Whats The word on HD radio?

hydrobud

im looking to get a car receiver with a sirius tuner built in.
my dilemma is wether to get a HD compatible receiver or not?
who knows what the future holds? any opinions will be appreciated especially if have any knowledge of this new format.

thanks

1996blackmax

I think it's a cool thing. I have read good reviews on it. Can't beat gettin near CD quality sound from FM, and FM quality from AM. The only drawback right now are the prices of the tuners. My Eclipse HU is HD Radio ready, but until the prices come down I do not see myself forking out that amount of dough for it. I gues you have to think about wether is something you really want down the road. For me it was not I was really looking into. I will probably go with Sirius before I get HD.

cam5860

At the rate technology is moving everything is seeming to be going digital. cd's will be a thing of the past in five more years at the rate things are moving.

The ipod is really driving people away from cd's these days. cd sales where down sharply over the holidays while music downloads where up.

It's going to be a digital world. Might as well get used to a ipod it is the future. By the way Apple sold 42 million ipods this year.

MacLeod

God I hope not. But, just as we were discussing in another thread, you can already see the results in the way that most head units are crap now. Theyve all got tons of Ipod and MP3 features and very few SQ features.

If it gets worse, Ill defect over to the home audio side of the world. At least there, the primary concern is with achieving the best SQ possible and Ipod and flip up DVD screens are way down the list of priorities.

hydrobud

this is what i have my on right now. this unit includes the sirius tuner within the receiver which is kind of cool.but im wondering if its worth paying the extra bucks for the HD?i think there is still a model on the market without the HD but with the sirius tuner for about 80.00 bucks less.

hydrobud

**** it...im taking the plunge.

neomagus00

let us know!!

bknauss

HD Radio is actually very cool. If the radio station doesn't EQ the crap out of the signal, it sounds great. Hopefully that head can pick up the multicast stations... they have the main station with the regular lineup, but they have subset stations with whatever they want (talk, traffic/weather, other music).

PoweredByDodge

CD's are digital.

... and as far as beating an Ipod... I'd rather have a 10 disc changer that reads MP3's - Currently mine does not.

Predecessor of the Ipod was the Music-Keg, good idea, but not portable, not multifunctional.

Just remember, no matter what happens, as long as you've got an AUX-In on your deck, you'll never be left out in the cold (unless they go fiber-optic on our asses).

Little side note - Analog (in general) is a dying/lost art. I have more and more feelings of despise for the digital community. While there really does not exist any practical analog storage means, there are many practical analog transmission means, we use them every day -- remember OLD cell phones? They never dropped a signal. Now are "all digital networks" suck, of which Sprint is the worst. Digital storage is one thing, but how many times are you going to sample, resample, re-re-re-re-re-sample something before it's just ****?

dnewhous

http://www.ibiquity.com/hdradio/hdradio_hdproducts.htm

There is simply no excuse for not having the HD radio tuner built in. The hardware is not state of the art.

And it is not remotely close to CD quality!