Any HD Radio users here?

Joined
Jan 9, 2020
Messages
236
Location
Connecticut
This is an underutilized technology, I personally love it. It essentially was like the ATSC switch for FM radio, meant to compete with satellite radio and streaming. It never really took off, unfortunately. :(

I've had an HD Radio head unit (a Jensen, actually) in most of my cars since 2009, and it's still running decently today (clock jumps a few minutes fast and some buttons stick when cold, but otherwise works as it should...) In my Fusion I got a Clarion HD head unit for only $10, but USB doesn't seem to work. I bought a JVC tuner that can apparently plug into the aux port of anything, and can even work indoors on a home receiver, so I'm itching to try that out once it arrives at my house. It seems like there's very few aftermarket radios of any sort coming with HD capability now, but for me it's almost a must for a car radio, despite maybe using it 5-10% of the time I commute.

I really love the technology personally, I'm not a big radio person, but on HD where I live there's a club music channel on 95.7 HD2 (mixed bag, but some good songs occasionally) there's 102.9 HD2 with all the old 1950s and 1960s music, and my favorite, the smooth jazz station on 100.5 HD2. There used to be a classic country station 92.5 but that seems DOA now. :( Some substations change back and forth, some are offline for days at a time, which sucks, too. They're mostly robo-stations just playing a playlist with no DJ, I've encountered some simulcast stations from different states, too. The cutouts are annoying, but I still enjoy it when it comes in. Sound quality can vary from awesome to somewhat mediocre depending on the station's compression, too.

Not many people are familiar with the technology, and I'm sad it never truly took off. I feel like I'm part of a secret club of HD Radio users. So does anyone else use it currently? Have you used it before, but switched cars or head units with the capability? Any home users?

Thanks and I'm super interested to see if there's anyone else here that uses it still.
 
Most new cars are equipped with HD radio. Outside of the car, I don't think many people are listening to traditional AM/FM radio any more...I'm not sure many listen in the car either!
 
Most new cars are equipped with HD radio. Outside of the car, I don't think many people are listening to traditional AM/FM radio any more...I'm not sure many listen in the car either!
+1

HD radio is basically radio these days - most car radio tuners will just tune into the HD version of a given station, if available.

Sound quality can vary from awesome to somewhat mediocre depending on the station's compression, too.
That's my biggest gripe with it. A lot of stations are heavily compressed - OK for talk radio, but suck for music. When in the car on a longer drive, I usually just rely on my own music library on an SD card that I know is high bitrate/good quality.
 
Most new cars are equipped with HD radio. Outside of the car, I don't think many people are listening to traditional AM/FM radio any more...I'm not sure many listen in the car either!
That's not been my experience, plenty of people still throw the radio on vs digital music, and in the current political climate NPR's gotten super popular. The two newest cars I've interacted with on a regular basis, a 2015 Kia Sportage and 2017 Corolla, both don't have HD Radio. When I looked up the sound options for a lot of new cars, most only put HD Radio in with the premium audio packages, and not the base stereo packages. Some manufacturers that put HD Radio in have done away with it in recent years, too.
 
I personally love HD radio and that made a big impact in my buying Kenwood branded radios over the competition at the same price. We don't have very many HD stations in central AR, but the ones we do, it make a huge sound quality difference with. I am quite sad that Kenwood's newer line of car stereos don't seem to have it until you go for higher end models. It also adds some secondary stations to some and those are sometimes better than the main station.
 
When I was shopping aftermarket head units last year, HD Radio was sadly missing in most or all low-end and medium priced units. It's a shame, it was a feature I wanted, but I'm not buying a higher end unit just to get that feature, especially because of the poor value they offer otherwise (crappy locked-in SatNav with no updates in particular).
 
Had it in my last leased vehicle, it was great I do miss it. Now i share my wife's xm subscription and bluetooth it over radio.
 
That's not been my experience, plenty of people still throw the radio on vs digital music, and in the current political climate NPR's gotten super popular. The two newest cars I've interacted with on a regular basis, a 2015 Kia Sportage and 2017 Corolla, both don't have HD Radio. When I looked up the sound options for a lot of new cars, most only put HD Radio in with the premium audio packages, and not the base stereo packages. Some manufacturers that put HD Radio in have done away with it in recent years, too.
I was shocked my $17k scion ia had hd radio.
 
my Cmax has it, no one in my area broadcasts in it..
on occasion i can pick up the HD feed from a pop station in Ft. Wayne,IN (an hour away)
one thing I have noticed with it, when i'm in an area with HD radio stations, (I'm sure its a software thing with the wonderful My Ford Touch system), If I'm tuned to an HD Channel when i shut the car off, the next time i turn it on, I just get Dead air until I change the Channel......
 
my Cmax has it, no one in my area broadcasts in it..
on occasion i can pick up the HD feed from a pop station in Ft. Wayne,IN (an hour away)
one thing I have noticed with it, when i'm in an area with HD radio stations, (I'm sure its a software thing with the wonderful My Ford Touch system), If I'm tuned to an HD Channel when i shut the car off, the next time i turn it on, I just get Dead air until I change the Channel......
I live in the Denver metro and I dont know if there is an FM station thats not HD.
I'll look in the car tomorrow.
My Hyundai plays whatever was on before the car was shut off.
 
The megacorp radio stations here have HD radio support only. Locally owned radio stations (which is the majority here) don't have HD radio support. Licensing is expensive for both the station and the user. Even the most basic HD radio "boombox" is in the $100 range.
 
My 2 Series has it. I like some of the sub channels of the local stations.
 
I agree with the OP, HD radio is definitely under-rated.

I, myself, fall in the camp of "rarely listen to sub-channels", however the increase in quality on the main channels alone is worth the feature. Satellite radio sound so poor that HD radio OTA sounds darn near my Spotify streams. Not surprising, given HD radio can broadcast up to 300 kbps, and Spotify is anywhere from 160-320.
 
I have HD radio in my Sonata. It’s much better sound clarity but if there are tall buildings around the reception goes out. The reception range for HD radio is a lot shorter than FM, so it really only works if you are like 20 miles from the tower.

When I went car shopping two years ago, most cars didn’t have HD radio. Some cars offered it only on the top trim levels. Most didn’t offer it all.
 
When I was shopping aftermarket head units last year, HD Radio was sadly missing in most or all low-end and medium priced units. It's a shame, it was a feature I wanted, but I'm not buying a higher end unit just to get that feature, especially because of the poor value they offer otherwise (crappy locked-in SatNav with no updates in particular).
Pioneer makes HD Radio standard on their “limited” series that car audio shops/Crutchfield sells, Kenwood makes it standard on the Excelon line. Which is a shame, it doesn’t cost that much on a BOM basis to include the HD radio tuner and a few more lines of code on the firmware.

When I’m not using CarPlay, I use the HD Radio side of my Pioneer. The local NPR affiliate is on HD, and a few radio stations have a sub channel. I like the throwback 1980s-1990s alt rock station on one of them.
 
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