Pioneer and HD Radio

[DoobieBrother 10+ year member]

Radio stations in my area have been advertising the heck out of HD radio. That and I'm seeing more advertisements for HD hardware. Combine that with various H.U. manufacturers being either HD ready or HD built int, I'm wondering about Pioneer. I've been questioning Pioneer every since I bought my 880PRS last year and I continue to get nothing but the, "sorry, we don't have any information on what Pioneer will be doing regarding HD radio" type answers.

So, here's my question. Are they just being tight lipped and late to the game? Or are they going to not support it and hope it just goes away? Or what? It's frustrating becaus I want to check out HD. Seems there is more and more coverage of it in my are (DFW), but I don't really want to buy a new H.U.

Thoughts?

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[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

HD radio IMO is hardly the great deal they make it out to be. While the programming is nominally "free" the hardware to recieve it is incredibly expensive at the moment. For the cost of the HD receiver alone you've bought your XM or Sirius RX and 2 years of your subscription, have radio reception everywhere, and don't have to deal with commercials or censorship.

 

[gnet158 10+ year member]

HD radio is all hype, in the end you’ll still have to listen to commercials and never find anything you want to listen to. Before I added Sirius to my truck I was lucky to find 3 songs I liked on the radio during my commute. Now I have an endless list of songs that I like and no commercials. That is completely worth .50 a day.

 

[Clean Sound 10+ year member]

There seems to be a large contingent of HD Radio bashers out there and on this forum, which is generally about quality, I find it hard to believe. Whenever somone asks about HD Radio we hear more about how much better satelite radio is etc., given the selection and non commercials. But I had XM Radio and found the quality of the sound to be awfull. My experience has been the better your stereo the more you notice how awfull satelite is primarily because of the compression codecs etc., Secondly, I did not find that classic rock stations to be better that the FM classic rock stations in my area and given the fact tht they sounded so bad, I ended up never listening to them. On the other hand, I would love to hear my local stations in HD especially if the SQ is superior. But thats my opinion.

My understanding of HD Radio is that the codecs are better but still compressed but I am eager to hear it and give it a try. I have the Pioneer deh p780mp and it seems to be made for HD Radio given all the available space on the screen. However, I too have contacted Pioneer on numerous occassions and have received no information. My retailor, Tweeter, says check back in March/April when they release more of their newer models.

If not, Ibiquity is working on a universal model due out in the summer which is said to work with after market manufacturers inlcuding Pioneer. This would retail for about $250.00. Your deck needs to be satelite ready and then you plug their HD tuner plus the appropriate adapter and it will work. We shall see.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

The quality of your satellite sound is going to depend on the type of connection you have between the tuner and the system. If you have an FM modulator, then, yes, it will **** hard. Mine is hardwired and sounds night and day better than any FM station. It will never be fully CD quality, but the difference is hardly noticable in my system over the road/exhaust noise in my car anyway. Factor in that pretty much every radio station here in Vegas is crap, and the choice is a no brainer. If HD were an inexpensive feature, I *might* give it a listen, but for over $300, not a chance in hell.

 

[Lil Poot 5,000+ posts]

The quality of your satellite sound is going to depend on the type of connection you have between the tuner and the system. If you have an FM modulator, then, yes, it will **** hard. Mine is hardwired and sounds night and day better than any FM station. It will never be fully CD quality, but the difference is hardly noticable in my system over the road/exhaust noise in my car anyway. Factor in that pretty much every radio station here in Vegas is crap, and the choice is a no brainer. If HD were an inexpensive feature, I *might* give it a listen, but for over $300, not a chance in hell.

do you have sirius or xm? my sirius is about the same as fm's quality, but they also claimed cd quality, i was pissed when i heard it.

 

[2kchevy06civic 5,000+ posts]

xm sounds fine to me in my home audio setup since it's going directly into the receiver but move it into my dads car were he is using a tape to play it, it sounds like arsh. I've never listened to sirius but I enjoy xm's techno channels. Channel 80, 81,82,and 84 I think it is. I generally pay just for those channels, lol. I don't know much about this HD radio stuff but if I ever looked at it, cost would be my biggest concern.

 

[Lil Poot 5,000+ posts]

my sirius receiver is hooked right into my deck, should be the cleanest sirius possible, but it sounds terrible unless i keep it low.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

I've heard a lot about the lack of sound quality on Sirius. I have XM, and I went with XM because every review I read when I was deciding between the two 3 years ago said flat out that XM sounded better because of better compression algorithms. I honestly can't see HD radio being that much different as far as compression goes. Data rate is data rate. You can only stream so fast. Bandwidth is the limfac and HD isn't magic.

 

[2kchevy06civic 5,000+ posts]

well I guess I'm glad I picked XM then. lol

 

[PatFitz9 10+ year member]

I would definately have HD radio if it wasn't so expensive. I am curious about the quality though. I have had XM and Sirius, and I haven't had any issues with quality, each one was wired in though. however, i like the music on Sirius better. i'm going to wait a year to let all this stuff figure itself out (merges, technology, etc) and then choose one. I really like the radio stations in Chicago, so it's probably going to come down to price and quality.

 

[Lil Poot 5,000+ posts]

from what wikipedia says, it *****, and isnt digital.

 

[Lil Poot 5,000+ posts]

i do listen to a lot of howard stern though //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/fyi.gif.9f1f679348da7204ce960cfc74bca8e0.gif

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

from what wikipedia says, it *****, and isnt digital.

wiki ftl then. It may ****, but the HD portion of the signal IS digital.

 

[shovelhd 10+ year member]

It's both analog and digital. HD stands for Hybrid Digital, not High Definition as many people think. HD Radio adds digital subchannels to standard AM and FM radio broadcasts. If you don't have the tuner, you get the standard analog. If you do have the tuner, you can set it to automatically switch to digital with digital priority, digital only, or manual override.

I just picked up an HD Radio tuner for my Kenwood deck. $108 shipped with a $40 iBiquity rebate, $68 net. It's worth it just to check it out.