BSO on the radio - not for me anymore

[George Allen]

So I used the WGBH web site feedback form to ask how they divvy up 
the WGBH-FM HD bitstream.  The good news is that I got a clear 
answer.  The bad news is that listening to live BSO at 48 
kilobytes/sec is not what I consider worth chasing.  Sigh.  I suppose 
just knowing they use 3 HD channels should have been a large clue 
that HD2 wasn't going to be very hi fi.
   -- George

WGBH wrote:
This from our engineer: The rates for HD on WGBH 89.7 are: 48/48/24 
for HD-1/2/3
As for the brittle sound, the Sony does have good receptivity but it 
is a table top radio which can have a hard sound to it. There are 
tuners available that can be plugged into the big home systems that 
might sound better.
___________________________________________

From: Sid Schweiger <sid@wrko.com>
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2010 13:27:00 -0400

"Being clueless about the variations on the HD theme, is HD2 the same 
or lower quality [bitrate] than HD1?  Or will that vary depending on 
the station [WGBH in this case]?"

What most HD stations appear to be doing is keeping the HD1 
(simulcasting the analog) at the highest bitrate and running the 
secondaries at lower bitrates...for example, 48kbps for HD1 and 
24kbps for HD2, 3, etc.  But, bottom line, it is up to the station 
how the data stream is subdivided.