RadioShack's Inadequate Accurian

This is the cheapest HD Radio receiver now on the market, but even at $200 it's too expensive given its subpar sound

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By Douglas Macmillan

April 9, 2007 at 9:01 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

For the consumer audio industry, I am the ideal target customer: A twenty-something male who loves music but has no current loyalty to a single listening platform. My once-treasured CD collection is buried beneath old clothes and textbooks in the closet; a turntable handed down from my grandparents is accompanied by one record each by Al Green and Johnny Cash; my Apple (AAPL) iPod was stolen at a house party last year; and I have neither the expendable income nor the allegiance to Howard Stern to go the satellite radio route with a provider like Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI).

So I'm dabbling in HD (hybrid digital) Radio, kicking off a series of reviews aimed at helping you pick from among a crop of receivers designed to deliver the gamut of HD signals. A hybrid digital-analog technology developed by iBiquity Digital and approved by the Federal Communications Commission as the new standard for local broadcast radio a few years back, HD Radio allows up to eight programming channels to stream on one FM frequency. So if you're into jazz like me, this means your favorite station may one day broadcast bebop on one channel and big band, fusion, Latin, Dixieland, free jazz, smooth jazz, and funk on the others. Dig?