FM Radio Vs World Space Radio

[sood_spice]

As we all know World Space stopped transmitting in India in January this year. I was a big fan and missed listening to Hindi music on it. Recently, quite by chance (please refer http://www.hifivision.com/surround-...st-2-vertical-omnidirectional-fm-antenna.html) I got access to FM radio in my home. I already used to listen to FM in my car but the reception was not acceptable indoors.

1. The best part is that now I do not have to pay any rent/ subscription as I paid Rs. 1800 per year to World Space. FM is Free to Air.

2. I do not have to feed any password in my receiver like I had to for World Space which they annoyingly kept changing every three months.

3. I enjoy Hindi music and there are more than 10 channels on FM, plus regional language music as well. World Space had only one Hindi channel i.e. 'Jhankaar'. Another one was of music before my time!

4. The sound quality is much better. Upon consultation was informed that Satellite Radio/World Space is a compressed and lossy signal. FM is analogue and therefore truly Hi-Fi.


What do you think guys? Comments welcomed!

 

[wishihadtubes]

You're right, on any given day, FM radio can beat the sound quality of the much-missed Worldspace service. But there are certain caveats.
You can get good FM stereo only if the station is doing a good broadcast. Having had some experience of working behind the the microphone, all i can say is that many RJs or their producers don't know how to control sound levels in the studio. End result? You end up getting heavily distorted sound at home.
Also, many stations nowadays use hard disc-based music collections for their broadcasts, whereas in the old days, we used vinyl or CDs and ensured that sound levels were not overloaded by monitoring the broadcasts within the studio.
Worldspace, to its advantage, had uniform sound levels across its stations and the source was usually good, though never near CD-quality as they claimed.
Besides, you have to have a good antenna set up at home to receive FM broadcasts in their full glory and most AVRs nowadays have pretty lousy built in FM receivers.
But get yourself a good set up and stations giving you good broadcasts, and FM cannot be beat.

 

[sood_spice]

@wishihadtubes

I agree with you 100%! I am using Harmon Kardon AVR 335 and Cadence Arita speakers for stereo listening. Feed is from Magnum Dynalab ST-2 Vertical Omnidirectional FM Antenna.

 

[blueturtle]

Hi,

Can you please advise how or from where you got the Magnum Dynalab? I am also looking to get a quality stand alone FM tuner in India. Thanks for any input.

 

[arun79]

yeah, pls suggest from where you get good quality antenna in blore?

 

[Shivam]

World Space was nice because of the selection of music and the variety offered. FM may sound good but what will you do of the endless talks that so called radio jockeys vomit all the time over their mics ? Advertisements are another problem on various Indian FM stations.

I don't consider listening to advertisements and radio jockeys, a part of hi-fi experience.

No FM for me !!!

 

[reubensm]

here in trivandrum, FM stations sound good, reception is great but as mentioned by wishihadtubes, sound levels are sometimes way too high...and the frequency response is tailored more too the lows and highs with mids roll off....worldspace had uniform sound quality across channels...mostly the music was great as I am not too much into Hindi or local language based music...even though worldspace has shut shop, i still receive their broadcasts via their AfricaStar satellite positioned over Africa...mostly news and current affairs and of course Arabic Music...

 

[jls001]

Hi,

Can you please advise how or from where you got the Magnum Dynalab? I am also looking to get a quality stand alone FM tuner in India. Thanks for any input.

If you live in a poor reception area, the SST (sundar, sasta, tikau!) solution is to use a Yagi-Uda terrestrial TV antenna (remember the antenna everyone used to mount on their roofs to catch DD channels? that's the one!), mounted on rooftop, facing the direction of transmitter. 400-500 for the antenna, plus cost of flat cable. Omnis usually have lower gain and will not work in poor reception areas.

Standalone tuners are available from Marantz (new) but will cost quite a bit. Best to buy good used one.
Joshua

 

[jls001]

You're right, on any given day, FM radio can beat the sound quality of the much-missed Worldspace service.

IIRC, Worldspace channels were 32 kbps AAC compressed. But their quality was surprisingly good for such low bit rate.

FM radio is analog. If done right, it's near-CD in audio quality. Alas, all FM stations use (or rather abuse) their audio processing mainly to increase loudness and thump, thus sacrificing quality.

The days of CD playout or vinyl playout are long gone. Every station now uses audio files ripped from CDs as .wav files, and stored on a playout server, played from playout automation software. But I heard some stations are guilty of playing low bitrate compressed files!

Joshua

 

[asliarun]

I too was shattered when Worldspace stopped its service.

However, I don't believe that FM is even a credible substitute - lots of ads, hopeless DJs, bad music selection, lack of variety in channels - FM in India is just not worth it.

In my case, what opened my eyes to a whole new world was internet radio. This is pretty much all I listen to everyday. Excellent audio quality, zero ads, thousands of channels to choose from, the ability to "search". I haven't even started to explore the many other options like last.fm, Pandora, Live365 etc. because I haven't had to look beyond Radio Paradise - simply love the song selection on this channel. I think the default bitrate is 128kbps AAC or mp3 or 96k ogg - whatever your player will support, and at least to my uninformed ears, even the default channels have very good audio quality. There are tons of other channels that even give even higher bitrate radio, all the way upto 320kbps mp3 streaming.

