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HD Radio blows. Most stations sound like MP3's that have been recorded with too low of a sampling rate. Good luck with HD Radio.

I don't suspect that JR or Amazon reviewers are the most technically inclined. However, most retailers with reviews have good (4/5+) ratings, so I'm going to side with the majority on this one and assume you are one of the disgruntled few.

$50 and no speakers. HD radio is not high def, it just means digital signal, and the HD radio is just a brand name.. what a waste of money.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hd_radio

"works with nearly any audio system" What type of audio system does it not work with?? I assume it has audio outputs (then again, being Sorny, maybe they use a proprietary connector with DRM).

And #1 is blowing smoke. HD radio sounds fine. Maybe not a vast improvement over analog in terms of quality, but it's nice having program information and multiple channels per station.

#4 needs to read the wiki link #3 posted - have to agree, it's a complete waste of money, and is a poor idea to further fund propitiatory codec's

Mosst stations are streaming on the web. Don't see the point.

it seems kind of a waste to have a HD radio ONLY unit take up the space of one component on the component rack. Why haven't they integrated HD radio into receivers or some other AV component?

"high fidelity".awesome

Satellite Radio still has the best signal and quality.

I have one of these and it works great... its also a normal FM receiver as well. Its not a radio , its a tuner so you need to use your own amp.

I actually got the rebate too !

I own this tuner. It tunes in analog AND HD stations, on both AM and FM bands. I also have satellite radio. In terms of quality, HD radio is not that great, and the signal is relatively weak. I would compare HD radio to satellite radio in terms of quality. As someone said already, HD Radio at best sounds like overly compressed MP3s. It is far from CD quality. And, as HD channels add second and third channels of programming on their main frequency, sound quality actually degrades (check out the Wikipedia article on HD radio for references).

You get much better sound from analog FM, provided you have a decent quality FM tuner. You just need a station that is relatively strong in your area, and a half decent antenna. You can get those for about $50 or so on ebay. $100 will get you an excellent tuner.

I bought this Sony radio to experiment with HD, and because of its excellent ability to tune in weak FM stations. I'm not impressed with HD radio, but I am impressed with this tuner's performance on FM analog. The quality of sound it provides on analog FM is close to the $50 old school tuners you can get on eBay, and its ability to tune in weak stations, even those with strong stations on adjacent frequencies, is amazing. In this department, it even beats my high end Kenwood and Onkyo tuners, which shocked me.

I would recommend this tuner to anyone who lives in an area with alot of FM stations, and likes to tune in those hard to get FM stations, and anyone who likes good FM sound from analog stations, who doesn't want to buy a used tuner on eBay.

It is an excellent buy at this price.

Use Live Seach and get 12% ($12.00) cash back when buying @ J&R. Goes down to ~$38.

http://search.live.com/cashback/stores <- list of stores with LiveSearch cash back

Actually I have an HD receiver built into my Onkyo 905. I have an antenna hooked up and stand by my comments. HD sound quality is just not that good. As others have stated, it is NOT the equivalent of satellite radio or CD.

Actually, this small radio has the best FM analog tuner that money can buy. It is not equal to a $50 used unit on ebay.

You are likely wondering how a $100 or $38 unit can be the best tuner that money can buy. The answer is digital signal processing. This tuner is totally unlike an analog tuner.

The first generation of this technology was by bosch/blaupundt.
I sold my tandberg 3001A tuner (which cost over $1000 new) to get a car radio to put in my home system. This sony uses the next generation of this technology.

See http://ham-radio.com/k6sti/xdr-f1hd.htm
for a detailed review. Basically a local oscillator is used to bring the FM signal down to the IF frequency (just like any FM tuner). Then the signal is digitized, and all kinds of tricky stuff that is easy to do digitally and next to impossible to do with analog circuitry is done. For example adjacent channel selectivity (not alternate channel) is 82db. This is a pretty good number for alternate channel (400 khz away). This is a crazy stupid high number for adjacent channel (200 khz away). It means you can get a weak channel, with a strong channel (82 db stronger) 200khz away. Even my great tandberg's number was 40db in narrow mode.

thanks, #13.