The number of televisions estimated that sit unused in closets.
The EPA estimates that nearly 100 million unused televisions are currently taking up precious, beautiful space. (source: EPA, July 2008)
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I was so excited when I first heard of HD radio. I was then teribly disappointed to learn it was low bit rate. I have shunned Ipods and MP3's for this reason, they sound tinny and compressed. Looks like real HD radio is a ways off yet.
Mick, no real need to shun either mp3s or iPods if you rip your tracks at a higher bitrate than the default 128 kbps. True, by its definition the mpeg codec used to rip and compress tunes does strip out pretty much ALL depth and fidelity if taken down to far - say, 64-128 kbps. If you select a much higher bitrate (or even lossless compression) such as 320 kbps as I do, one can end up with tracks that are nearly identical to CD quality. Depending on where one does the listening, usually the compression is practically unnoticeable. Background noise while driving or lower than optimum dynamic range headphones or auto sound systems usually have much more impact on sound quality at that point than the codec itself does.
As for so-called "HD radio" well, I'm both a Sirius and XM subscriber and I think the benefits of that pay for play system far outweigh anything I've heard about HD radio. I can listen to any type of music imaginable, commercial free, coast to coast without ever changing the station should I choose to do so. Add that benefit to near CD quality digital sound and believe me, I'll gladly pay the $ .43 per day it costs me.
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