RE: Dead FM Broadcasting Technologies

[SteveOrdinetz <steveord@bit-net.com>]

Hakim Madjid wrote:

>there were FM tuners and receivers that were brought to market that
>had a front panel 'Dolby FM' switch - to change the de-emphasiss in
>the tuner.

I have one of them.  It's an Onkyo...bought it around 1980 or so.  As 
someone else noted, putting the switch in the 25usec position just made it 
sound muddy on non-Dolby stations (which was most of them).

>Who knows? Had there been an inexpensive Dolby decoder chip in 1975 we might
>be all listening to Dolby FM nowadays.

Maybe, but I doubt it.  During the 70s people were still marveling about 
how much better FM sounded than AM, didn't need gimmicks to make it sound 
better...besides Dolby on consumer tape decks worked rather badly (again 
much muddiness, even on Dolby-ized tapes...not always compatible between 
different brands of tape decks).