![]() ![]() The result is a startling clarity of reproduced tone, with almost equally startling silence between notes. It is also worth noting that the assigned FM bands are in the VHF (very high frequency) spectrum, where electrical noise is sparse. This is not perfect protection against interference, but it is a vast improvement over what the AM technique offers. If, within the band width, a spark plug or a diathermy machine is radiating a racket, it will become audible only during the microsecond when the carrier wave intersects it. The frequency of the flickers determines the key, the breadth of their sweep determines the volume. Instead, it is sent flickering, so to speak, across the assigned band width, at 440 flickers per second. In frequency modulation, by contrast, the carrier wave is not turned on and oil. ![]() For one thing, the receiver always is open to a whole spectrum of interference noise. In amplitude-modulation (AM) radio, to oversimplify somewhat, a carrier wave is made to transmit an A-note by being turned on and off (or up and down in strength) 440 times a second. FM really was epochal, though it was subsequently oversold by its friends and maltreated in practice by both broadcasters and set manufacturers. Armstrong’s epochal discovery, FM, came into common use. But this came to naught, and the general public had its first real taste of high-fidelity radio after the Second World War, when Edwin H. Indeed, if I recall aright, part of the short-wave spectrum - the so-called “ Apex ” band - was briefly set aside for highfidelity transmission in the thirties. There was some high-fidelity broadcasting in pre-FM days. Studio transcription pickups, massive and monstrous though they looked, did much better than that so did microphones. And, even if they were not, the phono-pickups available then, even to adventurous private buyers, probed no higher into the realm of the overtones than 4000-5000 cycles per second, hardly medium-fi in today’s parlance. But commercial records - those pressed domestically, anyway - were almost equally restricted in tone range. To be sure, then as now, network broadcasts were relayed by low-fidelity telephone wire. In addition, the station might well contrive (as most do) to furnish him some live concert broadcasts - in the highest-fidefity sound ever to grace his living room.Īs a matter of fact, the term “high fidelity” was first commonly used, back in the early 1930s, with reference to radio broadcasts rather than recordings, and for this there was reason. Furthermore, the station’s record-playing equipment, in most cases, would be quite as good as his, perhaps better. Each such collection would be many times larger and more varied than his own ever is likely to be. It would put at his disposal the record collections of at least one, and perhaps several, good-music stations. To go to the other extreme, if the music lover makes his home in New York, Chicago, Washington, Boston, or Los Angeles, he would be silly not to get the tuner at once. An FM tuner is of singularly little use where there are no worthwhile FM broadcasts. If the music lover lives in Alaska or Puerto Rico, in Whitefish, Montana, or Hobbs, New Mexico, the records are clearly his best buy. Perhaps it is partly a question of geography. ![]() ![]() It is not easy to say which would be the wiser expenditure, for the person beginning to custom-furnish his home with music. That is to say, with radio tuners - AM and FM.)Ī HUNDRED-DOLLAR bill will buy from 25 to 35 long-playing records, or it will buy a good frequencymodulation radio tuner. The following one will discuss the freight of the air waves and how to bring it home intact. Previous articles in the series have dealt with loudspeakers, turntables, phono-pickups, and amplifiers. An array of such components, well chosen and installed, can deliver music of impressive lifelikeness, and no technical knowledge whatever is needed to make it behave. Such components - loudspeakers, amplifiers, record-playing equipment, and FM-AM radio tuners - now are put forth by a host of manufacturers and dealers, in variety to suit any living room and nearly every pocketbook. (This is the fourth in a series of articles being written for people planning or assembling home-music systems of custom high-fidelity components. “ They Shall Hare Music” is a quarterly feature in the Atlantic. CONLY is a former New York and Washington newspaperman, now editor of High Fidelity Magazine. ![]()
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