what's the deal with AAR's new lo-fi sound?

[disgruntled_goat]

I listen to AAR over the internet, and it seems that around the start of this week, they dropped their fidelity WAY down.

I realize we have a few reruns this week, but I was listening to Malloy last night and I couldnt even recognize his voice because of the fidelity loss.

???

[BlueEyedSon]

1. WOW, I thought it was me!

[phusion]

2. I noticed this too...

Maybe they are having server issues.

:shrug:

[LSK]

3. i noticed this too

Im listening to last nights Malloy program archived from whiterosesociety.org and I thought it was just recorded badly this one time.

[LSparkle]

4. It WASN'T just me -- I listened to Laura Flanders yesterday

and thought I was listening to a tinny AM radio instead of the 'net. Maybe they're trying to make the stream available to more people, at the expense of quality (??).

[tridim]

5. Just shaving bandwidth to save money

That said, the Windows Media version sounds much better than the RA stream.

[ArbustoBuster]

6. Possible Cost Reason?

Dropping your bitrate, and therefore your audio fidelity, saves on bandwidth costs. Especially with talk-only programs, low fidelity doesn't usually cause problems (although it sounds like it did in this instance), and can save huge amounts of money.

Just a guess from an old IT guy.

(Edit): Aaaaaand Tridim beat me to it. :)

[derby378]

7. Isn't AAR moving to a new studio in NYC?

That could be part of the problem...

[melissinha]

10. or maybe the move

is a solution to the problem.

[ohio_liberal]

8. It always sounded like crizzap to me

I haven't noticed a change in quality

:shrug:

[drbtg1]

9. Any minute now, I expect Ms. Rhodes to start sounding like...

...the teacher in the "Peanuts" cartoons.

[clbuck]

11. If you want to listen to Malloy...

Use the stream from themic921.com. It's much better in quality than the official AAR stream (though it's only Windows Media Player). I think Ben should use that stream for archiving Mike's show instead of the regular stream.