{"id":7380,"date":"2013-11-25T08:53:08","date_gmt":"2013-11-25T12:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/?p=7380"},"modified":"2023-03-29T13:59:19","modified_gmt":"2023-03-29T17:59:19","slug":"what-bitrate-is-needed-to-sound-like-analog-fm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/2013\/11\/what-bitrate-is-needed-to-sound-like-analog-fm\/","title":{"rendered":"What bitrate is needed to sound like analog FM?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As it turns out, 300 kbp\/s or greater.\u00a0 At least in critical listening environments according to the paper titled Perceived Audio Quality of Realistic FM and DAB+ Radio Broadcasting Systems<\/a><\/em> (.pdf) published by the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society. This work was done by a group in Sweden that made various observations with different program material and listening subjects. Each person was given a sample of analog FM audio to listen to, then they listened to various audio selections which were using bit reduction algorithms (AKA CODEC or Compression) and graded each one.\u00a0 The methodology is very thorough and there is little left for subjective interpretation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In less critical listening environments, bit rates of 160-192 kbp\/s will work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I made a chart and added HD Radio’s proprietary CODEC HDC, which is similar to, but not compatible with AAC:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

System<\/td>Codec<\/td>Bit Rate (kbp\/s)<\/td><\/tr>
HD Radio FM; HD1 channel*<\/td>HDC (similar to AAC)<\/td>96 – 144<\/td><\/tr>
HD Radio FM; HD2 channel*<\/td>HDC<\/td>24-48<\/td><\/tr>
HD Radio FM; HD3 channel*<\/td>HDC<\/td>24-48<\/td><\/tr>
HD Radio AM*<\/td>HDC<\/td>20-60<\/td><\/tr>
DRM30 (MF-HF)<\/td>AAC\/HE-AAC<\/td>34-72<\/td><\/tr>
DRM+ (VHF)<\/td>AAC\/HE-AAC<\/td>700<\/td><\/tr>
DAB+<\/td>AAC\/HE-AAC<\/td>32 – 128<\/td><\/tr>
DAB<\/td>MPEG II, Dolby Digital<\/td>192 \u2013 256<\/td><\/tr>
Blu-ray<\/td>PCM**<\/td>\u22656 Mbp\/s<\/td><\/tr>
DVD<\/td>PCM, DTS, Dolby Digital<\/td>>800<\/td><\/tr>
CD-A<\/td>PCM<\/td>1,411<\/td><\/tr>
Web Streaming<\/td>MPEG I,II,III, WMA, AAC, etc<\/td>32-320, 128 typical<\/td><\/tr>
iTunes<\/td>AAC<\/td>128 \u2013 256<\/td><\/tr>
Spotify<\/td>Ogg Vorbis<\/td>96 \u2013 320<\/td><\/tr>
Wimp<\/td>AAC\/HE-AAC<\/td>64 – 256<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

*Hybrid mode
**PCM: uncompressed data<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the composite Mean Basic Audio Quality and 95% confidence intervals for the system across all excerpts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"digital-analog-audio-compar\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, we have simply become accustomed to and now accept low-quality audio from mp3 files being played over cheap computer speakers or through cheap ear buds.\u00a0 Does this make it right?\u00a0 In our drive to take something good and make it better, perhaps it should be, you know: Better<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Special thanks to Trevor from Surrey Electronics Limited<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As it turns out, 300 kbp\/s or greater.\u00a0 At least in critical listening environments according to the paper titled Perceived Audio Quality of Realistic FM and DAB+ Radio Broadcasting Systems (.pdf) published by the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society. This work was done by a group in Sweden that made various observations with different … Continue reading What bitrate is needed to sound like analog FM?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[306,279,148,303,89],"class_list":["post-7380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio","tag-audio","tag-dab","tag-drm","tag-hd-radio","tag-iboc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7380"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11319,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7380\/revisions\/11319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}