P Duffman Goes HD...

I recently purchased a JVC HD-R1 receiver for my car, and it's absolutely brilliant. Obviously, I purchased it at a lower price being the incredibly savvy shopper that I am. It's much nicer than my previous JVC receiver, who's cd-playing operation stopped working about a year ago and recently began turning on and off whenever the hell it pleased. The big deal, though, is that it's HD. While I've always poked fun of HD radio right from the beginning, I figured I may as well ante up the extra cash for it to check it out for myself.

For the most part, it's pretty much what I expected. The clear channel HD2 channels are pretty much crap, while some of the other HD2 channels are pretty fun. WDNA (Serious Jazz) sounds glorious in HD. The drum hits are crisp and tight and the horns sound incredibly pure. WLRN's HD2 classical channel is awesome, too. The Coast's HD2 channel is entertaining; hearing "We Didn't Start The Fire" in HD is never a bad thing.

Meanwhile, stations that are utter shit are proving this to be even more evident with their poor use of HD. Power 96 and Hot 103.5 seem to be having radio sex via-HD2 channels. Power 96's HD2 channel sounds like Hot 103.5. Meanwhile, Hot 103.5's HD2 channel sounds like Power 96. Way to give the public more variety, dumb-fucks.

And as if poor programming wasn't enough, they've decided to not only slap the listeners in the face, but to also jam an over-sized dildo into their assholes by compressing the hell out of their audio, mainly 93 Rock. Wait...it's HD...isn't it supposed to sound better? Yeah, that's what I thought, too. It turns out the geniuses over there decided it'd be a good idea to compress their HD audio, making their normal analog signal sound better.

Anyway, I still haven't fully gotten into HD radio, but I think I've gotten a pretty accurate taste of it so far.

With my recent purchase, I will now own something and be adept in the following forms of radio:

• AM Radio
• FM Radio
• Shortwave Radio
• Satellite Radio
• HD Radio

All I need now is to get a HAM license, though I'm not sure I'll actually bother with that.