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How Long Before FM Tuners Become “Typewriters”?

KentTeffeteller said:
As long as there is expensive and capped bandwidth on mobile devices (and it may be coming to Cable TV also) and IT departments block streaming and some care about sound quality, AM and FM tuners will be with us. I hope home theater dies.
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Well - home theater's not going to die as long as dummies text in theaters and distract other from enjoying the film ...
Plus its nice having your choice of adult beverages when you watch a film (!)

But I do miss having good radio stations in the area - but its always been hit or miss in the DC market ... its just too big a market anymore for college and similar narrowcast stations ... sigh ...
 
KentTeffeteller said:
As long as there is expensive and capped bandwidth on mobile devices (and it may be coming to Cable TV also) and IT departments block streaming and some care about sound quality, AM and FM tuners will be with us. I hope home theater dies.
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Amen.

We're fortunate here in Nashville to have an NPR station that plays classical music with very little interruption; sound quality is the best I've ever heard over FM. I felt it was worth it to send my Citation 15 to PunkerX for a full recap and service, just because that one local station sounds so bloody good.

If that station went belly up, or if they "modernized" their broadcast signal chain, I'm not sure what I'd do (other than leave my preamp's input selector set on "phono"). :scratch2:
 
I am fortunate here. Two local college stations, Philly's XPN via a relay tower in Worton, MD, and the community station associated with a small college 20mi north of me. Radio gets more time than anything else for me.
 
even though our cars have everything from sirius ,minidisc ,cassette, cd along with ipod docks etc ,9 times out of 10 i still play the Radio either good old analog or via HD Radio .

at home it is a different story either i listen to vinyl or flac files .

so i could see home tuner's being used much less but in the automobiles fm is safe for the foreseeable future imho

if sirius could achieve better sound quality i might use it much more but at this point it is still like a bad mp3
 
I sold all my tuners 2 years ago and just use my Squeeze Box Touch and never looked back.
 
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Not everybody has, or even wants, a smartphone. Radio provides effective advertising as well, and as long as enough money is being spent on it, it will continue to broadcast, though it will probably never be what it was in it's long heyday. Unless, of course, people get tired of having everything they do, see, hear, and think monitored. But I doubt that will ever happen. Still, I wouldn't bet on radio going away any time soon. I listen to shortwave a lot, and I am amazed at the number of stations still out there, when next to nobody (or so I thought) listens to shortwave.
 
deeezy said:
Not everybody has, or even wants, a smartphone. Radio provides effective advertising as well, and as long as enough money is being spent on it, it will continue to broadcast, though it will probably never be what it was in it's long heyday. Unless, of course, people get tired of having everything they do, see, hear, and think monitored. But I doubt that will ever happen. Still, I wouldn't bet on radio going away any time soon. I listen to shortwave a lot, and I am amazed at the number of stations still out there, when next to nobody (or so I thought) listens to shortwave.
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I don't have a smart phone I have a Squeeze Box Touch!
 
hjames said:
Well - home theater's not going to die as long as dummies text in theaters and distract other from enjoying the film ...
Plus its nice having your choice of adult beverages when you watch a film (!)

But I do miss having good radio stations in the area - but its always been hit or miss in the DC market ... its just too big a market anymore for college and similar narrowcast stations ... sigh ...
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We have a theatre here that serves food and beer and has zero tolerance for shenanigans (talking, texting etc.) They really do throw people out. They also show great vintage/classic/cult movies as well as new releases. I haven't been to one of the big chain theatres for many years and have no reason to go back to them.
 
Portland is lucky to have the best, full time jazz station in the country. I listen to FM about 50% of the time.
 
I work in a locally owned business. Our owner advertises on the local radio station. One of the "DJs" comes in weekly to record a new radio ad. Mind you, the station doesn't actually do live programming (at least from what I can tell). The DJs record the shows and a computer plays the appropriate programs at the appropriate time. Even the "live" on location bits are pre-recorded. Anyway, I'm still surprised by the number of customers that mention the radio ads (because they feature our owner or various employees). So, someone is still listening to the radio. But, man, every time I tune in the radio it's ads and more ads. Yuck!
 
Yamaha RS-V671

I enjoy the best of both worlds. Movies would sound so "hollow" without the home theater experience. My Yamaha avr is a 7.1 with Polks and a hard hitting Klipsch sub 12. My Onkyo 2 channel receiver has that old school analog inputs and added subwoofer "out". Network jack for internet radio listening. With it's WRAT {wide range audio technology} it improves all my vintage format components. :thmbsp:



just dave said:
Wow.I enjoy my home theater.Why don't you like it?
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so unfortunately we all only like the non money making stations. That does not bode well.

Not many audio playing machines other than your automobile do much with OTR broadcast integration really anymore it seems. Most of the younger generation don't even have anything with a tuner in it and in their car they hook up their mP3 players or iPhones. Try buying a clock radio anymore that has a decent tuner in it! They have made FM sound so lousy that many think poor quality streaming or low rate files sounds good.
 
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