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Best sounding radio station of all time

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matt1
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Best sounding radio station of all time

Post by matt1 » Sun May 24, 2020 12:56 am

I am going to go with "Q106" WJXQ in Jackson, Michigan back in 1981 till 1985 or 1986 because I am not sure what that station sound unique back then!!! That station would play the song & when the song fades, it picks up the ending!!! I also like those commercials in 1982 & 1983 when someone talked on the left speaker & the other man on the right speaker!!!



matt1
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Re: Best sounding radio station of all time

Post by matt1 » Sun May 24, 2020 12:57 am

"Q106" rocks East Lansing!!!



Deleted User 15342

Re: Best sounding radio station of all time

Post by Deleted User 15342 » Fri May 29, 2020 10:48 am

If you’re talking programming content and not sound quality well I’ll have to say my pick is CKLW the Big 8.



originalzzmfmjock
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Re: Best sounding radio station of all time

Post by originalzzmfmjock » Fri May 29, 2020 10:20 pm

The Big 8 had great audio for an AM station. Actually sounded better than some of the FM's I hear these days. The Big 8 never put much of a signal into the Grand Rapids area, so I am kind of partial to WLS circa 1968-70 as the best station I ever listened to. Clark Weber, Art Roberts, Lujack, Chuck Buell, Kris Eric Stevens, etc. Plus the WLS jocks didn't have as many restraints when they talked, compared to the Drake stations like CKLW.



CK-722
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Re: Best sounding radio station of all time

Post by CK-722 » Sat May 30, 2020 1:22 am

Good sound is in the ear of the beholder. Some people like a lot of compression and processing, some can't stand it. Some Classical stations have very little processing, to the point that some symphonies with very quiet passages sound like there no modulation at all. WFBE, when owned by the Flint Board of Education, was one. The late great CE Ed Rauch hated compression, because he loved Classical Music. There were some little compression modules that could be used with Club/Wedding type DJ Boards. I thought that a little processing went a long way, and thought a lot of Phil Spector type Wall of Sound productions often sounded like noise.

CKLW did sound good, especially when they had Harris AM Stereo, later changed to de facto standard Motorola AM Stereo. When played on an Sony SRF-A100 in wide Stereo mode and fed into a halfway decent receiver amplifier, and within a very strong contour, like 25 mV/m to drown out adjacent channel interference, sounded as good as FM. But CKLW was allowed a wider audio bandwidth, being a Canadian station. Another station that sounded good through the years was WSAM, and with Motorola AM Stereo as long as you were close by the transmitter, especially at Night. Even in Mono in he 1960s, the bass guitar drop D tuning had extraordinarily low distortion compared to FM. The first I noticed this was on the "Brown Eyed Girl" bass line in 1967. According to my calculations, Drop D on a bass guitar, or the D 5 half steps above low A 27.5 Hz on the piano, is about 37 Hz.


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Rich F.
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Re: Best sounding radio station of all time

Post by Rich F. » Sat May 30, 2020 5:03 am

Back in the 1960s I had a McIntosh MR-55A AM/FM mono-only tuner. The AM section had selectable r-f bandwidth that enabled nearly flat audio response out to 9.5 kHz, and a 10 kHz "whistle filter" to remove the audio heterodyne from adjacent-channel carriers. It was possible to make an instant A-B switch from WJR to WJR-FM due to the nearly same dial setting of the tuner for the two modes.

With the tuner located in a basement apartment in a building across the street from The Fisher Building and with WJR/WJR-FM simulcasting in those days, it was very difficult to hear any difference from an A-B instant comparison between the two signals at the output of a high-quality component audio system (Dynaco Stereo 70 and AR2a speakers).



Deleted User 3751

Re: Best sounding radio station of all time

Post by Deleted User 3751 » Sat May 30, 2020 7:40 am

I have to go with these 60's and 70's era stations, not necessarily in order, because they all had their own personalities, and unique sound.
WABC New York

WLS Chicago

WCFL Chicago

CKLW Windsor/Detroit

WKNR Detroit

WKNX Saginaw/Flint/Bay City/MIdland

WTAC Flint/Saginaw



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MWmetalhead
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Re: Best sounding radio station of all time

Post by MWmetalhead » Sat May 30, 2020 8:07 am

Today, CKLW is one of the worst sounding AM stations in the region from an audio standpoint.



Deleted User 15342

Re: Best sounding radio station of all time

Post by Deleted User 15342 » Sat May 30, 2020 9:06 am

Does anyone remember what AM high fidelity was and why it was more at the top end of the AM band like 1500 kHz.



