A friend, radio engineer Steve Fluker, first demonstrated high definition radio to me in his car outside my house. I knew it would be a moment I would remember and I think it will be a common recollection of "the first time you heard high def radio." Steve set the scene by saying, you may think it's not a big deal when you hear about it, but when you listen to it, you will realize what it's all about. Indeed, it is a whole different world. Within minutes I heard a WUCF-FM I had never heard before or even imagined possible.
One of my lifetime best friends, Chris Hicks, is one of the top radio engineers around; he directs a very prominent radio group in California. When we worked together at Y106 in Orlando, Chris included me in all of his "sound adjustments" to the station. He also taught me about something he called "presence," which is how a station displays when you lock into its dial position. Chris is also big on psychoacoustics, the psychological aspects of sound. Everything that Chris had taught me over the years about radio sound came together in an instant, it was like a Zen Moment when Steve tuned in his HD radio for me. With the HD tuner, the sound was pristine, front and center -- ultra-presence. Friends who took LSD in the '70's used to describe how music came to life and how they could almost see it. I finally had a way to grasp what they were saying. This, I guess is just a dramatic way of saying HD radio is way better and way different that I expected. The immediacy, clarity and "sense-surround" quality is overwhelming. - Ken Rabac, WUCF
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