Why Does FM Radio Suck? (SQ--not content)

S

savatage1973

Addicted Member
I recently put a tuner back into service. I haven't listened to radio (at home) in years. Same system I was rocking on vinyl and CD last night, and this morning I fired up the tuner for some programming that I like--but I generally only listen to it in the truck or on a work-built boombox. It sounds the same or worse--mostly worse on a "real" stereo.

So compressed and lifeless is the best I can describe it--bordering on "pathetic" at best. Granted, the content is Pre-Historic X--all alt/rock from the late 70's and 80's, so the original mastering is not phenomenal, but I own most of this stuff on LP, and it doesn't sound like this.

And the tuner is a good one and totally up to snuff. I just don't get it.
 
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Good question . Down here in the sticks , the choices are few . One station is decent , the next is too loud and distorted and the third is reception challenged . I called the station once and told them they had the left and right channels flip flopped . Why even try .
 
There are a few stations that broadcast uncompressed music, they're usually nonprofit, and often from a university station. When you catch one of these it's quite obvious the SQ is that much better.

Now here in the FM wasteland of S Fl we aren't so lucky, it all sucks lol. When in Ca there was a plethora of great stations, the only thing I liked about the armpit of America Ca is.
 
Money
All (most?)
Bought out . I heart radio, mega media companies. They have some corporate recipe. Least common denominator .
10 (?) most popular songs .
Sell ad time. No attention span. Tune in for favorite song, get out car , repeat.
Pretty much NPR, and sports on radio for me.
Not ready to sell my tuner just yet but more nostalgia than need :dunno:
 
I'm fortunate that there are at least three or four high quality sounding FM radio transmissions that I receive , but I also have the largest outdoor antenna system ever made and I can beam in directly on their transmitter.
The Technics SA 600 & 800 work beautifully on FM.
I think having a very good external antenna system on a rotor and tower make the difference between good sounding radio and bad sounding radio, but I also believe that the tuner itself has to be of good design.
 
Most radio sounds lousy because it’s way over processed and compressed. The business folks in radio believe (maybe correctly) that a “louder” sound equals higher ratings. They’re trying to get people flipping through stations in the car to stop on theirs. That, combined with the fact that over compressed music sounds “better” to most folks listening on mediocre equipment, results in nasty sound. It doesn’t help that most commercial stations are now owned by big corporations where the people making the decisions aren’t listening to what 99% of their stations are broadcasting

As others have mentioned, your best bet for decent sounding FM these days are stations which aren’t 100% ratings focused. That usually means non commercial stations, usually between 88 and 92 MHz. College stations are often a good alternative if you like rock, although they may not be playing the same artists as the commercial rock stations.
 
For the most part it does not make much sense now to invest in an expensive tuner given the low quality of FM transmission.

A cheap digital, for example, Kenwood KT-42B, is good enough.

If you are primarily a collector then it's a different story. FM trans in general is a waste land.
 
This is not a new phenomenon. Even back in the early 80s when I was getting into this hobby it was widely accepted that when auditioning a stereos/speakers in a store you shouldn't use radio as the reference due to its inferior sound. The average FM stations have been EQ'd and compressed for decades. Each station does it for their own reason and in their own way, but it's been normal for a long time. I even toured a popular FM Rock station once in about 1980 and the Program Manager made a big deal out of showing us their state of the art EQ and Compression components and how these were essential in producing the station's sound.

I believe they intend to put out a signal that plays well on the average car stereo and smaller, portable radios/boom boxes (or whatever the contemporary version of a boom box is). These products respond much better to the compressed signal than an audiophile grade home stereo does. This stereo only reveals the shortcomings of the broadcast that portable units don't. Back then, we had LPs and cassettes to compare it to and could easily tell a difference. Now, with digital references, the difference can be even more pronounced.

There were once even a few Pop/Dance stations that would speed up their turntables slightly so the songs would play almost imperceptibly faster and they could get more songs squeezed into an hour/day and keep their listeners' attention longer. This may still happen, but I'm guessing the use of CDs and digital sources probably killed the practice.
 
Not to brag but I have two excellent stations I listen to here in Portland Oregon. Both publicly owned and funded, no annoying commercials, just fundraising drives which I've come to accept as they are necessary. One is jazz, the other is classical and both have great sound quality. the rest of the dial is mostly garbage anymore.
 
Back when I lived in Columbus, OH, I owned a bar and the NPR studio was a block away. Every Christmas Eve they would do the "we'll play anything you bring in" for a donation--bigger the donation, the higher up on the list you get. We ruled that station for the night--a bunch of drunks with a bunch of money (cash in hand) and a DJ booth full of CDs and albums. It was fun--I don't know if they still do that anymore, that was over 20 years ago.
 
Radio was the first battlefield of the loudness war. Stomp on the masters then stomp on it some more in the transmission chain and what you hear is what you get. You could start by blaming Orban, but there's plenty to go around.
 
In my area there's 2 classic rock FM stations,they both play the same 300 classic rock songs in shuffle mode 24/7,the DJs announce each song like it's the first time they are playing it and ruin the songs when they talk over them when the song starts to play :p:p.
:blah::blah:
Oh yeah ,almost forgot,they play commercials for 20 minutes straight .
 
I still listen a lot to the radio, both at home and in the car. Some stations sound quite good, but yeah, most are over compressed and they sound distorted to me. In the car it is less noticeable because of the road noise - I suspect that is one of the reasons to use compression.
 
Think about what audio gear is installed in vehicles and you will have an idea of why FM sounds like it does. Most cars have crappy 4-6 inch full range speakers.
 
BF62E9A7-7B76-49C1-B125-230D8879ED82.jpeg My car speakers are trash , and I still prefer cds to radio due to annoying commercials . And superior audio quality .
I’m not upgrading the speakers in a car that’s engine is near death .
 
FM has long been compressed. Sometimes so much that you can hear the compression "pump" artifacts, e.g. background gets noticeably louder and softer during level changes.
 
Local station KQRS now is spinning records for its broadcasts. Sounds great.

Also have a couple of classical stations that put out SQ.

Sometimes it makes a difference what kind of antenna you have. Mine is a 7 footer Channel Master with preamp, as I am in deep fringe. Both FM and HDTV come in excellently from the cities area which I am around 70 miles from many of the broadcasting antennas.
 
Why ? Answer : "This one goes to 11"

Seriously, their main audience is non critical listeners who listen on their drive home ( 30 - 45 minutes) who think the compression/reverb/delay/bass boost - audio cosmetics - sounds good on their in car sound system..

I think some of this actually began years ago as a 'cure' to cover up the background hiss/pops/dropouts/transients that occur while listening to FM in a moving vehicle .
This problem increased when FM stereo was introduced.. FM mono was less prone to these issues..
In the car, way back then, the stations that transmitted a better (lower) audio level tended to have a lot more hiss/spits while driving..

Anyone else remember FM radio before stereo ?

edit: I seem to recall an article that described how the choice of which FM stereo process was selected by the FCC. All stations at that time were transmitting a mono signal. There were several competing stereo protocols,being considered and the protocol selected as the standard by the FCC was not the one that provided the best s/n ratio..
 
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