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  #41  
Old 03-07-2019, 11:42 PM
Clark2 Clark2 is offline
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Back to the digging: I've been looking for something that ties the SBR trickery explicitly to research on psyschacoustics, but I'm still coming up dry. The closest I've found so far is, "the psychoacoustic part of the human brain tends to analyze higher frequencies with less accuracy," which isn't very satisfying. Maybe somebody in the Yahoo! HD Radio group has the technical knowledge to address this... -- Clark2
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  #42  
Old 03-09-2019, 08:54 AM
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If nothing else, you are certainly over-thinking this.
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  #43  
Old 03-26-2019, 04:51 PM
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I found a really good book covering quite thoroughly the subject of psycho-acoustics ["An Introduction to the Psychology of Hearing" (Sixth Edition), by Brian C.J. Moore]. In it is a very nice, brief summary of "perceptual coders" such as MP3. I've attached a copy here in case anyone (besides me) is interested.

There is nothing in this book, however, about Spectral Band Replication, which as I understand it, contributes a major part of the bit-rate compression achieved by newer coders like that used in HD Radio. I asked the author if there is any psycho-acoustic basis for SBR technique, and he responded (!) that it's more of an engineering technique than a psycho-acoustic technique: For many sound sources, the short-term spectrum at very high frequencies can be predicted moderately well from the short-term spectrum at moderately high frequencies, and this provides a basis for reconstructing the very high frequencies with artifacts that are "not too bad." -- Clark2
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  #44  
Old 07-02-2019, 11:11 PM
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What you may not recognize is the model number of this tuner - MD70. You won't find any mention of it on their website or anywhere else on the Internet. That's because there was only one made.

A few years ago, Magnum Dynalab was thinking about releasing a tuner with HD Radio abilities, and in fact, they made this one. It is an Etude quality FM tuner with digital HD Radio features.

Jim Richards at MD even has a black face plate for it.

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Last edited by Banter; 07-02-2019 at 11:39 PM.
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  #45  
Old 07-04-2019, 01:21 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Banter View Post
What you may not recognize is the model number of this tuner - MD70. You won't find any mention of it on their website or anywhere else on the Internet. That's because there was only one made.

A few years ago, Magnum Dynalab was thinking about releasing a tuner with HD Radio abilities, and in fact, they made this one. It is an Etude quality FM tuner with digital HD Radio features.

Jim Richards at MD even has a black face plate for it.

Yogi.
That's really cool to see! I was following MD at the time hoping for a release of this tuner. Thanks for posting it.
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  #46  
Old 07-04-2019, 07:33 PM
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I'm not sure how I feel about the looks of that one, I like a tuner that looks more traditional. I think Mc did a really good job on the looks of the MR88, MD's without the touch screens too and of course the Accuphase look excellent.
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  #47  
Old 07-05-2019, 12:46 AM
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Quote:
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I'm not sure how I feel about the looks of that one, I like a tuner that looks more traditional. I think Mc did a really good job on the looks of the MR88, MD's without the touch screens too and of course the Accuphase look excellent.
For the price this can not be compared with MR88. MD had very advance features on this. That left window is Bluetooth interface. They even had an APP for smartphones to control MD70. Very slick! AM/FM/HD for around thousand bucks.

I have MR88 and MD108T se. And I heard this MD70 - very very good SQ. Wonder why they did not pursue this product!

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Aurender A10 -> Mac C1100 -> 2 x Mac MC611 > Joseph Audio PERSPECTIVE2 Graphene

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Aurender A10 -> -> E470 > PMC Fact 12

Speakers: Monitor Audio PL200 , , Monitor Audio GX200
PMC Fact 12

Tidal -> Aurender S10 -> Accuphase DC-37 -> Accuphase E-470 -> Monitor Audio GX200

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  #48  
Old 07-05-2019, 10:19 AM
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... MD had very advance features on this ... Very slick! AM/FM/HD for around thousand bucks ... Wonder why they did not pursue this product!
I think that HD has no future in the marketplace, at least in the US, and MD and McIntosh's disinterest in HD is just a reflection of that. Yes, HD does work reliably in some locations, but that's not saying much. It's especially unreliable in the car - where radio listening is most common - as it audibly switches between the analog and digital signals.

And although iBiquity called its product "HD," it also acknowledged that it didn't stand for "high definition" because, after all, it isn't high definition, but low bitrate digital. The company set expectations for its product that it just couldn't meet, and that's never a good way to launch a product.

This lack of interest in HD is also reflected in HD programming, which mostly consists of automated retreads of other common FM programming. To be fair, this is a bit of a "chicken-and-egg" issue: Is consumer interest in HD low because of limited programming choices, or are the limited programming choices the result of low consumer interest? The result is the same either way.

I had high hopes when IBOC digital first debuted in the US. But the implementation was botched from the get-go, and now there's no catching up. One report shows that fewer than 15 percent of all US FM stations have adopted HD radio, so even much of the broadcast industry itself has forsaken this hobbled technology.
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  #49  
Old 07-05-2019, 09:19 PM
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cleeds - well said. 'HD' radio was never what it was proported to be on the SQ end of things. Unfortunately, many FM stations wasted their money/time on same.
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  #50  
Old 07-09-2019, 03:52 AM
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I recently purchased an MR 87. I have always had a "tuner" my most recent prior one being an MR 85. I have been extremely pleased with the MR 87. It is the only tuner that I have liked unequivocally. I use an FM locator site on Google which lists every FM station in my area up to about 70 miles. It pulls in so many stations clearly with beautiful sound that I stopped counting at around 40. An external antenna is critical to FM. I was never impressed by HD preferring analog. Recently there has been a lot of hype about HD and the MR 88 but I would rather have the MR 87, caring nothing for the frill of HD. The most recent advance in FM tuning is the digital signal processing allowing for adjacent and alternate channel selectivity to be very similar (60 and 66 db on the 87 respectively. On the McIntosh MR 80 it was 8 and 90 db in the Narrow mode which is the only audiophile quality mode for this tuner, IMO). Also, the other advance is analog to digital conversion and digital output which only the MR 87 and T-1200 possess. Maybe there are some others, I don't know. No question, the T-1200 is the best but at 3 times the price. Again, the quality of the external antenna is the key to FM quality. HD is IMO irrelevant unless you like MP3 quality audio.

I might mention the MR 80. It is generally referenced as an excellent older/vintage tuner. I owned one for several years and I tried to like it. I found the Super Narrow selectivity to be pretty worthless as it clearly compromised the audio quality. I almost always used the Narrow mode. In addition, it would simply not hold its presets. I'd carefully set the 4 presets and find the stations gone the next day and have to reset it. I sent the unit back to Mac twice to no avail. Also only 4 presets and no remote aside from a cable. The presets were quite odd, being solid hard surface metal. No tuning dial. Finally, I went to an MR 7083 which served my purposes well for many years but truth be known it was a forgettable component though it worked perfectly and was equal or superior to the vaunted MR 80 in every respect except for sound quality which was similar and it had a remote control feature. it certainly pulled in as many stations.

Last edited by Charles; 07-09-2019 at 04:07 AM.
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