Why does NPR 'sound better?'

[JimiJohnB]

Now I may be full of it or always right next to the transmitter, but I've often wondered why NPR's signal sounds so much 'cleaner' than other radio stations. Generally speaking I think FM radio sounds pretty darned terrible no matter how good the tuner, but NPR's signal is usually the standout from the field, at least where I'm from. Am I just really close to the transmitter or do they do (or don't do) something to their signal compared to other stations. I'm in Memphis, by the way.

[grumpy]

Most NPR stations do not compress the signal like all other stations.

[Andyman]

I may be wrong, but I believe they may use less compression in their signals, which makes the music sound fuller and more lifelike.

I'm not an engineer, but I believe that compressing the signal allows it to be broadcast further, meaning a bigger audience, meaning higher rates for ads and more profit, something public radio doesn't have to worry about (as much).

Could be wrong though.

[JimiJohnB]

I wondered if it might have something to do with compression as I've heard many people complain about this before, but I'm still confused as to what exactly is meant when a signal is compressed.

[merrylander]

Compression is typically applied to the music and it simply means that the soft passages are boosted and the loud passages are lowered, giving a signal with little dynamic range much like they do with commercials, where the actors are trained to speak at a near constant volume level. This way the station engineer know what the 'peaks' are and can then modulate the RF signal at a higher average level.

I don't listen to the local NPR station very much, but the local classical music station does not use compression which is great, but can make for fun in the car. Fortunately the volume controls are on the steering wheel right under my right thumb.

Rob

[DanTana]

I've been listening to both classical and jazz FM much more now. I notice both sound noticebly better than "most" rock and roll stations do. I heard compression has a big part in this, I know I can hear a definite difference in sound quality.

[BrianB]

NPR sounds better because it's run by liberals! :)

[lynnm]

The folks are right about the compression issue. Here in Canada we have a national broadcaster called the CBC (The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) which broadcasts in both AM and FM and which uses little or no compression. The sound quality of these stations is vastly superior to any commercial broadcaster.

When travelling I do not need to look up the frequency as I know the "sound" of the CBC.

[heathkit tv]

It sounds better due to a subliminal subcarrier freq that is essentially mind control scheme set in place by the Illuminati and the new world order.

Don't you guys and gals know anything?

Anthony

P.S. Don't believe in the Illuminati? The above was a goof, but the spooky thing is that my spell check didn't identify that as being a mispelled word. Obviously that's because the program was written with that already loaded. The things that make you go Hmmmmm!

[soundhd]

If you open the window on the side of your house that the station is broadcasting from it will sound even better.......:withstpd:

All kidding aside, most public radio stations go out of thier way to have a better broadcast signal, less/no compression, the most up-todate gear.........ect plus better music........:)

[Blue Meanie]

Originally posted by BrianB
NPR sounds better because it's run by liberals! :)

I see that they're giving away free lobotomy coupons in boxes of Little Friskies again!:rolleyes:

[B3Nut]

Oh, they do use compression...all radio stations have a comp/limiter at the xmitter to prevent overmodulation. However, they set it *properly* and don't use it to squeeze every last drop of volume from already stupidly-squashed modern CD's. Therefore, the audio is actually listenable. :)

TP

[crooner]

absolutely correct B3Nut, they have to use compression, otherwise the hiss during low passages would be unbearable. That is exactly what happens when I use my flea size FM transmitter to broadcast music to my McIntosh MR67 tuner. The overall sound quality is very good, but low passages are drowned in hiss. Compression would take care of that.

I would say that NPR uses a standard compressor and regular FM stations use all kinds of boxes to alter the signal and of course this destroys the sound quality. But in this day and age of MP3 who cares?

BTW, my local NPR outlet cleverly switches off the multiplex stereo encoder during most of the day when they broadcast news and other spoken material. They turn it on at night for their classical music programming.

