"Streaming Audio' vs. HDRadio

The determining factor here is definitely the bitrate of the stream. If you have dialup, it's impossible to get a high quality stream as the bandwidth just won't support it. My experience is a 64Kb stream is listenable on computer speakers at work, but on my big rig it has to be at least 128Kb to be enjoyable. If you use iTunes, all the radio stations there have the bitrate indicated - you can experiment and hear the differences at the different speeds.

If you want to hear what streaming radio could sound like in a perfect world, listen to KWVA:

http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~kwva/kwva.ram

They stream RealAudio at 320Kb! The stream is WAY better than their broadcast signal and with my cable modem Internet access I never have dropouts. Pure college radio joy.

David

The determining factor is not just bitrate. It's also the choice of codec. 48kbps AAC+ will sound significantly better than 64kbps MP3. XM, I believe, uses the former.

All things being equal, of course, more bits is better. And I'd certainly expect 320kbps anything to outperform over-the-air radio.

Pabelson,

While I agree the choice of codec makes a difference, the problem is we rarely get to make that choice in the streaming radio world. I agree that at the same bitrate, AAC beats MP3 - Ogg Vorbis probably beats both. But I'm not aware of any free Internet stations (or even pay ones) that use AAC. Generally they use one of either MP3, Real, or Windows Media - occasionally they'll offer two of the three. KWVA used to offer 192Kb MP3 and 192Kb Real, but the Real stream sounded so much better that all their users (including me) flocked to it, so they reallocated their bandwidth as 64Kb MP3 and 320Kb Real.

The biggest problem with Internet stations is they tend to be run on a shoestring, so they come and go at a pretty rapid rate. Maybe we should call that the biterate. :-)

Interesting. I would have thought that an OTA HD feed would be better. It seems that I just saved some money on buying an in-house HD Radio receiver.

Unclejeff,

I see you've posted to other HD radio threads in the past. If some of the posters in those threads are correct in their assumption that HD radio is at most 96Kb, I think that explains why HD radio is inferior to a good Internet stream. At a much lower bitrate, there's just not the same fidelity.

Satellite and HD radio make sense for moving targets like vehicles or walker/runners, but will have a tough time competing, at least on sound quality, at fixed installations, where you have a lot more options.