Why is FM so good?

Reading the review of the latest Magnum Dynalab £5k tuner in Hi-Fi Plus tonight on the train home got me thinking about the quality of FM.

- The frequency response is shit and there is nothing above 15khz
- Distortion is mediocre at best and often poor
- What we enjoy through our often state of the art analogue tuners has been heavily processed and will have been relayed by quite elderly, low resolution digital systems.

So why does a good R3 Prom concert, R4 play etc sound superb?

Do we actually like our music bathed in euphonic fuzzy distortions?

Are psychological factors at work - do we (often wrongly) assume that our tuners are a more direct window onto a good concert and adjust our expectations accordingly?

Any thoughts?

 

I've found exactly the same here in the states with live broadcasts and a top quality tuner. A live broadcast exceeds my best CDs and vinyl on the finest playback machines.

Personally, I can't accept the idea that euphonic distortions would allow the tuner to mimic a human voice with enough realism to send goosebumps up my arm or throw my head back in surprise to see who just entered the listening room (there's no one present of course.)

I've never heard of an explanation for this -I'm all ears though.

 

The limit of 15Khz is irrelevant with my hearing

Programmes vary in quality.. a Radio 4 play is often superb, Radio 3 better again (if you can actually enjoy the play without switching stations) Congratulations are due to the engineers I think.

I've seen it claimed that the broadcasts are heavily processed these days & we listen to a hard drive .. the Mp3 WAV thread shows me theres very little difference .. I should imagine even less with speech .

broadcasts late night are often better, possibly because there are far less external intrusions & we are more susceptible & relaxed- (I don't really subscribe to the quieter mains theory) Same thing applies to a film I can watch late evening but during the day my mind is too active. So sod the mains theory.. its more psychological.

I do think some programmes have a better set of engineers & broadcast at a higher quality .. Bob Harris is one but then its rarely a whole live broadcast
I hardly ever listen to Radio 3 except Late Junction so can't comment with live broadcasts

 

I agree Radio 3 is wonderful. I heard part of Choral Evensong today from Eton. Some of the singing was execrable, but the soudn was just amazing. I knew it was Eton even before I checked on the website because I could hear the jets going overhead! The organ had real low-end welly which I rarely get from a CD. Brilliant!

 

Any speculation as to how a supertuner provides such a convincing and realistic presentation with live broadcasts considering the known limitations? Surely it's not mass hysteria. Further proof we really don't have a handle on what's required for accurate or realistic reproduction perhaps?

 

Or that a quite basic specification is in fact good enough?

The refinements we think we require to get nth degree performance from our systems aren't required at all - or are overstated?

 

I don't think that's the case, rather we don't know, understand or hit the target with what's important measurement-wise. For example, I've temporarly placed a mid-level HK FM tuner in service until I can swing a new tuner head for my NAT 101 and the difference could be heard by the dead-especially with live broadcasts. The HK while not horrible isn't even in the ballgame compared to the 101. It sounds like a cardboard cut-out by comparison. A very electronic sound and at no time does it sound like the real thing. It's totally uninvolving yet I'd bet a beer it out specs my 101.

Evidently the transmission process for live broadcasts provides a less damaged signal with respect to what's important compared to the transfer/storage processes involved with CD and vinyl. I suppose if one of us knew why, he'd be rich;-)

 

By far the most likely explanation IMHO.

Chris

 

Is FM so good? Do you really think so Rob?

My Quad 77 FM Tuner is bettered by both my Beresford 7510 and Caiman DACs when fed data from:

1. The Optical out of my Freeview TV

2. The Optical Out of a Virgin Cable Box

3. The S/PDIF out (Optical or RCA) of my Squeezebox Classic.

The best quality is off internet where BBC bitrates are higher and AAC(+) coding is available. Most 128 kb/s streams in MP3, WMA or OGG will at least match R3 FM, and the higher bitrates pull ahead significantly.

I can only suppose that the FM transmission chain is adding something which some folk like to the signal - it can only be adding what's not there - as you say, distortion.

 

Some of the live broadcasts on BBC R2 sound superb and beat my CD playback hands down. I've always put it down to the poor quality of the recordings on the CDs themselves. The FM signal must be heavily compressed yet some of those live broadcasts sound much more dynamic than my CDs.

 

You would need compare that same broadcast via Freeview, Freesat and Cable Streams and with the iPlayer and WMA streams available on the internet to see if FM is where the quality lies.

 

Nail > Head.

 

easy enough to organise a recording of the various formats
name the day & R3 programme

I have 3 tuners I can set up one being DAB
simultaneous recording would be a bit awkward but a couple of minutes with each one should be achievable

 

I think DAB might prove to be the worst option.

My guess would be to rank thus:

1. iPlayer Stream (AAC+) (Squeezebox will play this with iPlayer pluggin)
2. Freeview/Freesat/Cable Stream 192kb/s MP2
3. BBC WMA stream (was 128kb/s last time I looked)
4. FM (given a good tuner and signal strength)
5. DAB

 

So, am I understanding some of you correctly that you hear more realistic reproduction via live broadcasts on an FM tuner but won't believe your ears because science says other reproduction devices have lower known distortions? In a nutshell, you'll trust science over your ears?

 

I don't know what others are saying, but I am saying my ears are telling me the Internet streams sound the best, and my FM tuner is near the bottom. I have listened by all the means I list above except DAB (Well I have, but a long time ago.)

At present I have both Quad FM Tuner and Freeview Streams immediately available. I can flick between R3 FM and R3 Freeview - the latter is better.

I have been in a position immediately to compare R3 iPlayer, R3 Virgin Cable and R3 FM. I then ranked the iPlayer (best), Virgin Cable (middle) FM (worst). That's using a Beresford Caiman for the digital radio and a Quad 77 Tuner for FM.

YMMV

 

Hi Brian,

I'm not familiar with your Quad tuner though they seem to be well regarded. My experience with many other tuners find most lacking when you challenge them with a live broadcast. A few however standout as better than any other home-based source IMO, but this is only with a live broadcast.

Cable and Satellite FM here in the states are both crap compared to over-the-air. Streaming radio here isn't much better but my laptop and desktop are probably to blame.

regards,

dave

 

Some of the US Internet Radio streams are extremely good.

You need a good (not necessarily expensive) DAC between your computer and your HiFi, or you have to use a streamer like Squeezebox which doubles as an Internet radio tuner. I can get fabulous stuff from all over the world.

The Squeezebox too is best used with an external DAC, althogh I have heard that the new Squeezbox touch has a much better internal DAC.

If I was to take the analogue output from the Freeview (DVB-T) box or from a Sat TV Box (DVB-S) and feed it to the HiFi the FM tuner would probably win. The secret is in the DAC.

 

I'll probably invest in a PC-based setup at some point though to be honest I prefer keeping my favorite pastime (music) as far away from work (computers) as possible;-)

regards,

dave

 

No. I do believe my ears. What I am saying is that a lot of CDs sound rubbish on my system compared with SOME live sessions broadcast on BBC Radio 2 FM.

So, either my CD replay system is rubbish or a lot of CDs are rubbish - would appear to be the conclusions.