I recently had the chance to try out the Boston Acoustics Recepter Radio® HD, and in doing so, check out HD Radio®. HD Radio is the digital broadcast of FM and AM radio signals, so I was looking forward to testing out the difference between traditional radio and the new digital format.

What is HD Radio, anyway?

Chances are that you've heard of HD Radio, but maybe you aren't entirely sure how it works or just what it can do for you — I know that I wasn't until I jumped into this review. So, here's a brief synopsis of the three major benefits:

• Improved sound quality. Radio stations can broadcast more information more accurately with a digital signal, which means that they will be able to broadcast better-quality songs and programming, without static or crackles. HD Radio describes it as "FM stations with CD-quality sound and AM stations with FM-quality sound."
• More listening options with "multicasting." HD Radio calls it "the stations between the stations." Basically, it means that stations can split their signal into two or more different feeds of programming. This potentially gives you two different radio shows or songs on the same frequency (for example, 95.1 would become 95.1-1 and 95.1-2).
• Textual information on your radio display. Stations can also send digital text info to your radio, like song title and artist information or weather and traffic information.

There are mixed opinions about HD Radio out there — from people raving about how great it is to people who just don't seem impressed at all — so I was pretty excited to get the Recepter home, give HD Radio a shot, and form my own personal opinion.

The Recepter comes with a satellite speaker so you can get stereo sound from a small table radio.

Appearance and setup

The first thing I noticed about the Recepter was how small it was. This worked out great for me, because I could fit the radio right on top of my bookshelf. And it comes with an equally petite satellite speaker, so I got stereo sound from an inconspicuous setup. It even comes with a tiny credit card-sized remote that I found pretty useful for changing stations from across the room.

For setup, I connected the satellite speaker to the main Recepter unit and plugged the AC adapter into the wall. The radio came with an internal AM antenna and simple, single-wire FM antenna attached. I had heard that I'd get better FM reception with the dipole (or two-wire) antenna that's included in the box, so I unplugged the simple FM antenna and attached the dipole antenna. Then, I tuned to a local station that was broadcasting an HD Radio signal, and started listening to digital radio programming.

If you've already purchased a Recepter and didn't receive a dipole FM antenna, Boston Acoustics will send one to you free of charge. You can contact a Boston Acoustics customer support representative at 1-978-538-5000.