I was wondering if anyone listened to the radio anymore?

I got thinking about it after my car was returned back from service with the radio on and I thought to myself that I had never used the FM in my car. I plugged a USB drive in it as soon as I bought it and never looked back.

Well then I got thinking that the only radio receiver I have is in my "garage stereo", a Yamaha A/V receiver that my former employer gave me as a retirement gift.
It is hooked up to a computer in my garage that is stuffed full of music, so no need to play the radio.

I truly think that the last time I listened to a radio with any kind of regularity is probably in the early '00's when I last worked in the "shop" in a Pattern shop.

I suppose most people just stream their music in both car and homes now.
I know that there are a lot of CD and LP fans here and I am a big time computer stored music freak.

So anyway, does anyone listen to the radio with any regularity?

I listen to the radio in the car--I don't drive much though any longer, used to drive about four to six hours a week more when my Dad was alive and I would visit him two or three times a week (he lived almost exactly an hour away door to door). Mostly I listen to NPR.

I do have a tuner that goes in and out of my main system. . .there is a great non-profit classical radio station that comes in and sounds great. What turned me off to radio decades was the repitition of a playlist of rock songs over and over (not my cup of tea any longer and I did not have control of the dial) and the ads and constant blater. Ugh!

Gilf,

KEXP is one of my saved channels on YouTube. I’ve heard LOTS of good stuff there over the years.

Yes, daily--both FM and AM.

Used to listen to the local collage jazz station in the late 90's.   In 2010 I got the idea to try that again.  Got a good tube tuner set it up and discovered all our radio stations are broadcasting MP3's from the internet.  Sound quality is gone.  Gave up.  Bought a large console tape machine from a radio station and a years worth of Radio Station tapes from the 60's ~ 80's.  No issues since.

All analog all the time.

Last year I installed a broadcast amplifier on the tape machine so I could hear it on my tuner.  It works well, and I was struck at hearing the same sound I did as a kid. It's a combination of tape, and the stations transmitter's compressor/limiter section and how much output you set the transmitter to relative to where you have the compressor/limiting set.  This explains why some radio stations sounded like crap and some didn't. Nothing has changed in 50 years except everything has gotten a lot worse.  I am sure in the big cities there are some vintage stations that have managed to keep the sound quality but around here it sounds like sandpaper through a meat grinder.

Still the point of this message is that the vintage sound I used to love was in part from fairly high levels of peak limiting that made the sound 'kind' no matter what you listened to.  I can sit in my driveway in the old 72 monte and listen to my tapes on the car radio with my 6 x 9's in the rear window and giant trunk taking the -3dB bass roll off to 28Hz.  It's a real time machine.  It's a time machine that's real.  I have to consider it one of my listening rooms because it creates a reference of exactly what I was hearing in the 1970's.  Same car, same speakers, same radio, same tape machine and same broadcast tapes.

Steve