Fascinating [and sad] history of FM Radio.

[George J]

Fascinating [and sad] history of FM Radio.FM radio has been a remarkable part of high quality audio even longer than many recording technologies, and it persists to this day with many advocates still using high quality FM receivers for daily radio listening. I have three FM radios here. A Leak Trough-Line from 1957 [restored by John Caswell of this parish] two or three years ago, plus two simple portables of much more recent making.

Here is a little YouTube video on David Sarnoff, and FM inventor Howard Armstrong, showing the struggle to bring FM to mainstream usage:

I hope that you enjoy this little snippet of history that deserves to be remembered.

Best wishes from George

PS: This is picture of my very own Leak tuner, before I owned it. It has a unique and very nice wooden sleeve. for what would normally be a console mounted item.

I don't use it every day. I only use it for significant music broadcasts I want to listen to on Radio Three, though sometimes I listen to Radio Four with it on important broadcasts.

PPS: Here is a link to my old thread on the Leak:

https://pinkfishmedia.net/forum/threads/amazing-troughline-first-variant.223321/

For me I only just worked out that I bought the radio in December 2018 and collected just over three years ago! Where does the time go!?

 

[Martyn Miles]

I have a mid. ‘80s Roberts radio, an R707.
It sounds very good indeed, and with its bass & treble controls you can
achieve a reasonable ‘BBC speech balance’ when listening to Radio 4 on FM.

 

[Frizzy]

As good as radio 2 or 3 sound online live broadcasts via my Cyrus fmx & psx\r or Meridian 104 sound appreciably better, more enjoyable. Luckily i can see isle of white transmitter from roof so big plus.

 

[Mike Reed]

As good as radio 2 or 3 sound online live broadcasts via my Cyrus fmx & psx\r or Meridian 104 sound appreciably better, more enjoyable. Luckily i can see the ..Isle of Wight.. transmitter from roof so big plus.

You are yet another poster confirming the sonic efficacy of steam radio over internet radio. This makes me feel good, because I've always been a tuner man (50+ years) and have never heard internet radio, nor am likely to do so now. Sounds like a great location in which to live, and I guess you are in the south (east) of the New Forest, maybe Lymington way. No colour shades in the Isle of W. though (see above)

For some odd reason, I have a large, wooden sleeved EKCO radio with magic eye tuning in my loft. Suppose I'm waiting for a retro resurgence in pre 50s radios, but it's not a pretty thing !

 

[Arkless Electronics]

I love FM radio and hope it stays forever for a variety of reasons but internet radio completely thrashes it on sound quality. The BBC stations I listen to sound, at their best, very close to CD indeed.

 

[Mike Reed]

The BBC stations I listen to sound, at their best, very close to CD indeed.

Sorry, Jez, but is that a recommendation ?

 

[Arkless Electronics]

Sorry, Jez, but is that a recommendation ?

Obviously

 

[lordsummit]

There is absolutely no doubt that the full fat BBC streams of R3 Concerts are vastly superior to the FM versions which are often subject at best to a narrowing of dynamic range and often a complete squashing. It may not look as nice as my old Sansui Tuner, but my phone/iPad sounds far better on R3. BBC Sounds is definitely the way to these things in the closest manner to the concert hall.

 

[mercalia]

I love FM radio and hope it stays forever for a variety of reasons but internet radio completely thrashes it on sound quality. The BBC stations I listen to sound, at their best, very close to CD indeed.

name a few internet radio boxes that will fit in place with a hifi system with digital out for a dac, phono plug for analogue out to a preamp and IR remote

Has any one tried this one?
https://www.majority.co.uk/music-systems/fitzwilliam/
just wondering how these things get access to eg Radio 3 - they find it on switch on after some kind of search as with DAB? or do you have to have an account with some one like Spotify

 

[Arkless Electronics]

name a few internet radio boxes that will fit in place with a hifi system with digital out for a dac, phono plug for analogue out to a preamp and IR remote

Has any one tried this one?
https://www.majority.co.uk/music-systems/fitzwilliam/

I have a DAC card in my PC which also has SPDIF output. The DAC output goes via a long interconnect to the workshop system so I can play digital files there and the SPDIF goes to a DPA DAC to the main system.

 

[lordsummit]

name a few internet radio boxes that will fit in place with a hifi system with digital out for a dac, phono plug for analogue out to a preamp and IR remote

Has any one tried this one?
https://www.majority.co.uk/music-systems/fitzwilliam/
just wondering how these things get access to eg Radio 3 - they find it on switch on after some kind of search as with DAB? or do you have to have an account with some one like Spotify

I use a Pi with Volumio installed and Airplay to it from either my phone or an iPad using the BBC app Sounds. It’s then output to a Chord Mojo which goes into my amp. It’s a simple and straightforward way to get BBC output at good quality.