Spring Arbs Shockers

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Fri, 26 May 2006 11:16:59 -0400, Aaron Read <readaaron@friedbagels.com> said:

> Interestingly, many nighttime and especially many DAYTIME signals will 
> get MARKED improvements in coverage from being IBOC.  By which I mean 
> that digital is all-or-nothing; if the signal's above the threshold, you 
> get the best audio quality IBOC can deliver and it's *consistent*. 

Well, consistently bad, anyway.

> Whereas analog, of course, gets progressively "worse" sounding the lower 
> the signal gets; more static, more susceptibility to noise, etc etc etc.

Except that human auditory systems evolved to deal with noisy inputs;
they didn't evolve to deal with the sort of distortion imparted by the
iBiquity's audio codec -- and with the pressure to squeeze even more
"exported" bits onto the HD bitstream, I don't expect relief (at least
on the AM side) any time soon.  The FM doesn't sound nearly as
objectionable at 64 kbit/s or more.  (Speaking of IBOC and audio
quality, has anyone noticed how awful WBZ sounds these days?)

-GAWollman