I've had a lifelong love affair with radio. I was a huge Howard Stern fan, back when he was funny, and I'm into political talk, but music has always been the biggest draw. I find most of the new music I buy on the radio.
A great DJ can turn you onto great music. They work as filters, filtering out the crap, and playing stuff you might not hear anywhere else. That's what makes them great DJs.
Scelsa's on Sirius-XM's "The Loft" channel.
(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)I've been listening to Vin Scelsa since the early 1970s, starting with, I think, WABC-FM in New York City. His sets, now on Sirius/XM Satellite Radio can go on for 30 minutes or more, and the way he weaves together tunes from rock, jazz, classical, world, strange and wonderfully obscure music is unmatched. His deep knowledge and vast music library (he broadcasts out of his house) should be cited as some sort national treasure. There's something about the way Scelsa makes musical connections I never tire of.
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That blurry thing under the display is the SR-H2000.
(Credit: Sirius XM)I went to Sirius XM's New York City headquarters on Wednesday to see what's new. They showed a bunch of docking units and the like, but the only new product that got my juices flowing was a new home tuner, the sleek-looking SR-H2000.
You might think a brand new Sirius tuner (not a table radio) intended to be used with a stereo or home theater system would also offer access to all XM channels, but that's not the case. Sirius subscribers can add "The Best of XM" package for a small upcharge on their monthly bill.
The SR-H2000 includes a wired 12-volt IR input, a menu-selected RS232 control, and an F-type antenna connector. By adding a SIRIUSConnect Tuner or Home Dock, the SR-H2000 can play two different channels simultaneously in separate rooms.
The SR-H2000 features a video output that can be used to display the user interface and programming information on your TV. The included rackmount hardware allows the SR-H2000 to be mounted flush with the front of a rack. You can pause and replay up to 44 minutes of live satellite radio.
No one at Sirius mentioned sound quality, and why would they? It's pretty miserable and I doubt the SR-H2000 will improve my opinion of Sirius' sound.
The new SR-H2000 will be available in the fall primarily through custom installers and specialty retailers for a suggested retail price of $349.
CNET News Poll
(Credit:
Steve Guttenberg)
What's wrong with you?
Doesn't everybody have at least one of these things? I'm just curious, is there anyone out there who flat-out refuses to buy an iPod or Zune or whatever? Are you just bucking the trend? Oh, and please tell us how old you are. I want to know if there are any iPod-less kids reading the Audiophiliac.
(Credit:
Steve Guttenberg)
Stern loves to count the 20 million Sirius XM subscribers as listeners, and his rabid fan base believes him!
Come on, that's a huge stretch, even for the former "King of all Media." Intentionally equating potential audience with actual listeners is classic Stern BS. The former King never made another movie or wrote another book. He's the King of Satellite Radio, and he works for a company that NEVER posted a profit during his reign (it continues to post losses every quarter). Sirius XM stock has been lingering around thirty-three cents a share for the past month or so.
I'm just waiting for Stern to advise his buddy, Sirius XM CEO Mel Karmazin, to boost profitability by eliminating all of the other channels. Stern is the big draw, so why waste resources with all those other channels? I wonder how fast the 20 million number would plummet.
Before the Sirius XM merger "Daily News" writer David Hinckley reported that "Arbitron has released its first-ever ratings for XM and Sirius, covering April-June 2007, and they show that in an average week, 1,225,000 listeners at some point heard Stern." That's the TOTAL for the week, so at any given moment, Stern has maybe a few hundred thousand listeners. Anyway you look at it, that's a sorry ratings number for the former terrestrial radio god.
Arbitron also said that one other satellite channel--XM's "Top 20 on 20" - topped a million during that April-June 2007 ratings period. Since Sirius XM doesn't release its internal ratings, we don't have any way to verify Stern's claims, or other satellite radio shows' numbers.
On today's show Stern admitted that, yes, he has fewer listeners than he did when he was on terrestrial radio, but wouldn't go so far as to say lots of terrestrial radio personalities have far more listeners than he does now.
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How's the Sirius XM satellite radio monopoly working out for subscribers? Not so well. Now that Sirius XM is the only game in town, it's nudging up fees for subscribers. Nice!
The one and only satellite radio company's boasts of its ever-increasing subscriber base are gone now, and the decline is significant. The number floating around the Internet is a loss of 400,000 subscribers. That still leaves 18.6 million, but there's no way of knowing how many of that number are full-price-paying subscribers.
Could the subscriber losses be attributed to recent price hikes? The family plan package went from $6.99 to $8.99 a month and there's a monthly $2.99 fee to receive Sirius XM stations over the Internet. That service was previously free.
Back in March of last year I asked who was going to pay for the merger, and now we know. We've lost favorite channels and pay more for the service. So please explain why the merger was such a swell idea?
And what about Howard Stern? His megabucks contract is nearing its end; can Sirius XM hang on to the former terrestrial radio god now that he's faded into near oblivion? Hunkered down on satellite radio, Stern's visibility ain't what it used to be.
But if the 2 million Stern fans paid an extra $2 a month for the privilege of hearing his semi-daily genius, would that help Sirius XM show its first-ever profit?
Over the past year or so, Sirius' signal quality has worsened. Again, the post-merger performance woes are widespread. My Sirius signals have improved somewhat in the last two months, but I still experience signal dropouts lasting a few seconds several times a day.
How about you?
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(Credit:
Steve Guttenberg)
Sirius Satellite Radio has a lot on its plate. Shock jock Howard Stern is already making noises about leaving after his contract expires in a couple of years, the stock price is in the tank, and the company has huge debt.
All of that shouldn't matter to subscribers, of which I am one. But the frequent signal dropouts are really getting out of hand.
I had similar problems in the early days, but after a while, the dropouts became rare. Months would go by without signal interruptions, but about six months ago, the off-and-on signal problems returned.
Sometimes, the dropout lasts just a few seconds but occurs many times an hour. My Sirius home radio hasn't budged since I first got it many years ago, and my antenna is pretty much in the same place it has always been, but lately, the signal regularly disappears for minutes at a time before sputtering back to life.
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Sony's XDR-F1HD HD Radio has developed a real buzz among my audiophile pals; on second thought maybe buzz isn't the right word. It's the quietest, noise-free radio I've ever used.
These guys can be real snobs and only listen to ultra-high-end components, and some wouldn't be caught dead using mainstream gear with their hi-fis, and yet they're all going ga-ga over the Sony. We're all thinking it's too good to be true.
I originally heard about the Sony from Steven Stone, a writer friend, and then from an engineer at an American high-end audio company known for making awesome tuners that sell for thousands of dollars. The engineer was positively gushing about how good the XDR-F1HD is; not just that it sounded great, but also because it pulls in tough-to-receive analog stations with lower noise and distortion than tuners that sell for big bucks. You can read my full CNET review here.
I rushed right out and bought an XDR-F1HD from Amazon, and sure nuff, it's true, the little Sony is no baloney. Analog FM stations came in like gangbusters, clean as a whistle, and HD stations, like my favorite jazz station WBGO had "CD quality" sound. That phrase is tossed around a lot, but this time it's for real. I listened to WBGO with the Sony over my high-end system with Magnepan 3.6/R speakers, and the sound was amazing. It's day and night better than what I get from Sirius Satellite Radio, which is almost unlistenable over those speakers.
... Read moreI read Matt Rosoff's Digital Noise blog all the time, and his recent lamenting radio's irrelevance hit me hard.
I think Matt was mostly referring to AM or FM radio, but what about Internet or satellite radio? Me, I'm still a die hard Sirius subscriber and listen to Left of Center, Sirius Disorder, and Underground Garage channels many hours a day. They turn me onto new music all the time, so I buy an average of two CDs a week.
(Credit:
Steve Guttenberg)
Of course, now that the hoopla over the Siriius/XM merger has died down and the stock price hovers around fifty cents, it seems like the stockholders don't have that strong a belief in the future of satellite radio. Or maybe they finally realized there are not enough people willing to pay $12.95 a month for commercial-free radio to make Sirius, er, profitable? Gee, I wonder if Howard Stern is the only one to score big bucks in the satellite radio biz? Did he cash out his Sirius stock long ago?
As for AM/FM terrestrial radio music stations, the audience for non-oldies music is too small to support commercial stations anymore. Matt's observation, "But apart from college radio, nobody's playing cutting-edge rock and roll with potentially broad appeal," rings true to me. Too bad.
Hey, MTV gave up on music long ago, let's face it, when the youth market isn't all that interested in music, music's future looks pretty dim. And it's not the big, bad record labels fault, no, music's appeal is fading. Then again, when you're not paying for music, it proves it's not worth anything. No wonder even "free" music on the radio can't hold its own anymore. It's worth less than zero...
Do you listen to music over AM, FM, Sirius, or Internet radio?
Feel the glow!
(Credit: Shenzhen V.A.L. Technology Co., Ltd)If you've had your fill of swoopy iPod speakers and yearn for the good old days check out the R601 Tube Hi-Fi FM/AM Classic Radio manufactured in China by Shenzhen V.A.L. Technology Co., Ltd. It's a modern vacuum tube amplified table radio, and a major step up from the typical cheesy retro radios you see in chain stores. You know the type, a flimsy plastic box with a crappy radio tucked inside. The R601P is the real deal.
This bad boy, all-tube radio pumps out 7 watts over its 4 inch driver, and even features an ultra cool Magic Eye signal strength tuning "meter." The radio's wood case measures 12 inches wide, 8.5 high and 7.5 deep. It weighs 15 pounds. It's not totally retro, the R601P is magnetically shielded to eliminate monitor and TV screen interference. An iPod dock isn't included, but you can hookup an iPod over the R601P's input jack. An optional subwoofer is offered.
If R601P's mono sound is a little too retro for your tastes, move on up to the R801 Tube Hi-Fi Stereo Classic Radio ($849). The radios are available in the US through Quest for Sound.
Now with stereo!
(Credit: Shenzhen V.A.L. Technology Co., Ltd)
Wireless speakers usually come with a lot of wires.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Fact is, all of the wireless speakers I've reviewed for CNET still use speaker wires to do what speaker wires always do, deliver audio signals from power amplifiers to the speakers. And since wireless speakers have built-in power amplifiers, they need to be plugged into an AC wall outlet. So where a standard speaker has one wire, the wireless speaker has at least two! The "wireless" part refers to the system's ability to wirelessly transmit audio signals from the front of the room to the surround speakers.
The two wireless transmission systems, infrared and radio frequency, are fraught with problems. They all too frequently add noise, hiss, and pops--and when they're not adding those nasties--they just quit entirely and the sound cuts out. Infrared systems beam light from a transmitter, usually placed somewhere near the A/V receiver or home theater in a box DVD player, to the wireless speakers (so there must be a clear line of sight between the transmitter and the speakers). Depending on the room's physical layout, that may or may not be easy to implement. Radio frequency systems get around that hassle, but can have noise and radio frequency interference problems of their own.
Oh, and for the most part wireless speakers are pretty lame sounding speakers. They're typically woofers only, one-way systems--eliminating the tweeter gets around some of the noise problems associated with wireless speakers--and always at the cost of eliminating treble detail. Hi-fi they're not.
KEF's Universal Kit.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Now, that's I've totally trashed the wireless fantasy, there's one wireless system that I can get behind, KEF's Universal Wireless Kit. The "universal" tag refers to the kit's ability to be used with almost any speakers: big ones, small ones, you name it. I used the kit with my high-end Dynaudio Contour 1.1 speakers, and came away impressed with the wireless KEF's sonics. That said, even the KEF system comes with a big mess 'o' wires. Reality bites.
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