in months. I knew that Clear Channel had their bonds lowered to junk bond status. I knew the retailers had no radios to sell. But I didn't know they we as bad off as the sound of your post. Are you in the business?

Bob,

I began my career as a techie/geek/program developer and analyst who spent much time "in the field" for the agency that's not supposed to be reading your emails and not listening to your phone calls. I didn't like the stress at the time 'cause if I screwed up, people died. Go see "Patriot Games" and "Enemy of the State:" There two films are much more factual then you'd ever believe.

I went back to school, got an MBA from a top 10 school and went into the consumer marketing and advertising business. In many ways it was close to what I'd been prevously doing only when I won (And I always win) brands and products died (instead of people) in the marketplace. I've actually put some of my competitors into Chapters 11 and 7. All of this was done legally, using no dirty tricks, using publically available data also available to my competitors, and the blessing of my companies respective legal departments. I'm always looking 2 to 3 years ahead, not 2 or 3 weeks ahead. In my consumer products career, I developed and created a variety of products still sold today in virtually all large food, drug and mass merchandiser outlets. I couldn't patent them because anything I developed was naturally owned by my employer.

I moved from consumer products into high tech and telecom and data 18 years ago - I had nothing more to prove in the consumer products market. And I was just as successful there: I opened the world's first on-line Telecom store in the Compuserve shopping mall in 1994 before most people knew what a "URL" was but none of the senior execs at GTE/Verizon were PC literate and no one understood or appreciated the significance of what I had accomplised.

I was also managing 150+ bricks and mortar GTE Phone Mart stores at the time and within 6 months the on-line store was my most profitable store as it had the lowest overhead and I only had about 20% of the SKU's in the on-line store that a bricks & mortar store stocked.

Now I consult for several clients and was asked by one a couple of years ago to prepare my thoughts on the coming impact of HD radio. The hardest part was getting early information on IBOC specs. Once I did and realized its limitations I realized it was a desperate response eagerly sucked up by the senior management at Infinity and Clear Channel. Virtually everything I forsaw and told my client would happen has happened, and on schedule.

Consider this: The IBOC system is limited in the bandwidth and datastream it can provide - I believe their engineers were truly clueless. OTOH, XM Radio and SIRIUS can significantly improve the quality of their existing broadcasts simply by reducing the number of their channels and increasing the bandwidth on the remaining ones, and get VERY close to a good college FM station in signal quality. OR, they can launch a few more birds and accomplish the same thing.

IMO opinion, the IBOC-associated companies whose stocks and bonds got hurt were downgraded because they're basically screwed and limited by the technology they chose. XM Radio and SIRIUS got downgraded because they're like Direct TV and DISH Network were (negative cash flow in 2006, turning very positive in either 2007 or 2008) - Investors in this country are much too impatient to see a quick return and not choose and pick for the long term because we have way too many brokers and traders in this country as opposed to other countries with active stock exchanges.

I ran a very high end store whist in school and I interviewed serveral of the top audio "big dogs" in the 1970's, including Sidney Harman when in graduate school. I was extremely disappointed by the very short term outlook virtually all of them had and many of them were virtually stumbling along from day to day with no plan. Saul didn't even know what his total parts and assembly cost was on a 10B, but he was guessing it was maybe twice what he was selling them for at wholesale. He himself had a great deal of financial incentive to burn down his New York warehouse to get rid of the unsold items and slow movers in his inventory. So I simply accepted that audio would be a hobby and I looked for something more interesting to do.

IMHO, the two satellite TV companies and two satellite radio companies are excellent long term investments. If you own any Ibiquity stock, well, don't expect it to go up. :cool:

PS - For any of you reading this: I can take one one new client in January and if you have a competitor or two you'd like to gain some market leverage over, well, you know how to contact me.

© 2005 by Timothy M. Britt (timbritt@cyber-wizard.com)
 
Do you think this is why there are so few receiving units available? Knowing little about the technology, I looked around to see if I could try it...and found no stations in my area and no equipment to buy.
 
I'm trying to understand how they're going to get adapters to this technology with little hardware for it. Also why would I want to buy something I don't need? Has anyone done a market analysis? You'd think Ibiquity would have some sort of numbers for their potential customers.
 
Yamaha B-2 said:
Tim - What do you think of the Sony PS-X7?

