FM tuner vs. CD sound quality?

[John Duncan]

Whatever John. What you seem to want to talk about has nothing to do with what fr0g said, which doesn't call for any help from Popper et al.

Thanks for the education, Your Cleverness.

 

[Alec]

Whatever John. What you seem to want to talk about has nothing to do with what fr0g said, which doesn't call for any help from Popper et al.

Thanks for the education, Your Cleverness.

It isn't a response to any argument he was making, no. But he mentioned 'reality' and it got me thinking in a different direction. That's all. And in matters philosophical, I'm more of a Kant than anything...

Then I shall do the unprecedented and unreservedly apologise. I probably need to top my fluids up.

 

[John Duncan]

That's alright. I could see how, from previous experience, you might think I was picking a fight

 

[fr0g]

So reality is only an objective thing? Or does it only make sense as an individual's subjective experience? For example, red is red, but if you're colour blind, your red is not my red. I'm not starting a fight btw, I'm just interested...

Or trying to discuss something about which there can be no discussion. fr0g is entirely right. But you prefer whatever you prefer, and may not be able to hear differences, that's fine. It doesn't matter weather the argument is circular or rhombus shaped, it's still absolutely correct and if otherwise perfectly intelligent people can't see it then...

So inceredibly tiresome.

I wasn't trying to talk about hifi or anything else. I just thought it was an interesting topic for discussion. You know, like perfectly intelligent people do. As for it being something you can have no discussion about, I'm fairly sure that Kant or Popper or any other number of scientific philosophers would disagree.

We're on mixed mental threads here.

Alec I think gets what I am saying.

There are some things which warrant no discussion as the answer is obvious.

eg... MP3 CANNOT be better than the CD it was ripped from. It's impossible. If someone comes on these forums (or the Teapot enthusiast forum in Zambia) and claims that it sounds better, they *could* be right subjectively, but objectively, from measurements, it is entirely impossible for it to be so.

FM *cannot* be *better* than the CD the music was taken from. It makes no sense, there is no logical reason for it to be so. HOWEVER, given the added distortion involved, it *can* sound different, and where there is a difference there *can*be a preference, and so long as we are talking individual preference, then there is *no* right and wrong.

 

[John Duncan]

We're on mixed mental threads here.

Almost completely, yes. A phrase you used set me off on a tangent that I thought was interesting. You may have noticed me do this.

As for 320 vs CD vs FM vs whatever, of course from a technical point of view there can be no argument about their respective qualities. From a subjective point of view, anybody can think what they like.

 

[chebby]

I guess that - for me at least - radio (particularly BBC radio and even more particularly Radio 4 since I was 17 years-old) carries a lot of 'baggage' with it.

The old televisions and the radiogram (when I was very small in the 1960s) that both had radio built in. Both had valves and large wooden enclosures of course. Also the kitchen radio (that was plugged into a home-made corner enclosure amp/speaker that my father had DIY'ed - probably from a kit some years before - including aerial/antenna on the shed roof).

There was also the car radio (in the Wolseley) that had a large oval speaker set into a wooden surround and was also (almost certainly) valve driven given the car's vintage.

So during my formative years, BBC radio (music from Radio one and two and comedies and 'serials'), ALL emanated from valve driven speakers in large wooden enclosures of one kind or another. So it was all rather 'lush' and smooth and even 'plummy' (as were some of the accents still, at least outside of Radio 1).

The kitchen radio (corner enclosure near ceiling) was replaced during a re-decorate with one of these around the time I was at junior school (I hunted a long time to find a photograph of the exact model) and this became my favourite for a long time. (Lovely tuning scale, lashings of chrome, great sound). I used to love sitting in semi darkness and scanning the frequencies.

Whilst at sixth form college I worked Saturdays at a local hi-fi/TV/radio/records shop and bought (at enormous discount) a gorgeous Roberts R800 radio. Yet again a fantastic sounding, lush, radio with a solid wooden enclosure and a decent amount of chrome! I had that radio for the next 10 years until we replaced it with a Roberts R737 that I had to travel to Harrods to collect in exactly the colour we wanted! (The www was only a few years old and internet shopping hadn't quite yet started.)

Along with stereo FM tuners (from Sony, Yamaha, Rega, Arcam, Naim and now Marantz) radio has always been my most important 'source' and I have an expectation of what it should sound like. (And b@gger the measurements!)

In a perfect world (ok my perfect world) FM would continue forever and I would have a lunking great big Sony ES tuner with loads of lights and polished wood end panels It would feed a factory restored Accuphase (Class A) amp from the same era and speak to me via some big Harbeths in an oak panelled study or library.

