FM Radio is dead ....R.I.P


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Has internet radio and streaming services like Rhapsody, Pandora, Spotify and MOG killed FM radio? Does FM radio via tuner and HD radio have a future in home audio?
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128x128mitch4t

Showing 6 responses by hgeifman

I no longer listen to FM Radio because of poor FM reception in my area. To be honest, the Internet radio station selection is much better than FM. I cannot receive my favorite FM radio station so I select it on the Internet for listening. The good news is every station I wanted to hear on FM that had FM reception problems, I was able to select on the Internet.

The Internet radio station selection is excellent using my Magnum Dynalab 807t Media Internet Tuner. I am running my MD807t balanced into my Ayre AX-7e Integrated amplifier. The sound quality is very good and it is easy to listen to. My 807t is wired to my router via the Ethernet over power connections (the tuner also supports Wi-Fi connection). I have had no problems using my power lines.
I can select Internet radio stations from anywhere in the world and the sound quality is very good. Internet stations can be selected by country or music type (classical, blues, jazz, new ages, etc).

My Internet media tuner (MD807t) allows me to create and organize my favorite list of stations via an Internet Radio Portal website. This feature allows me to have a full list of the stations I listen to regularly on one page instead of having to search each time. Some stations come in sounding better than other stations. I try to select Internet stations that are using 128k or higher. Stations using lower numbers (such as 48k, 64k, etc) do not sound as good.

As per Magnum Dynalab instructions, I setup the Frontier Silicon radio portal for this capability. It is free and very easy to use. The portal provides an excellent search capability to help you identify the Internet stations you want to listen to. You build your list on the computer and select the stations you want to listen to on your Internet tuner. This is an excellent feature and makes the Internet radio selection process much easier. New stations can be easily added or deleted using the Frontier Silicon radio portal. See www.wifiradio-frontier

Linn Classical has an Internet station I like very much.
Mitch4t: My Magnum Dynalab MD807t can access the following:

1) Rhapsody should be available on my MD807t and I am waiting for a response from Magnum Dynalab to confirm this and to explain how. I will post when they respond.

2) Magnum Dynalab reports that Pandora service is not available. They decided not to support Pandora service since it is available in North America only and they wanted service for all countries.

3) Support for Calm Radio is available at https://calmradio.com/channels

Calm Radio offers free access to 60+ radio channels with commercials. They also offer paid subscription to 70+ channels with no commercials. Their free channels broadcast anywhere from 64K to 128K. Their paid subscriptions offer three bit rates in their custom URLs. 64k, 128K and 192K. I am using their free service and am considering a paid subscription.

4) Magnum Dynalab reports that Sirius/XM Service is available on my 807t tuner. You need to get the URL from Sirius and add it to the 807t for accessing. I am not using Sirius because I do not like their sound quality.
Tbromgard: All of the Internet stations I listen to today are free. Yes, the stations I mentioned above require a paid subscription BUT it is not required or needed.

I have access to thousands of FREE stations on the Internet including FM stations. In my case, my FM reception in my area is horrible so I listen to KDFC (San Francisco) and WFMT (Chicago classical referenced above) on the Internet for free. I have been able to listen to every single FM station I wanted using my Internet tuner. The sound quality is excellent and I have no reception problems.

I think the question is can you receive the FM stations to listen to on FM. If you cannot, Internet radio is an excellent choice at no cost (except for the hardware).

The main advantage of using Internet radio is that if someone mentions a great station in Chicago (like Richardfinegold did above), I can immediately tune it in and listen. I am also listening to Internet stations from Europe and Asia at no charge. Another advantage is that Internet radio allows you to select stations by Country or music type (Classical, jazz, blues, etc).
Mitch4t: The Magnum Dynalab 807t was the only Internet device I looked at. I have owned their equipment before so it was an easy decision.

My 807t also allows you to locally connect your music collections in a variety of formats (including AACs, Real, MP3s, FLAC and WMA). This is done by a USB Flash drive or a hard drive. I have never tried this but I hope to soon.

I am not familiar with the Audio Research DAC with the built in Internet radio tuner.
Mitch4t: Magnum Dynalab reports that Rhapsody is not available in Canada or most other parts of the world. This means they cannot test it out.

They did recommend you install Rhapsody on your computer and stream from your computer to the MD 807t . Your have to setup your computer to share and direct the MD807t to your computer (my music tab). It should work fine. I am not going to test this because I am not interested in Rhapsody (or Pandora).