Re: [ARSCLIST] FM reception way back when

[Michael Shoshani <mshoshani@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bob Olhsson wrote:
> Some of the most stunningly beautiful audio I ever heard was Chicago's WFMT
> picked up in mono around 1965 from my college dorm room in Olivet Michigan.
> (Top notch mono hi fi gear was available really cheap at that time.) I had
> no idea what FM was capable of before I heard that station. 

WFMT still sounds well today, as does the "news/public affairs/Wait Wait 
Don't Tell Me" public radio station WBEZ. Catch either station on 
something like a mid-to-late 1950s Telefunken Opus and you can feel the 
announcers breathe. The late WNIB, Chicago's other classical music 
station until the founder/owners retired and sold the station, also had 
very good audio.

Especially with good hi-fi gear, it still sounds as though most 
classical and jazz stations (old-fashioned jazz, not "smooth jazz") 
employ much less noticeable compression and limiting than do the 
hotter-signal pop stations.  Just as with many FM stations of yore, you 
still get a very slight hum of "room tone" on these stations when the 
announcers get potted up; for me, that room tone WAS the sound of FM 
when I was a lad. Gave it depth and made the signal breathe, but I can't 
explain why....it's intangible, yet palpable.

Michael Shoshani
Chicago