Regards,

crooner

[VinylHanger]

I listen to our local NPR station when they broadcast music to test new tuners, also the local classical station,and I love the reggea on the weekend, just good tunes and beter sound.
I was sitting in the Merc the other night and tuned to the classical station and they were spinning vinyl. my wife came in and wondered about the big grin on my face and how I knew it was vinyl. I told her that I could hear the occasional snap and pop. She thought I was very odd :cool:

[jimmy]

Try a modified tube type FM tuner. Mine plays close to CD playback on a quality tube amp thru PROAC 2.5 Response speakers.

Go to www.hhscott.com & view the Scott 350D mods in the forum. If you get one, you will never look back.

[heathkit tv]

Originally posted by VinylHanger
I listen to our local NPR station when they broadcast music to test new tuners, also the local classical station,and I love the reggea on the weekend, just good tunes and beter sound.
I was sitting in the Merc the other night and tuned to the classical station and they were spinning vinyl. my wife came in and wondered about the big grin on my face and how I knew it was vinyl. I told her that I could hear the occasional snap and pop. She thought I was very odd :cool:

The snap crackle and pop comment reminded me of a friend of the family boasting that a sign of a quality hi fi rig was the sensitivity and amount of pops you heard while playing a record!! Of course this was in the early 60's and obviously he was one of those "experts" of nothing.

Anthony

[joelll]

WGBH-Boston also turns off stereo encoding during news broadcast hours, which is all the time on weekdays.

Local college radio stations broadcast with little or no compression. Someday I might ask local independent stations (and the WFNX network) about their signal compression and encoding. Mmm, radio geekiness.

Among the zillions of reasons I persist in living ni one of the most expensive parts of the country is that there are some fairly decent radio stations to listen to.

[crooner]

Yes, I am fortunate to live in the San Diego area. While the FM spectrum is crowded with stations (with Mexico nearby), the quality of the local College Jazz FM station is outstanding. They even broadcast live jazz concerts! NPR is excellent as well.

There is also a good classical station broacasting from Tijuana, Mexico. Judging from the sound quality, they seem to use little compression as well.


Regards,
crooner

[JoZmo]

Among the zillions of reasons I persist in living ni one of the most expensive parts of the country is that there are some fairly decent radio stations to listen to.

Joelll, I suppose you may already know but, WERS(Emerson College) and WHRB (Harvard) also broardcast with little or no compression.

I especially enjoy the Jazz Oasis betweem 10:00-2:00pm on ERS and The Jazz Spectrum between 5am and 1pm WHRB.

Sometimes you can hear the pops and snaps of vinyl they play and I especially like the fact that the format is free and easy with no playlists to adhere to.

And the biggest plus of all... NO COMERCIALS! :yes:

[Jeffhs]

I can get two NPR stations here. One is the main signal from the NPR station in Cleveland; the other is a translator station for an NPR affiliate some 70 miles southwest of here. The NPR stations are about the only good FM radio left in this area (35 miles from Cleveland, 45 miles from the broadcast transmitters). The rest of them play rock or country and have so many commercials every hour it's disgusting (honestly, it's as bad as if not worse than TV; they run more commercials than music or programs, respectively). There is a completely different kind of FM programming between 88.1 and 92.1 and, as another poster noted here, the sound is much better.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is located in Cleveland. I've often wondered if that is or isn't the reason almost all the city's FM stations play rock or oldies. I like oldies (I listen to the oldies FM station in Cleveland quite a bit), but there are times I wish there were a little more variety on the FM radio dial. I can remember when the FMs in Cleveland played easy listening in the '60s and '70s, a format that is all but extinct on FM radio anywhere in the country these days. I got around the problem, kinda, by patching the audio output from my cable box into my stereo. I have Comcast digital cable, which offers 30 channels of CD-quality music. One of them, channel 427, is the easy-listening station. I put that on when I get tired of listening to the loudmouth DJs and commercials on my favorite oldies station; it's like a breath of fresh air.

BTW, the classical station in Cleveland was recently moved from 95.5 MHz to 104.9, which means I can no longer hear it here (there is a strong country station on 104.7 from the next town east of me that blanks out the classical music station).

