With a mobile tuner and a table-top radio, Sony delivers HD radio on the cheap, light on features.
Sony today announced the imminent release of two new HD radio products, the XDR-S3HD table-top radio, and the XT-100HD mobile tuner for HD radio in your car. The table-top is a bit light on features, with an LCD screen for the song and station information that HD radio can display. Other features Sony is touting are less impressive, such as auxilliary input and clock radio with alarm (though this isn't being pitched as an HD alarm clock, for some reason). The XT-100HD basically adds HD tuning to your existing Sony head unit. It enables car stereos to receive the rich, textual information that accompanies song broadcasts, and is a hideaway module for your car audio setup. No word on whether it will work with stereos from other car audio manufacturers.
The market is still too new to determine if the $200 price tag for the table top radio and the $100 for the mobile tuner will appeal to customers, or perhaps stem the tide of listeners moving to a paid satellite radio service, but we're interested in hearing the difference in audio quality. Both devices should be available in July.
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