AM-band HD Radio bit rate

[Jim Hall]

I doubt it would satisfy an audiophile, but the two AM stations I can get HD
on in Andover (WBZ and WNNW) sound much, much better in HD. 

WNNW sounds very tinny without HD (kind of like WMEX did on a transistor
radio in the 60s), but in HD, the music sounds really very nice. It does
sound perhaps a little "flat" to the ear (I am not sure if that's because of
compression or because the HD doesn't reach the highest and lowest sound
frequencies). But it's much, much better. 

I tried comparing WBZ without HD, with HD, and as on WODS-HD3. The fullness
of the sound was as you might expect:  the FM sound was best, but not that
much better than AM-HD. The plain vanilla WBZ was the worst. Even for voice
I find the HD much nicer: the extra frequencies give depth and character to
the voice that you miss on plain AM. To me, plain AM sounds like people are
talking on the phone. HD sounds like they are in the room with you.

-----Original Message-----
From: boston-radio-interest-bounces@tsornin.BostonRadio.org
[mailto:boston-radio-interest-bounces@tsornin.BostonRadio.org] On Behalf Of
Dan.Strassberg
Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 10:16 AM
To: Boston Radio Interest
Subject: AM-band HD Radio bit rate

Not counting subsidiary services (for example, whatever you call the
DAB equivalent of RDS), how many bits per second do they squeeze into
the AM-band HD Radio datastream? Is it 32 kbps? At the moment, I am
listening to what is reported as a 32-kbps Web stream from WHAT (AM)
Philadelphia. The content consists of adult standards music and
occasional voicetracked voice. I can't imagine anyone having any
complaints about the audio quality of what I am listening to with this
(rather mundane) content. In other words, 32 kbps through what I'm
assuming is a lossy CODEC seems just fine for routine suff such as
Frank Sinatra backed by Nelson Riddle (at least as good as the best
I've heard recently on AM) but would it cut it for classical music or
something else intended for an audio connoisseur?

-----
Dan Strassberg (dan.strassberg@att.net)
eFax 1-707-215-6367