Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

How good is the FM & HD radio?

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
HD is excellent on the 3, after many years of not listening to terrestrial radio I've started to listen to WGBH-HD. The difference in sound quality between HD radio and Slacker is night and day. Streaming is highly compressed, it sounds fine until you compare it to HD radio which has far less compression.
 
Unrelated to the original post. But this thread got me googling HD stations in my area. One annoyance with the purchase of the car was the lack of AM band (for sports broadcasts).
After searching HD stations available to me, I discovered both Sportsnet, and TSN radio are available via FM HD sub channels. Amazing!!
So again, sorry not related… but figured someone else might benefit.

Is there a site or list showing which GTA AM channels can be accessed via FM sub channels?
Thx
 
Unrelated to the original post. But this thread got me googling HD stations in my area. One annoyance with the purchase of the car was the lack of AM band (for sports broadcasts).
After searching HD stations available to me, I discovered both Sportsnet, and TSN radio are available via FM HD sub channels. Amazing!!
So again, sorry not related… but figured someone else might benefit.
You can always use Tunein got get your AM stations
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bulldogge16
Is there a site or list showing which GTA AM channels can be accessed via FM sub channels?
Thx
It wasn’t entirely accurate but a little playing around and I found them. I see you’re in Vaughan so if it’s SN590 and TSN1050 you’re after. I’ll pop out to my car in a bit and let you know where they can be found.
 
  • Like
Reactions: rBajwa
It wasn’t entirely accurate but a little playing around and I found them. I see you’re in Vaughan so if it’s SN590 and TSN1050 you’re after. I’ll pop out to my car in a bit and let you know where they can be found.

Thx. Is there way to save these in a Favourites List on main menu? (haven't received my car yet so not familiar with all settings)
 
It wasn’t entirely accurate but a little playing around and I found them. I see you’re in Vaughan so if it’s SN590 and TSN1050 you’re after. I’ll pop out to my car in a bit and let you know where they can be found.
92.5-3 SN590
99.9-3 TSN1050
92.5-2 680News
 
Is there a site or list showing which GTA AM channels can be accessed via FM sub channels?
Thx
If you are looking for an HD FM broadcast of an AM station, I have found the easiest way to find it is (of all things) Wikipedia. Search for the AM station there and then look in the box on the right with all the details. Usually near the bottom is "Repeater Info" which lists where else you can that station.

For example, I looked up "TSN Radio 1050" and found that you can also find them by tuning into 99.9 FM HD3

(And I have no idea if that station is any good: just the first thing I found searching for "Sports Radio Toronto")
 
On my drive back tonight, I put on the HD radio stations nearby as a test. I've been doing some profiling of the audio system on my SR recently, and have a better feeling for sound quality as I compare different components.

The HD audio from the radio is not very good. It's pretty highly compressed, even as compared to a Spotify stream, which is also compressed. Uncompressed USB audio from FLAC or WAV files is the best you can get of course. The HD radio is strange- I could hear static on some stations, which was also annoying in today's digital world. It must not be digital? I'm not sure it's actually compressed, because historically FM was not terrible. Nevertheless it was noticeably inferior to a Spotify stream. I listened to a song I know well on HD radio, then immediately played it as on-demand in Spotify. No comparison. The Spotify was far superior quality.

I've got the Spotify stream setup to play at maximum quality on all devices, and I think this is working on my Tesla. In comparing well known songs back to back on Spotify and USB stick, I can't tell a difference. With tuned EQ settings in the car, it sounds better than my home stereo, which is a real shock to me. I need to do another RTA pass on my home stereo now.

The Slacker radio is terrible, unusably terrible. I initially thought that the entire audio system was terrible because I was mostly listening to the free Slacker radio. It wasn't until recently when I plugged in lossless files that I could tell the audio system is actually decent. Not as a good as the LR, but decent. The Slacker radio sucks hard enough that I disabled it from the UI as an option. I read in a couple of other posts that the Slacker stream is compressed to 64kb, which is indeed what it sounds like. I'd rather hear road noise.
 
If you want to be SURE you are listening to Digital Audio on Digital FM you have to choose one of the substations. The way HD FM works is it plays the normal FM and then when the digital is synced it will slide over to it. You'll hear it change, it's subtle, but if the reception isn't too good it will get noticeably better. And if reception is bad it may go back and forth as it loses the HD signal.

The substations are digital only, although they are various levels of compressed. All this info (FM, FMHD, Subchannels, and program description) is fitting in the space normally occupied by just the FM station itself, just like HD TV broadcasts, although there is no analog TV signal anymore and they do typically change to a UHF TV station with different broadcast characteristics.

If there are a LOT of sub channels you will hear a lot of compression artifacting. If just two it will all sound pretty good if you are near the broadcast tower. As the FM channel breaks up the HD channels will cut out. If you are hearing static you are on the main channel and too far away for digital.

Like others here have said, FM HD is glorious, should sound just like the CD for the main channel. If you can hear the difference in an uncompressed USB on your standard range I would be surprised, my understanding is the sound system isn't as nice as the expensive cars like mine.
 
Last edited: