RADIO- FM vs. Internet

[Kyocerafan]

I won't listen to any radio with commercials any more. I'm lucky there are multiple solid public radio stations in Seattle. Satellite radio is what gets a great deal of my listening time despite mediocre fidelity and frequent reception gaps. The programming is great. Deep Tracks, in particular, has an old school curated music vibe to it. Internet radio is on my radar but I haven't really devoted a lot of time to it as I don't have the right hardware for it yet.

 

[sKiZo]

FM IS NOT DEAD!
LONG LIVE FM!

I'm lucky in that I'm in a good area for LOCAL fm ... with the help of a Magnum Sleuth antenna and amp. Commercials don't bother me much as I can always flip over to the HTPC server to fill in the long breaks. Local FM also allows you to stay on top of wazzzzz happening! in the area. The later night you listen, the shorter and more informative the breaks too.

Lot of mention for college FM ... keep in mind those are usually low power and low budget and can be kinda hard to pull in. If that's your target, DO invest in a "college band" antenna. Those are a bit pricey, but are tuned for best reception in the 89-90 freqs. Not to worry, as the commercial stations higher in the band have more than enough power and range that there's little or no difference in signal quality using these antennas.

 

[greyhnd]

I like both and use them almost equally. I like the local FM stations on days like today when it's snowing like a banshee and there are new closures almost by the hour. And then road conditions , etc. If I'm busy doing other things and just want some background music then I'll use the internet, or if I want a specific genre of music or even talk radio.

Most of my local stations are country music and I'm more into rock and blues and maybe a little jazz. Nice to have more than one option for my listening.

 

[Redikilowatt]

I won't listen to any radio with commercials any more. I'm lucky there are multiple solid public radio stations in Seattle. Satellite radio is what gets a great deal of my listening time despite mediocre fidelity and frequent reception gaps. The programming is great. Deep Tracks, in particular, has an old school curated music vibe to it. Internet radio is on my radar but I haven't really devoted a lot of time to it as I don't have the right hardware for it yet.

Spot on :thmbsp:
Despite the mediocre quality and dropped reception, some of the DJs/announcers are decent. I like the BB King station and the 60s station has stints with Cousin Brucie (ex WABC from '60s). Apparently he isn't dead yet

Of course, when my one year free subscription ends I will not renew. $15 a month is ridiculous!

As for FM, I can not tolerate the ads. So ad free internet is my usual fare.

Roger

 

[sKiZo]

I had XM in the cars for the commute, but even they went to mostly commercials most of the time during drive time - at least the stations I preferred.

I listen to radio in the car and at home a great deal, but I am lucky to have two great stations that I like -- CBC1 and CBC2. For me, internet radio is for when I'm jogging.

I miss CBC ... I used to get them piggybacked on a satellite feed on my old C band flying saucer. They went and scrambled them for whatever reason.

If nobody have mentioned this yet this option is meaningless and unavailable to the vast number of folk without unlimited hi-speed internet, I must avoid vid linx as well.

Yup ... 5 gig goes real fast if you get fancy with the streaming stuff ...

 

[jefrodigital]

FM really has nothing for me around here. We do have WBGO which is a pretty nice jazz station. My fav part of the station is actually Sat mornings "Rhythm Review" where the DJ plays alll kinds of classic soul music. I usually have it on in the car while running errands or in the house doing weekend chores. Found out about it from my barber, who always has it on. Makes getting a haircut, which is find pleasant, even more pleasant.

Besides that all I seem to be able to tune is top 40, commercial rap and light fm. Weak.

I do however enjoy live DJ's playing music and thats where the web comes in. You can stream FM channels from almost anywhere in the world. Thats amazing. Sure theres commercials, but thats par for the course. FM has always had commercials as long as I've been listening. I like TuneIn, they have a site and an app for your phone, both free if I remember right.

I have used MOG and like the selection, but am actually kind of overwhelmed by it haha. Too much to choose from causes overload and I usually just end up putting on something I have in my MP3 collection.

I hate Pandora. No matter what I choose, no matter what thumbs up or down I give it seems they keep playing the same songs from the same people. I and my wife have playlists that seem to always keep rotating the same 10-15 songs. Whats the point of that? I guess it resembles "radio" in that they have a rotation, but that is actually one of the parts of radio I hate most. We all have access to every song made by everyone ever and all you've got for me is 10?

I also like blogs and podcasts, one of my favorite is Conspiracy Radio. It's an underground hip hop show that is around 6 hours long where they interview a couple of artists and play the newly released music in the scene. Kind of a mix of old and new.

 

[+48V]

Dumb question, but why do so many radio station's streams sound so bad? Are the bandwidth requirements so high that they can't at least try to get it close to FM quality? Is it hard/expensive to do, or do these stations just treat it like an afterthought?

As for the OP, generally speaking I prefer a DJ over a generated playlist. I will listen to internet stations, but if it is local and I can get a decent FM signal, that's what I prefer.
Our public broadcaster has a nice website with streaming genre stations that I enjoy, too.
Things like MOG are not available to me, so I can't comment on them.

Nothing at all "dumb" about your question.

As for your guesses....It's a damn good bit of both. Bandwidth is a considerable expense for the vast majority of small to medium sized independent IR stations, especially if you're not in a position to buy kilobits in massive quantities or "purloin" by having generous friends in lofty places. Unlike terrestrial radio, the more ears you have...the more it costs. Simplified-- 1,000 listeners @ 64kbps costs half as much as 1,000 listeners @ 128kbps. Jump to 320k...well it's just math and adds up quick on the cost to benefit ratio for the station.

Think of it as a water/sewer bill. The more concurrent listeners...the bigger outbound pipe you need to serve your audience as a whole. Now then, how much of your audience is brushing their teeth (connected via DAC and nice amp) vs. how many are washing their car or flushing their toilet? (stand alone mobile or cheesy external speakers)

It's a fine line science balancing the bandwidth books for most. As a general rule, nearly all stations have very little "play" money left over after paying their most significant expense....the royalty bill. So they're compelled to serve 1,000@64 vs. 200@320.

That said and to your second guess, there are some legitimate DSP tweaks stations can do to "enhance" a low bitrate stream. This can work remarkably well in the hands of an experienced internet radio guy. Unfortunately a great deal of these attempts are done by novices and only make matters worse.

 

[+48V]

I won't listen to any radio with commercials any more. I'm lucky there are multiple solid public radio stations in Seattle. Satellite radio is what gets a great deal of my listening time despite mediocre fidelity and frequent reception gaps. The programming is great. Deep Tracks, in particular, has an old school curated music vibe to it. Internet radio is on my radar but I haven't really devoted a lot of time to it as I don't have the right hardware for it yet.

Hardware? Are you talkin' bout home, mobile, or both?

You owe it to yourself to make a most modest investment to get on the net radio station grid. You'll gain at least 10 fold in programming and 5+ fold in fidelity.

Once you dig in....your begone Sat fees will pay for the gear in short order.

 

[reggaenaut]

Great FM:

Especially the jazz station WBGO 88.3kHz New York/New Jersey.

 

[Bugler]

I do subscribe to Pandora and Spotify. Spotify is pretty useful. Like others have said Pandora repeats daily. Both cars have Sirius XM but we don't drive much anymore. Other than my fairly large collection of RTR and cassette tapes and LPs I'm hooked on FM HD. WQED broadcasts HD-1 (classical standards) and HD-2 (live concerts of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the River City Brass Band; all from various concert seasons). WESA HD-2 broadcasts jazz. All of these have incredible programing. My first HD receiver was a portable from Best Buy for about $50. I take it with me when I get chemo treatments. My son's bought it for me. Now I have 3 Sangean component HD tuners. One HDT-1 which only has RCA analog outputs, and two HDT-1X which also have optical digital outputs which I only use the analog outputs. The "X" version also has some additional nice features. I have one in my main listening room, one in bedroom (go to bed with it on every night) and about to hook the third one up in a spare sitting/TV room. These Sangean tuners sound wonderful and received very favorable reviews. I also have a Coby HDR-650 that is quite small, inexpensive and sounds pretty nice. It is in a spare bedroom for my granddaughter. She spends a couple nights a week with us and of course naps. She always goes to sleep to classical music. She is 2-1/2 years old and has been going to bed to classical (mostly Mozart CDs) since she was an infant. I sure hope HD broadcasts don't disappear. Standard FM broadcasts here suck. 90% commercials and BS talking. Plus classical programming on standard FM is limited to one station whose programing isn't as good as HD and jazz is only available on HD.

 

[Pio1980]

For FM, mostly NPR, and college radio when they aren't doing Gangsta' or hyphenated-metal. Nights & weekends when they rebroadcast "Undercurrents" is great.

 

[KrisM]

Nothing at all "dumb" about your question.

As for your guesses....It's a damn good bit of both. Bandwidth is a considerable expense for the vast majority of small to medium sized independent IR stations, especially if you're not in a position to buy kilobits in massive quantities or "purloin" by having generous friends in lofty places. Unlike terrestrial radio, the more ears you have...the more it costs. Simplified-- 1,000 listeners @ 64kbps costs half as much as 1,000 listeners @ 128kbps. Jump to 320k...well it's just math and adds up quick on the cost to benefit ratio for the station.

Think of it as a water/sewer bill. The more concurrent listeners...the bigger outbound pipe you need to serve your audience as a whole. Now then, how much of your audience is brushing their teeth (connected via DAC and nice amp) vs. how many are washing their car or flushing their toilet? (stand alone mobile or cheesy external speakers)

It's a fine line science balancing the bandwidth books for most. As a general rule, nearly all stations have very little "play" money left over after paying their most significant expense....the royalty bill. So they're compelled to serve 1,000@64 vs. 200@320.

That said and to your second guess, there are some legitimate DSP tweaks stations can do to "enhance" a low bitrate stream. This can work remarkably well in the hands of an experienced internet radio guy. Unfortunately a great deal of these attempts are done by novices and only make matters worse.

Good info.
The bit rate thing with internet radio is something that makes me wonder, some times. I've heard lower rate stuff sound decent(for what it is), and sometimes sound just horrible. It's not something I've looked into enough, though. I'm quite naive about it.

 

[+48V]

I started listening to FM radio stations in the early 1960s and have been in the FM radio camp ever since.

But with programing changes and a change in location, I am in a fairly rural area now, with the closest decent FM station about 65 miles away and a low power station at that, I have migrated to the internet.

For some reason I seem to be less connected to the music when it is supplied by the internet. This may seem to be rather irrational, but it is what it is for me.

With that said, I am thankful for the music available via the internet.

Indeed… you're neither irrational nor alone. Music is a relationship. We relate with music within our own psyche and life experiences as well as with our friends & family. Whether you're consuming it or producing it; music is one of the most human things we get pleasure from in life.

Now with respect to the "radio" button plastered on the on-demand services' storefronts as well as Pandora....despite their extremely nifty database logic the big disconnect happens because there is no human there helping you relate to a new artist or share his thoughts/meaning behind the notes and lyrics.

To a greater degree yesterday than today, a DJ at FM radio station can facilitate a human connection to the music and artists. Serve yourself options and algorithms have their place but that's the antithesis of radio. Real radio still requires a human at the helm. Sadly, FM stations today are nearly as automated as their internet counterparts with banks of computers in place of humans.

Regardless of how far the tech has come, great tempo-mixed segues and intelligently themed sets are simply not possible with computer code at this point. Add in a few doses of lead-in/lead-out commentary (whether banal or poignant) and this helps us connect. Tell/entertain me the story of how Robert Hunter wrote the song Ripple on the balcony of a London hotel room while he was enjoying and contemplating his bottle of Retsina then drop the needle. Or gimmie some backstory on why Hellbound Train by Savoy Brown ends with an abrupt stop on the original pressing. This combo of crafty playlists and annotations is what connects me, it builds a relationship with the music and the station. That's RADIO

Recently some of the big box internet music mongers are coming around to realize and remedy part of this unquantifiable shortfall. The new iTunes Radio was first to come out the gate touting human curated “stations” to set themselves apart and fill the connection void. MOG (soon to be Beats/Daisy) is following suit and claiming they will be a savior “unlike anything else”.

I'm inclined to blow-off most of Beats claim to buzz word marketing…but who knows. Maybe this new direction will help. I sampled a few of the “human” stations on iTunes Radio. While it’s no doubt a step in the right direction and some of the short intro voice overs by the artists/DJs was somewhat refreshing it’s still a long haul away from what real radio can and should be on these outlets.

As in the past and so far today, nothing inhuman can come close to a real live DJ having a good night and connecting his audience with the music! Real radio does exist on the internet. But you won't find it with the big corp shops. They merely "claim jumped" the term.