On top of it, all these channels are free. The only thing you pay for is internet bandwidth which you would pay for anyway. Other channels like last.fm even provides customized song selection where it "learns" your song preference based on what songs you have selected.

By the way, I use a Squeezebox Classic.

 

[pratyush]

Oh I miss my Worldspace so much. I would have paid twice the amount they last charged for the music options it had. Internet radios are ok, but you need decent internet connections all the time (which is not the case with me atleast).
FM is nowhere even in contention to WS.

 

[vktyagi]

Also to be considered 10 "audio only" music channels available at Tatasky @ just Rs. 15/ month. The music on these channels is ad free and bukbuk free. Three of them are Hindi, one international while the rest are regional language channels.
Regards
Vinod

 

[kvandhi]

I agree your point, even i gave one full year subscription before it got disconnected from satelite. I am missing so much,

Currently i a, listening RadioSure thru internet, its also good to get collection of 17K+ music channels.

Oh I miss my Worldspace so much. I would have paid twice the amount they last charged for the music options it had. Internet radios are ok, but you need decent internet connections all the time (which is not the case with me atleast).
FM is nowhere even in contention to WS.

 

[reubensm]

receive FM using my lovely NAD 402, still use my worldspace radio, tuned in to the AfriStar satellite for listening to BBC, NPR and a lot more news and current affairs. NPR has some lovely classic JAZZ programming.

 

[haisaikat]

I too was shattered when Worldspace stopped its service.

However, I don't believe that FM is even a credible substitute - lots of ads, hopeless DJs, bad music selection, lack of variety in channels - FM in India is just not worth it.

In my case, what opened my eyes to a whole new world was internet radio. This is pretty much all I listen to everyday. Excellent audio quality, zero ads, thousands of channels to choose from, the ability to "search". I haven't even started to explore the many other options like last.fm, Pandora, Live365 etc. because I haven't had to look beyond Radio Paradise - simply love the song selection on this channel. I think the default bitrate is 128kbps AAC or mp3 or 96k ogg - whatever your player will support, and at least to my uninformed ears, even the default channels have very good audio quality. There are tons of other channels that even give even higher bitrate radio, all the way upto 320kbps mp3 streaming.

On top of it, all these channels are free. The only thing you pay for is internet bandwidth which you would pay for anyway. Other channels like last.fm even provides customized song selection where it "learns" your song preference based on what songs you have selected.

By the way, I use a Squeezebox Classic.

I would disagree, the mj / rj s in FM make the programs lively. I would not like to listen a program which plays one song after another back to back rather should have some witty comments, discussions, city news in between. On the other hand I listened some internet radio channels via Dish TV, my ASUS O Play over Wifi and my nokia Phone over Wifi and had the feeling that they lack life. My personal opinion only.

 

[buswal]

receive FM using my lovely NAD 402, still use my worldspace radio, tuned in to the AfriStar satellite for listening to BBC, NPR and a lot more news and current affairs. NPR has some lovely classic JAZZ programming.

hi,

pl. elaborate. are you getting bbc, npr etc when it tuned into afristar. How to do it i.e in which direction I have to keep the antenna to receive the signals. I understand they have stopped broadcasting long time back.

regards,

 

[baijuxavior]

I would disagree, the mj / rj s in FM make the programs lively. I would not like to listen a program which plays one song after another back to back rather should have some witty comments, discussions, city news in between. On the other hand I listened some internet radio channels via Dish TV, my ASUS O Play over Wifi and my nokia Phone over Wifi and had the feeling that they lack life. My personal opinion only.

Yep! I'm just opposite to what you said about djs and vjs. I hate them chattering all times and for this reason I never listen to fm channels (especially private) or music tv channels. The most irritating are the so called phone in programs. I even don't like comments at the beginning of some movie songs so i just deleted that portion from a couple of my mp3 songs as well. I like to hear songs without any interruptions and so use my laptop or pc for that purpose. Just my opinion.

 

[praveeng]

Yeahh Indian Fm channels these days have gotten too commercial and phony at times..but its all related no..Indian music has gone too bad, mass oriented, filled with ridiculous item numbers..so these Fm channels reinforce this mass appeal to make most of the audience..

but it gets a bit better at night when u get to listen to oldies and a few vintage stories of Indian music..another good part is that you keep it turned on and do your work..and enjoy occasionally when ur old school kinda song pops up..

which is why i am thinkin of a budget tuner to plug into my set up..

 

[albertna]

Please try to tune in to Worldspace african beam which is still available to some parts of country

 

[reubensm]

definitely available in Trivandrum and most of the west coast of India...however reception is possible with clever antenna orientation in places like Chennai as well...i have never been off worldspace even though they closed down their Asia and Africa operations...AsiaStar and AfriStar are very much alive with select programming.