I've heard of stations making these changes in hopes of drawing more listeners, but this is ridiculous. In one fell swoop the man who has owned the Cleveland classical station since it went on the air in 1962 has all but lost much of his audience east of town. The station has tried to alleviate the problem by simulcasting its programming over a local AM station east of Cleveland, but to me that's just a stopgap measure, not a true solution. After all, IMO, no one is going to listen to a dinky little 1kW AM station on an expensive stereo rig. Heck, the AM station the Cleveland classical station is simulcast over doesn't even broadcast in AM stereo.

A translator station for the FM would have been a much better way around the reception problems east of the city. The classical station is doing well enough financially that it could easily afford to put a low-power translator station at the high point of Lake County, Ohio (where the country station blanks out the classical one, and where the problem is worst) to rebroadcast the station to this area. IMO, if they don't do this or come up with some kind of real solution to the reception problems I mentioned, the classical station will find itself off the air before they know it, the fact that they have been on the air in Cleveland over four decades notwithstanding.

[Andyman]

I gotta admit I find it ironic that the music classic rock stations play comes from the "Anti-Establishment" counter culture generation, but is sponsored by ripoff mortgage companies and plastic surgeons selling boob jobs. Led Zeps "Rock n Roll" in Cadillac commercials.

Looks like the idealism of youth meets the cold, cruel real world. :(

[Celt]

Use to be many decent stations around here, all but ours ran copious amounts of compression. Nowadays, the only one worth listening to anymore is our local NPR which IMO has one of the best audio feeds I've ever heard.

[Jeffhs]

Originally posted by Andyman
I gotta admit I find it ironic that the music classic rock stations play comes from the "Anti-Establishment" counter culture generation, but is sponsored by ripoff mortgage companies and plastic surgeons selling boob jobs. Led Zeps "Rock n Roll" in Cadillac commercials.

Looks like the idealism of youth meets the cold, cruel real world. :(


Andy, I grew up in the late '60s-early '70s and never gave a second thought to what the AM stations in my area (I lived in the Cleveland area at the time before moving here just beyond the suburbs almost five years ago) were playing. There is a classic rock FM station in Cleveland that plays a lot of the so-called music I grew up with (I listen to the station a lot, in addition to the oldies one, these days), but I never gave much thought until now to the kind of music they play.

The classic-rock station does play a lot of late-60s-early-'70s anti-establishment stuff (still, years after that era was supposed to have ended), but they have quite a few neutral records from the period as well. The hard-rock station in Cleveland started out playing counter-culture music (Viet Nam war protest songs, drug culture stuff, etc.) when it went from automated hits in 1968 to live DJs in the early '70s, but now they play rock so loud and noisy I wouldn't touch the station with a 10-foot speaker cable for regular listening. In fact, I haven't listened to that particular station in perhaps 15 years and don't listen to it now, except once in a great while I will tune in to see what they are up to.

The station which is now Cleveland's oldies station was operated by NBC from 1965 until 1972 or so. During that time, it played automated easy listening and had programs from the NBC radio network (one of my favorites was the NBC Monitor Beacon, a nationally-broadcast network radio variety show which was on NBC radio, and Cleveland's then-WKYC-AM 1100 and FM 105.7 of course, every weekend from 1955 to 1975).

Starting around the mid-'70s and continuing until it went to its present oldies format in 1981, though, the station changed hands and formats several times in search of the one which would draw the most listeners. The oldies format has been there over 20 years now, but in this age of stations owned by large media giants (the oldies station in Cleveland is presently owned by Clear Channel Worldwide, which also operates their companion AM station) changing formats and being sold almost literally at the drop of a hat, who knows what it might be playing tomorrow, next week, next month or next year?

There is a morning team on the oldies station I cannot stand and will not listen to (thank goodness I'm usually asleep when their show is on). These people play lots of oldies, but they also seem to have a warped sense of humor. I guess that's what they figure young people today want to hear on early-morning rock radio. I am almost 48 years old and can't stand the stuff, but the station's management must feel there are enough people 25 and more years younger than I out there listening yet to make it worthwhile to keep that morning team on the air.