Rich F.
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Re: Best sounding radio station of all time

Post by Rich F. » Sat May 30, 2020 9:16 am

From a practical viewpoint, it is easier to achieve "high" r-f bandwidths in transmitters and transmit antenna systems at higher carrier frequencies because the necessary percentage of bandwidth to do it there is reduced.



Deleted User 15342

Re: Best sounding radio station of all time

Post by Deleted User 15342 » Sat May 30, 2020 9:24 am

If I remember back in the 60’s some big AM stations promoted High Fidelity but all we’re past 1000 kHz like WOLF in Syracuse on 1490 and the 1550 in San Francisco.



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Calvert DeForest
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Re: Best sounding radio station of all time

Post by Calvert DeForest » Sat May 30, 2020 1:47 pm

Wish I had save the airchecks I recorded of the original Q106 back in the day (all on cassettes of course). It was a unique approach to rock-based CHR of the day. I remember the day they launched the format, knowing that the change was coming with a corresponding signal boost to reach Lansing. PD/morning guy Jim Ryan came out of Elton John's Funeral for a Friend with the line "this is for you Brad!". Found out later from a colleague who had worked there that it was a reference to WILS-FM PD Brad Curtis (101-FM was AOR at the time, and probably the closest competitor to Q106). As I recall, Q106 shot to #1 in the Lansing in the course of one book, retaining that rank until WVIC flipped to CHR as 95FM and knocked them out the following year. Still, Q106 managed to pull decent ratings for the first half of the 80's.

I have, however, preserved airchecks of WJOX Rock 106, the automated predecessor of WJXQ, given to me years ago by the aforementioned colleague. WJOX (which at the time had a signal that basically covered the Jackson area) aired TM Programming's Stereo Rock format, which was a Top-40 format for automated and live-assist stations. The automated version featured John Borders back-announcing the current cuts along with imaging drops tailored to each station with a very generic delivery style. The fun part was hearing Borders' voice in different markets where stations aired the same format. As soon as I heard Borders' voice, I knew it had to be the TM format.


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Deleted User 15342

Re: Best sounding radio station of all time

Post by Deleted User 15342 » Sat May 30, 2020 2:56 pm

Big Signal wrote:
Sat May 30, 2020 7:40 am
I have to go with these 60's and 70's era stations, not necessarily in order, because they all had their own personalities, and unique sound.
WABC New York

WLS Chicago

WCFL Chicago

CKLW Windsor/Detroit

WKNR Detroit

WKNX Saginaw/Flint/Bay City/MIdland

WTAC Flint/Saginaw
I always thought it was amazing getting WLS and WCFL from Chicago on my six transistor pocket radio here in Detroit when I was a kid.



Realist
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Re: Best sounding radio station of all time

Post by Realist » Sat May 30, 2020 4:39 pm

Calvert DeForest wrote:
Sat May 30, 2020 1:47 pm
Wish I had save the airchecks I recorded of the original Q106 back in the day (all on cassettes of course). It was a unique approach to rock-based CHR of the day. I remember the day they launched the format, knowing that the change was coming with a corresponding signal boost to reach Lansing. PD/morning guy Jim Ryan came out of Elton John's Funeral for a Friend with the line "this is for you Brad!". Found out later from a colleague who had worked there that it was a reference to WILS-FM PD Brad Curtis (101-FM was AOR at the time, and probably the closest competitor to Q106). As I recall, Q106 shot to #1 in the Lansing in the course of one book, retaining that rank until WVIC flipped to CHR as 95FM and knocked them out the following year. Still, Q106 managed to pull decent ratings for the first half of the 80's.

I have, however, preserved airchecks of WJOX Rock 106, the automated predecessor of WJXQ, given to me years ago by the aforementioned colleague. WJOX (which at the time had a signal that basically covered the Jackson area) aired TM Programming's Stereo Rock format, which was a Top-40 format for automated and live-assist stations. The automated version featured John Borders back-announcing the current cuts along with imaging drops tailored to each station with a very generic delivery style. The fun part was hearing Borders' voice in different markets where stations aired the same format. As soon as I heard Borders' voice, I knew it had to be the TM format.
I’d love to hear that. Have you converted that to a digital file that could be uploaded?

I’m thinking that it probably sounded like Saginaw’s Rock 106 WIOG before they flipped to Hits 106 and went live again...



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WOHO
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Re: Best sounding radio station of all time

Post by WOHO » Sat May 30, 2020 10:55 pm

Ed B was the ultimate engineer, and had CKLW the best sounding AM station in North America under his thumb first with Harris, then the Motorola CQUAM AM stereo system. On a Sony SRF-A100 radio plugged into an amp, it sounded better than any FM to this very day. Then Ed and Motorola Engineer Greg Buchwald did their magic with WJR-AM with Detroit Tiger games that sounded like you were in Tiger Stadium



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