DIALING FOR DIGITS

CD on FM

If you want to hear Compact Discs in your living room, you may be able to do it at no cost-via FM. Here in New York, at least three stations are playing CDs-WQXR-FM and WNCN (both classical), and WNEW-FM (album-oriented rock). Across the river in New Jersey, WDHA-FM was apparently the first in this area to broadcast CD (last January 30). The first station in the country to do so was WFMT, Chicago.

Meanwhile, more and more FM stations around the country are getting CD players-mainly classical and AOR stations, since that's what most CD software is. Sony is working out promotional deals with stations around the country, and other brands such as Denon (which supplied the WNCN unit) and Kyocera (which supplied WDHA) are showing up, too.

Can you hear the difference over radio? So far, I've only managed to catch CD records via cheap portable or table radios, which don't show off the difference-when I'm listening to my home system, there's no CD to be heard. But E.P. reports:

"I've listened to broadcasts of Compact Discs over three systems a personal portable during my commute on a bus, a mini-system with $500 car speakers, and over my 'good' system, which includes Stax Earspeakers. Each time, the improvement and difference were clearly audible; it sounds something like the sudden inclusion of a noise-reduction system. And, best of all, it made each of the systems sound better, a lot better, though it was clearly best on the big system." Says Robert Linder, General Manager of WDHA-FM, "Rock stations compress a lot, as you know. But with CD, when the compression brings up the soft passages, the noise doesn't come up with it." Why compress? "Because most listeners are in loud ambient environments, such as the car, the office or the street. There's also the competitive situation, where stations are judged by volume as to how strong they are. At least ours is tastefully done, if compression can be tasteful. We use state-of-the-art equipment, and use it conservatively.

But you can't sound too much different from your competition. I'd like to see a system that lets stations broadcast compressed sound for the car and so on, but let living-room listeners expand it back again."

IEEE Conference

The IEEE ( Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) will hold its 1983 International Conference on Consumer Electronics from June 8-10 at the Ramada O'Hare Inn, in Des Plaines, Ill. The papers to be given cover a wide range of consumer electronics. Most are on TV and video, and a few are on computer topics. Audio will get its heaviest coverage on the morning of Friday, June 10, in a session on DAD/PCM audio. Half of the papers given in the Thursday morning session on "IC and Component Technologies" are audio-related, too.

Preregistration costs $35 for IEEE members, $45 for nonmembers; write Charles Marik, Motorola Corporate Research, 1299 East Algonquin Rd., Schaumburg, III. 60196. At the door, admission will be $10 higher in both categories. If you're interested in the Wednesday keynote luncheon ($12 extra) or the lake cruise that night ($25), mention them while preregistering.

Record Time: Free Program

I feel no guilt in taping my own records for use in my car (or for use in my Walkman, before it walked). They're my records, and since many are long out of print, I couldn't buy new copies-tape or disc-in any case. (There's an argument against tape royalties, come to think of it: If royalties were charged on blank tapes, the fees I paid would not go to those past recording artists whose work I am taping, but to those current ones whose work, by and large, I do not tape.) Taping classical works is easy. You just note the time per side, or add up the times for the two (or three, at most) bands on that side. But pop records, with 10 or so short cuts per side, are different. You can either add up a host of times like "2:38" and "4:27," or just record until the tape runs out, erase the partially recorded cut at he tape's end, and start the second side with it.

Computer to the rescue. I've written a record-timing program in BASIC, which adds up the times and either tells you how long a tape to use or (if you've already selected the tape) tells you to start the second side of the tape when you have all the cuts the current side can hold. It also adds four seconds to the time of every cut, to allow for the band between selections. If you want a copy of RECTIME/BAS, send a self addressed, stamped envelope to me; mark your outer envelope "RECTIME." If you've written any programs you'd like to share with fellow Audio readers (about 10% of our readers own computers), please send them If the program is long and resides on a machine that I have access to (currently TRS-80 I and III, Apple II and Atari 800 with disc, TRS-80 Color Computer and Sinclair/Timex ZX81 with cassette), I'd appreciate getting it on the appropriate magnetic media which will be returned.

(adapted from Audio magazine, Jun. 1983)

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