It's the biggest piece of crap Sony ever built and will suck the life out of your vinyl. Once you play an LP on a PS-X7, the LP will never sound better than a 128K MP3.

If any of you have one in mint condition, contact me immediately and I will take it off your hands for $25. :bigok:

Seriously, if you are asking me this question then you've obviously read my previous thoughts on this TT either here or in other forums. I consider it one of the best sounding TTs ever made, far surpassing the sound quality of many highly regarded 4 figure TTs.

BTW, I noticed you have 4 Sony ST-J75 tuners. You don't need that many so please send me two of them, now! :)

The ST-J75 is also a hidden gem, like the PS-X7 and what most don't know is that the ST-J75's IF filter slope makes them IBOC-proof if you live in a market where there is a poorly engineered FM station next to one you listen to. This was Sony's first digital tuner and perhaps the best tuner they ever built, IMHO. Nothing made today, including the new Accuphase T1000 FM Tuner surpasses the ST-J75's performance in many areas. When Len Feldman reviewed the ST-J75 for Audio magazine, his test equipment was not good enough to confirm many of the ST-J75's specs. :cool:
 
B-2

That better not be a digital broadcast capable tuner or receiver you're asking about. :nono: If so you know how I feel about that garbage. And on this thread no less?

Read my signature. Let it become your mantra. Take it into the whole of your conscious being. Only then can you find true enlightenment and sonic nirvana. :scratch2: :smoke: :D
 
Hmmmm...? Vinyl Rules musta posted his reply 5 seconds before I did mine. Nevertheless my advice is still good. :yes: And you are drifting way off topic here B-2. Turntables......ssheeeeh!
 
Last edited:
warnerwhf said:
[snip] Has anyone done a market analysis? You'd think Ibiquity would have some sort of numbers for their potential customers.

Good question I'll answer with two observations:

Observation 1: When Direct TV and DISH Network began, there was only a miniscule number of big dish installations. But the small dish companies met a market need: A less expensive alternative to cable with more channels and if you had a southwestern "look" to the sky, virtually anyone in the lower 48 could buy it. Both these companies are successful because they reach areas that cable will never built out and they are lower-priced than most cable packages and offer more programs than even digital cable. Digital cable, BTW, is one of cable's efforts to offset their customer defections to small dishes.

Observation 2: There are two types of Market Research (a) Research that is actually valid and reports what was actually learned; and (b) Research that is structured in such a way to provide data that the originator of the Research wants to see. I've worked for Fortune 50 companies in Marketing and prefer to do (a), but have been forced to do (b) a few times. Which kind of research do you think Ibiquity did to develop the marketing analysis and sales material they used in their pitches to Clear Channel and Infinity? :cool:
 
Bob - I'm disappointed. Tim was kind enough to put me onto the ST-J75 :thmbsp: about two years ago and the first one I got was such a good sounding tuner I picked up a few others. :D Anyway, the disappoint comes from the fact that you don't seem to have the TIC tuner list memorized, which I had simply assumed. :sigh: The ST-J75 is definitely not digital, other than its tuning mechanism. Believe it was born in '79. And, Tim and I share the same high regard for the Sony PS-X7 TT/TA.

bob adams said:
And you are drifting way off topic here B-2. Turntables......ssheeeeh!
Just my attempt at identifying Tim. :D Didn't realize he was here.
 
Last edited:
B-2

You ought to know me by now. I'm just trying to stir the pot...........
So when were you going to send me that ST-J75 you promised me several weeks ago? I'll do the math on the TX-1000 for you. :D
 
I would add that the IBOC specs allow a bunch of SUBSCRIBER-ONLY channels, at the expense of the HD Radio channel.

Once the FCC allows a station to broadcast HD Radio, management can and will slice the HD Radio quality even further and instead use the bandwidth for private, subscription-only uses.

In essence, this effort is eating public bandwidth currently devoted to free, off-air broadcasting and shifting it to private uses and private profit-making.

Now, I'm as Federalist...I mean, as Republican as they come but that's MY electromagnetic spectrum they are giving away!!!!

Here's a radio marketing guy's analysis of why HD Radio, per sa, will never make it:

http://www.radiomarketingnexus.com/2005/05/the_premature_d.html
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom