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Post by Druid Hills Radio on Mar 7, 2018 20:37:58 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2018 21:49:32 GMT
The Old AM Sound is a Thing
Dewberry Jam did a real good take on the special sound of AM rock music in those days.
In my mind is was a 45 RPM sound that was so dense you could hear the needle resonating in the tone-arm under the name "needle-talk". It took the greatest possible advantage of AM radio mono sound.
DJ's had the ability to make the studio experience come alive and pull the listener into the middle of it, like an out-of-body experience hovering somewhere above the turntables and microphone.
When I did that kind of live radio I was pulled somewhere else by the girls calling in on our four hot-lines.
The biggest problem was keeping the Marge's separate from the Janet's.
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Post by Admin on Mar 7, 2018 23:35:50 GMT
AM radio can sound reasonable, with a decent radio that gives you the full NRSC bandwidth (and a transmitter that does the same). You have to be relatively young to be able to hear above 10 Khz (the hearing is the first thing to go, and going to live rock concerts hastens that effect).
When I had a Rangemaster (with an Inovonics 222, and external audio processing), I really had no issues listening to my radio station, and it didn't sound much worse than FM stations that were around. And I have decent hearing (for my age).
As the article states, the type of music does play into the equation. FM is particularly suited to classical.
But most people listen to the radio in the car, and you're not exactly getting audiophile sound in any moving vehicle, regardless of how much you spend on equipment. Most music sounds just fine on a DECENT AM car radio if you're transmitting with a 10 Khz bandwidth (a lot of stations nowadays have compressed that down to 5 Khz to carry talk programming only).
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Post by mark on Mar 8, 2018 1:09:26 GMT
The FCC rule is the NRSC frequency max of 10khz has to be down 15db at that point to avoid splatter into adjacent frequencies so the real max. the audio can usefully go on AM is about 8KHZ. And not much less than 100HZ. And the receiver has to have the IF bandwidth broad enough to even get to that. A wide band switch.
I grew up with AM radio and always remember that when I got the 45 of a song and played it on the record player it always sounded so different and I heard things...instruments, other things like the tamborine in "game of love" by Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders that you didn't hear on the AM radio. On AM it's not just hearing high it's missing detail in the music as it is compressed so much. This is a different compression that the type used to sound louder on air and even out the soft and loud parts.
But bring back what I want to hear and I will be an AM listener. I just listen now for a game or the odd interesting talk show. And FM doesn't play my stuff so that's why a part 15 hobby station.
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