HD Radio is a new technology that enables AM and FM radio stations to broadcast their programs digitally, a tremendous technological leap from today's familiar analog broadcasts. These digital broadcasts provide listeners with radically improved audio quality, more radio channels through multicasting, and new data services.

It's possible that you might find an HD radio at your neighborhood Best Buy or Circuit City especially if you're looking for an HD car audio system. There are also several sites on the Internet where you can compare prices from different online sources.

Tabletop HD Radios

Two manufacturers offer compact, portable, tabletop HD radios that have amazingly clear, room-filling sound. They are Radiosophy and Boston Acoustics. The Boston Acoustics HD Recepter Radio is available through J&R Music and Computer World, Crutchfield and C. Crane, Amazon and several other sources. Its price is almost always $499.95.

Radiosophy offers a great-sounding, tabletop radio called the MultiStream HD. It sells for about half the cost of the Boston Acoustics unit but is on back order at this time. You can order a MultiStream HD at the Radiosophy site with delivery in early January.

More manufacturers are expected to announce portable, tabletop radios during the last quarter of this year and the first quarter of 2006.

HD Car Radios

Six manufacturers have HD Technology radios for the car. They are JVC, Panasonic, Kenwood, Sanyo, Alpine and Eclipse. Again, more manufacturers, including Sony, are expected to soon announce HD Technology car radios. You can find most of these units on sites such as HotBuys.com, Crutchfield, Shop.com, BizRate,com, and Shopping.com.

HD component receivers

Finally, three companies have component-type HD technology receivers available. They are Yamaha, Audio Design Associates (ADA), and Day Seguerra. All three of these HD technology-compatible receivers are designed to be used in conjunction with home theater systems.

You are most likely to find one of these HD Technology receivers at your local home theater retailer or high-end sound components store. It appears that the Yamaha RX-V6400 receiver is actually available. The ADA HTR-2400 was supposed to have shipped in the the third quarter but we have been unable to verify whether or not this actually happened. It is also not possible at this time to verify if Day Seguerra has shipped is M2 receiver and modulation monitor.

Douglas Hanna

Douglas Hanna is a retired advertising and marketing executive. Over the course of his 30-plus year career, he created sales-winning advertising and marketing plans for a wide variety of clients. Hanna writes extensively about family finances, old time radio and the Internet. He is also the webmaster of a site devoted to a new technology called HD Radio.