I don't care about the measurements, or that the BBC play music from CDs and WAV files (70 - 80 percent of my radio listening is non-musical anyway). Turn off some lights and listen to a well recorded radio play or a live broadcast and it's magical.

TuneIn Radio Pro on my iPhone is rather spiffy (and allows the higher BBC R3 bitrates) and even seems to encourage a bit of 'lushness' that Jazz FM seem to add to their broadcast. (Niiiice...)

DAB is a dog. (Except, for some unaccountable reason, on the Vita R1 Deluxe in the kitchen.)

Freeview radio is better than DAB (and I can record it).

But FM is the King and no amount of Ashleys (with their anti Beeb bias) or fr0gs or oohs will convince me otherwise.

I cannot be argued with on this point in any rational way Even if you are actually right, you will be wrong.

(Exuant with 'Sailing By' playing on a Roberts Radio in the background.)

 

[Overdose]

I guess that - for me at least - radio (particularly BBC radio and even more particularly Radio 4 since I was 17 years-old) carries a lot of 'baggage' with it.

The old televisions and the radiogram (when I was very small in the 1960s) that both had radio built in. Both had valves and large wooden enclosures of course. Also the kitchen radio (that was plugged into a home-made corner enclosure amp/speaker that my father had DIY'ed - probably from a kit some years before - including aerial/antenna on the shed roof).

There was also the car radio (in the Wolseley) that had a large oval speaker set into a wooden surround and was also (almost certainly) valve driven given the car's vintage.

So during my formative years, BBC radio (music from Radio one and two and comedies and 'serials'), ALL emanated from valve driven speakers in large wooden enclosures of one kind or another. So it was all rather 'lush' and smooth and even 'plummy' (as were some of the accents still, at least outside of Radio 1).

The kitchen radio (corner enclosure near ceiling) was replaced during a re-decorate with one of these around the time I was at junior school (I hunted a long time to find a photograph of the exact model) and this became my favourite for a long time. (Lovely tuning scale, lashings of chrome, great sound). I used to love sitting in semi darkness and scanning the frequencies.

Whilst at sixth form college I worked Saturdays at a local hi-fi/TV/radio/records shop and bought (at enormous discount) a gorgeous Roberts R800 radio. Yet again a fantastic sounding, lush, radio with a solid wooden enclosure and a decent amount of chrome! I had that radio for the next 10 years until we replaced it with a Roberts R737 that I had to travel to Harrods to collect in exactly the colour we wanted! (The www was only a few years old and internet shopping hadn't quite yet started.)

Along with stereo FM tuners (from Sony, Yamaha, Rega, Arcam, Naim and now Marantz) radio has always been my most important 'source' and I have an expectation of what it should sound like. (And b@gger the measurements!)

In a perfect world (ok my perfect world) FM would continue forever and I would have a lunking great big Sony ES tuner with loads of lights and polished wood end panels It would feed a factory restored Accuphase (Class A) amp from the same era and speak to me via some big Harbeths in an oak panelled study or library.

I don't care about the measurements, or that the BBC play music from CDs and WAV files (70 - 80 percent of my radio listening is non-musical anyway). Turn off some lights and listen to a well recorded radio play or a live broadcast and it's magical.

TuneIn Radio Pro on my iPhone is rather spiffy (and allows the higher BBC R3 bitrates) and even seems to encourage a bit of 'lushness' that Jazz FM seem to add to their broadcast. (Niiiice...)

DAB is a dog. (Except, for some unaccountable reason, on the Vita R1 Deluxe in the kitchen.)

Freeview radio is better than DAB (and I can record it).

But FM is the King and no amount of Ashleys (with their anti Beeb bias) or fr0gs or oohs will convince me otherwise.

I cannot be argued with on this point in any rational way Even if you are actually right, you will be wrong.

(Exuant with 'Sailing By' playing on a Roberts Radio in the background.)

DAB is digitally and dynamically compressed and is therefore horribly compromised, FM is much better by comparison. I won't argue with you on that one.

 

[fr0g]

But FM is the King and no amount of Ashleys (with their anti Beeb bias) or fr0gs or oohs will convince me otherwise.

If you see what I say, then you would realise that I wouldn't want to.

In the same way, I think the best car ever made is the original Mini.

 

[Kevin Stephens]

just interrupting the usual WHF thread degeneration into inter-nicene squabbles to report:

Radio 3 FM Late Junction: SUBLIME

 

[fr0g]

just interrupting the usual WHF thread degeneration into inter-nicene squabbles to report:

Radio 3 FM Late Junction: SUBLIME

I think 2 and a half weeks pause is enough to not worry about interupting

Where were we?