[timoteus]

If you happen to use a tuner that has a deviation meter you can use that to verify what you're hearing. An overly compressed broadcast will have very little swing on the meter, say from 80 -100%. Often an independent, college, or NPR station will swing between 20-100%. I use this quite a bit when I'm spinning through the stations. If I come across something I want to hear and it sounds flat and lifeless, I'll switch the meter from multipath to deviation mode. The action on the meter tells me what's going on at the station.

[HarryB]

I live about an hour south of Memphis where most of the stations are owned by Clear Channel. Most of the Classic rock stations play the same stuff over and over . Groups like Boston and Led Zepplin. I grew up on the '70s rock. It does get old when they wear out a few songs from several bands. They also have too many commercials. The 1 breath of fresh air is the Mississippi Public Broadcasting stations. They are Public Radio and they have 8 transmitters all over the state which means thay can be picked up in other states as well. (great for traveling)
They play Classical music during the day and sometimes jazz at night on weekends.
We have a local college station that broadcasts out of Ole Miss. They mostly play alternative though. JMHO though

Harry

[heathkit tv]

I have a half baked theory that a lot of today's racism can be blamed somewhat on the specialization of radio station genre.

The majority of today's stations are niche marketing oriented....rap, rock, country etc. Up thru the 70's all you basically had were top 40 and classical. Overall much more one size fits all. Perhaps it could be argued that this left certain flavors out but now we're all pigeon holed into whatever segment that interests and ISOLATES us.

Separate but equal?

Anthony

[ha1156w]

Yep, it's Clear Channel that has ruined FM radio for good. They will do ANYTHING and I mean WHATEVER IT TAKES to squeeze out the last revenue penny out of each of their stations. The transmitter-hopping that has happened is also a result of Clear Channel trying to shuffle their coverage for the most advertising dollars. They give their higher rated stations the bigger coverage areas so that they can charge more for the airtime. The compression is high so that dial-scanners will get their ears perked up by that particular station. There's an excellent discussion on Salon.com about CC and their habits...you have to deal with their stupid day-pass system (click on "problems viewing?" at the bottom and you get a slideshow version -- less bandwidth hungry and faster to click through on broadband)

http://dir.salon.com/ent/feature/2001/04/30/clear_channel/index.html

What an eye-opener! They are hated in the radio industry because of personnel issues. When the highly successful KDGE-FM was sold to clear channel in 1996(?) , the staff secured the studio and put "Macarena" on infinite repeat as a revolt. I think CC had fired them all and the staff did this as their last "action" at KDGE. Lasted for something like 2 days before something else started playing!

ha1156w
Dallas TX

[RobV]

I always thought the NPR station around here had nice sound because we taxpayers are paying for the finest cutting edge equipment. :D

The rock station in this area with the best programming is so greedy that not only do they compress their signal, but they don't even broadcast in stereo in order to expand their range. :puke:

RobV

[kby]

Originally posted by RobV
I always thought the NPR station around here had nice sound because we taxpayers are paying for the finest cutting edge equipment. :D
...
RobV

You don't listen to too many pledge drives, I guess. The claim is they get very little gummint money these days (and it's probably true).-kby

p.s. the local classical NPR station is in the middle of a 2 week pledge drive here...

[Andyman]

Originally posted by kby
You don't listen to too many pledge drives, I guess. The claim is they get very little gummint money these days (and it's probably true).-kby

p.s. the local classical NPR station is in the middle of a 2 week pledge drive here...

I coughed up my buck-a-week for our local NPR last week. I originally was going to go lower, but giving up a pop or two for what they provide is well worth it. I prefer music, some news and intelligent discussion to much of the cutesey babble, inane babble and just plain scuzzball shenanigans of some of these local stations chasing ratings (and ad $$$)

[Reel 2 Reel]

Originally posted by kby
You don't listen to too many pledge drives, I guess. The claim is they get very little gummint money these days (and it's probably true).-kby



Thats because theres a Right wing conservative in office!!!

Now put a left wing Liberal in there and watch where your money goes!!!

Just kidding ...I know it doesnt reely have anything to do with it!!!