Refresh me on this radio thing. Isn't that what people used to use to listen to music in cars before we had 8-track tapes? I heard the Buggles killed it with a Betamax in like 1980.
The Radio Stinks!
- Thread starter brucered
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- #22
And Electric Razors killed wet shaving...yet here we all are.
Cassettes are coming back too, but I always hated those.
I kid mostly. I occasionally listen to the radio in the car too when I forget to grab some music. We are actually fortunate enough to have a decent shuffle play format public radio station here that plays a ton of great stuff. Unfortunately they also wander into territory that is so very much not my thing that I find it annoying. Then I have to switch over to the Classic Rock station and hope for something that isn't insipid DJ humour, endless commercials, or something that is so overplayed I can't listen to it anymore. In general though, I hate radio enough that I became a compulsive record shopper when I was about 13. Cellular streaming will eventually kill off a lot of terrestrial radio and probably a lot of satellite radio too.
I've seen that. It is beyond silly. Some old things are magnificent and wonderful. Wow and flutter, stretched and tangled tapes, and fast forwarding through tracks to get to the one you want are things I will never miss. I have to chuckle a little thinking back to high school and using a pencil to rewind a tape to save battery life.
I've seen that. It is beyond silly. Some old things are magnificent and wonderful. Wow and flutter, stretched and tangled tapes, and fast forwarding through tracks to get to the one you want are things I will never miss. I have to chuckle a little thinking back to high school and using a pencil to rewind a tape to save battery life.
Bruce, have you considered XM radio or a radio app for your smartphone (if you have one)? You'd be able to skip the commercials that way and only listen to the music and/or talk that you want to. For some apps, such as the NPR one, you can even listen to radio stations from other parts of the country. If your car has Bluetooth or an auxiliary audio connection, you can listen to your music too.
I feel like radio used to be really big because no one had their own music. I guess since you can now easily buy an MP3 right on your iPhone, radio listenership (and radio quality) are down.
I feel like radio used to be really big because no one had their own music. I guess since you can now easily buy an MP3 right on your iPhone, radio listenership (and radio quality) are down.
I may do most of my listening with online stations but there will always room for my good old fashioned CBC Radio! 
Me too. There is a reason cd took over. Good pressings are a joy to listen to and dealing with cassettes was always a pain.
I suppose it all comes down to how much of an Audiophile one is, how well one's hearing is and what is one willing to invest in the proper listening environment, all is relative!
When I was in my late teens and early 20's, I was way into high end car audio to a point where I competed in audio competitions and spent more money in audio gear than the cars were worth! Forward 25+ years, add a wife, kids, house and expenses, deduct free time and now I can sacrifice loss of sound quality in exchange for ease of access to music on the go and large selection being a finger touch away!
When I was in my late teens and early 20's, I was way into high end car audio to a point where I competed in audio competitions and spent more money in audio gear than the cars were worth! Forward 25+ years, add a wife, kids, house and expenses, deduct free time and now I can sacrifice loss of sound quality in exchange for ease of access to music on the go and large selection being a finger touch away!
If you can't get EAC to work, Windows Media Player can rip uncompressed WAV files as well. The benefit to EAC is it compares your rip to other people's rips to verify how accurate the rip is (EAC asks to be online during the ripping process). With new CDs that are in good condition you do not have to worry as much about faulty rips.
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- #29
I enjoy music, pretty much all day long. What got my goat on the drive to work, was the quality of the files they were playing. This is one of the top radio stations in Winnipeg, so a city of 750k people and should be at least decent quality files they are playing.
It wasn't my car set up, as CD's and other music sounds fine. Heck, it isn't even all the time on that station, but I can pick up the bad files immediately.
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I find it very cool, that the Station we have at work that the college kids run, still does a tremendous amount of vinyl spinning. Saturday mornings they do a few fours of Rockabilly and Do Wop, and they have the Saturday Night Blues Experience.
Actually, radio has pretty much been a wasteland for most of my 60+ years -- tv killed it. There are no longer any shows like Johnny Dollar, The Shadow, or The Lux Radio Show. In fact, television stole many of the radio shows -- Gunsmoke, Superman, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Sky King, The Lone Ranger, etc.