 

[shooter]

I guess that - for me at least - radio (particularly BBC radio and even more particularly Radio 4 since I was 17 years-old) carries a lot of 'baggage' with it.

The old televisions and the radiogram (when I was very small in the 1960s) that both had radio built in. Both had valves and large wooden enclosures of course. Also the kitchen radio (that was plugged into a home-made corner enclosure amp/speaker that my father had DIY'ed - probably from a kit some years before - including aerial/antenna on the shed roof).

There was also the car radio (in the Wolseley) that had a large oval speaker set into a wooden surround and was also (almost certainly) valve driven given the car's vintage.

So during my formative years, BBC radio (music from Radio one and two and comedies and 'serials'), ALL emanated from valve driven speakers in large wooden enclosures of one kind or another. So it was all rather 'lush' and smooth and even 'plummy' (as were some of the accents still, at least outside of Radio 1).

The kitchen radio (corner enclosure near ceiling) was replaced during a re-decorate with one of these around the time I was at junior school (I hunted a long time to find a photograph of the exact model) and this became my favourite for a long time. (Lovely tuning scale, lashings of chrome, great sound). I used to love sitting in semi darkness and scanning the frequencies.

Whilst at sixth form college I worked Saturdays at a local hi-fi/TV/radio/records shop and bought (at enormous discount) a gorgeous Roberts R800 radio. Yet again a fantastic sounding, lush, radio with a solid wooden enclosure and a decent amount of chrome! I had that radio for the next 10 years until we replaced it with a Roberts R737 that I had to travel to Harrods to collect in exactly the colour we wanted! (The www was only a few years old and internet shopping hadn't quite yet started.)

Along with stereo FM tuners (from Sony, Yamaha, Rega, Arcam, Naim and now Marantz) radio has always been my most important 'source' and I have an expectation of what it should sound like. (And b@gger the measurements!)

In a perfect world (ok my perfect world) FM would continue forever and I would have a lunking great big Sony ES tuner with loads of lights and polished wood end panels It would feed a factory restored Accuphase (Class A) amp from the same era and speak to me via some big Harbeths in an oak panelled study or library.

I don't care about the measurements, or that the BBC play music from CDs and WAV files (70 - 80 percent of my radio listening is non-musical anyway). Turn off some lights and listen to a well recorded radio play or a live broadcast and it's magical.

TuneIn Radio Pro on my iPhone is rather spiffy (and allows the higher BBC R3 bitrates) and even seems to encourage a bit of 'lushness' that Jazz FM seem to add to their broadcast. (Niiiice...)

DAB is a dog. (Except, for some unaccountable reason, on the Vita R1 Deluxe in the kitchen.)

Freeview radio is better than DAB (and I can record it).

But FM is the King and no amount of Ashleys (with their anti Beeb bias) or fr0gs or oohs will convince me otherwise.

I cannot be argued with on this point in any rational way Even if you are actually right, you will be wrong.

(Exuant with 'Sailing By' playing on a Roberts Radio in the background.)

DAB is digitally and dynamically compressed and is therefore horribly compromised, FM is much better by comparison. I won't argue with you on that one.

It is worse by a considerable margin but interestingly the dynamic range is the same. The process of DAB strips the PCM (CD quality) signal back to MPEG 1 Layer 2, and its a complex one, after that its padded out with zero's to achieve a dynamic range of 71db.

So what your getting is a signal of 1537 padded out to 2048 which equates to 71db dynamic range which is the same as FM radio but FM is 2048 without the padding. PCM is 32768 giving us 96db.

All we need to do now is convert MPEG's 1537 into db's and we have the answer

 

[fr0g]

It is worse by a considerable margin but interestingly the dynamic range is the same. The process of DAB strips the PCM (CD quality) signal back to MPEG 1 Layer 2, and its a complex one, after that its padded out with zero's to achieve a dynamic range of 71db.

So what your getting is a signal of 1537 padded out to 2048 which equates to 71db dynamic range which is the same as FM radio but FM is 2048 without the padding. PCM is 32768 giving us 96db.

All we need to do now is convert MPEG's 1537 into db's and we have the answer

Not that the available dynamic range is relevant... I think you'd struggle to find a CD with a dynamic range more than around 20db, most are around 10 or less.

 

[shooter]

It is worse by a considerable margin but interestingly the dynamic range is the same. The process of DAB strips the PCM (CD quality) signal back to MPEG 1 Layer 2, and its a complex one, after that its padded out with zero's to achieve a dynamic range of 71db.

So what your getting is a signal of 1537 padded out to 2048 which equates to 71db dynamic range which is the same as FM radio but FM is 2048 without the padding. PCM is 32768 giving us 96db.

All we need to do now is convert MPEG's 1537 into db's and we have the answer

Not that the available dynamic range is relevant... I think you'd struggle to find a CD with a dynamic range more than around 20db, most are around 10 or less.

I'm confused fr0g, I thought PMC which is 16 bit material has a dynamic range of 96db, with 24 bit being 144db and the like, basically 6db's per bit. The greater the db the greater the signal to noise ratio, SNR.

I though with lossy, you reduce the dynamics by 'squeezing' top and bottom of the audio band, which reduces the the dynamics thus reducing the db's, SNR and with it the bit rate.

DAB's MPEG 1 Layer 2 is worse quality the MP3. What i'm trying to work out is MPEG's 1532 samples per second and what that equates to in bit rate and [SNR], those figures then will translate into something my brain can understand, at the moment 1532 meens didldy squat apart from it worse than MP3...

 

[fr0g]

I'm confused fr0g,

Me too

 

[shooter]

I'm confused fr0g,

Me too

Hopefully some fellow will be along soon who can shed some light.

 

[Overdose]

I think fr0g meant the dynamic range of the music and not the potential dynamic range of the format?

Or am I confused too?:?

 

[fr0g]

I think fr0g meant the dynamic range of the music and not the potential dynamic range of the format?

Or am I confused too?:?

You see, thisis where us with a little knowledge get mixed up.

CD has a potential dynamic range of 96db according to maths.

DAB, Vinyl and FM, less.

A good recording may be anywhere between 8 to 20 or so.

But I haven't a clue what that all means to SNR if anything.

And I am too tired and basically disinterested to look it up although if someone could explain, I'd probably read it. Head too full of Csharp today.

 

[shooter]

I think fr0g meant the dynamic range of the music and not the potential dynamic range of the format?

Or am I confused too?:?

You see, thisis where us with a little knowledge get mixed up.

CD has a potential dynamic range of 96db according to maths.

DAB, Vinyl and FM, less.

A good recording may be anywhere between 8 to 20 or so.

But I haven't a clue what that all means to SNR if anything.

And I am too tired and basically disinterested to look it up although if someone could explain, I'd probably read it. Head too full of Csharp today.

The true dynamic range of the cd instead of the dynamic range of the format? Yes i think your right here, it is less than the format, after all the process of recording is a compresion of the original live performance, if it wasn't then then you would never hear what is on a disc. I presume then that the actual process of compresion when recording does so to a point well below the format then as the same as DAB radio pads out in zero's to achieve the format dynamic range, in the case of CD's [PCM] 96db's. :?

 

[McRagefit]

Just wanted to add my experience here

I bought the PM/CD/ST 6003 combo about half a year ago and am very satisfied with the ST6003's sound quality. With a good broadcast (mainly the classical radio channel), it sounds almost the same as my CD6003!

 

[dfa2124]

I have a pretty humble hi-fi system myself but it is good enough for me to tell the difference with different tuners I have hooked up to it. For me, a recently-acquired Yamaha T-2 FM tuner has produced the most magical sounds I've ever heard from my set-up. There is a vibrancy and fullness to the sound that just sounds true-to-life. I have read that there is a lot of unit-to-unit variation on these tuners probably because of their age but after using mine for a while it definitely seems to be performing up to spec so I must have got a good one

Mind you some say that the T-2 is better than the highly-revered Yamaha CT-7000, and perhaps the good ones are.

 

[Anonymous]

First of all, we need to separate two worlds, the analog and the digital.

I think, that the original question is about standard analog stereo (MPX) FM broadcasting, in the band from 88-108 Mhz, and the CD.

IMHO, using a high quality FM tuner , and, in the broadcaster side, thanks to the high performance (internal digital processing) MPX encoders (modulators) as the ORBAN OPTIMOD FM 8600, and transmitter drivers (this block converts the carrier+mpx=FM stereo), you can get a high grade of listening satisfaction, but, when you switch to CD, the difference in the high end is very noticeable. It's simple: FM top frequency is 15000-15500 Hz, according to the standard, and CD is 20000.

Again, there are two different worlds, digital and analog, and we need to keep this on mind at the time of make any judgements and reach a conclusion.

 

[Anonymous]

i use a denon 260l tuner 30quid from cash converters..its very nice, im not sure its a good comparison to cd? theres something about fm that seems to make the sound softer? more like a record or casette tape...i had my sky box going thru the hifi, compared radio three to fm radio three....waste of time to be honest, there was no comparison...

 

[MajorFubar]

FM top frequency is 15000-15500 Hz, according to the standard, and CD is 20000.

FM may not sound quite as good as CD but that's not the main reason why, even those of us who don't have any hope in hell of hearing 15K+ can tell the difference