I stopped listening to music on the radio when all of the crap I listened to as a teen became "classic rock." Too depressing.
Now I listen to talk radio when I am in the mood for a dose of conservatism, and NPR when I am in the mood for a dose of liberalism.
The rest of the time I listen to the only cassette tape (my truck is old) left in my possession: Always on a Mountain When I Fall, by Merle Haggard. Merle and me do just fine.
Now I listen to talk radio when I am in the mood for a dose of conservatism, and NPR when I am in the mood for a dose of liberalism.
The rest of the time I listen to the only cassette tape (my truck is old) left in my possession: Always on a Mountain When I Fall, by Merle Haggard. Merle and me do just fine.
Video killed the radio star.
I mostly just listen to my iPod or Pandora stations. If I have a song stuck in my head I'll pull it up on YouTube, but then I'm stuck having to go with no music until I can safely change to another song or get to Pandora.
I can't stand listening to 90% of the stuff out now; the instruments are extremely over-produced, vocals drenched in autotune, and subpar songwriting. Though, a radio station came up around here that plays "indie" stuff, which is better than listening to Katy Perry from 7 months ago 3 times in a 10 minute drive.
At work, we have to listen to pre-programmed music on the intercom, interspersed with commercials touting our current sales and promotional items.
The musical choices are limited. Everything is chosen by someone at Headquarters, and for reasons unknown, they seem to think that 90% of the songs should be in Country/Western genre. We hear the same songs, in the same order, every single day. It gets really boring, really fast.
As if that's not bad enough, now we're getting into the Xmas season, so they are playing seasonal selections. If I hear one more "Pa-rump-a-pum-pum" I think I'm gonna scream.
That's another thing about our "modern" world that irritates me. We haven't even gotten to Thanksgiving yet and the Xmas push is on. Thanksgiving used to be an honored holiday in this country, and Xmas wasn't mentioned until after Thanksgiving. As a result, I don't do Xmas anymore. I'm just sick and tired of it by the time December 25th rolls around.
Being that I work in Retail, Xmas has always been a big PitA for me ... too much work piled on and lots and lots of stuff we don't really make much money on but we have to carry.
We've had our Xmas display set up since Mid-September. Artificial trees, lights, garlands, wrapping paper, etc. It was a lot of work to set this up, replacing the patio furniture that occupied that space throughout the Spring and Summer. One 50-foot stretch of wall shelves had to be re-arranged 8 times in 3 days before our store manager was satisfied with the results.
And it sits untouched most of the time for now. Customers generally are not interested in Xmas decorations until the first week in December, and then it will be a madhouse as they tear the display to pieces every day and we have to clean it up and reorganize thing every night.
My store is very careful about being Politically Correct about everything. The decorations we carry have no mention of Jesus or a Nativity Scene or a Crucifix. They have chosen to remove the "Christ" from "Christmas" and just make it a holiday in a plain wrapper, with no religious connotations at all. There are instead a lot of reindeer lighted lawn ornaments, and Disney characters in Santa garb abound. Especially Olaf from Frozen.
And there is not a single item for any other religious holidays. No Menorahs or Dreidels or Chocolate Coins for Chanukah. Nothing for Kwanzaa, either.
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- #37
I refuse to buy decorations or cards that say "Happy Holidays". You'll never hear or see me say anything besides what it is. It's not the holidays or festive time of year, it's Christmas.
That said, all our Christmas music listening is done December on. All on Vinyl, CD or lossless audio. MP3 and Christmas don't go together in my house.
Radio stinks because of programming more than anything else. When I was a kid, the playlist was what some nerd in the local studio thought sounded cool. We'd get unusual bands, sometimes local artists, sometimes album sides. My personal favorite as a kid, WPGU, I remember hearing "However Much I Booze" by the Who ON THE RADIO. Tell me, besides die-hard Who fans, who has even heard of that song?
Love the OTR shows. I'm listening to Let George Do It to and from work.
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- #40
Ah, good old Pete! I love hearing gems like this on the radio.
Like you said, the programming has a lot to do with how enjoyable the radio is. That's why I miss the college radio station here, they'd play stuff like that too.
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