Chances are, you’ve heard of this thing called HD Radio if you’re here in the US. Those commercials definitely try to get you to run out and buy one, but why would you? Well, you know that HDTV offers better picture quality than regular TV. It’s pretty much the same with HD Radio: you get better audio quality.

Instead of an analog signal, which is FM and AM, HD radio uses an all digital signal, getting rid of most radio hissing and distortion as well as station drop outs. You’ve probably been wondering about the difference in audio quality, well, for FM radio the audio becomes CD quality, and on AM radio the audio becomes FM-quality. While you may not care that you can hear NPR in HD Radio, having your tunes in HD Radio is going to be pretty cool. Just like regular radio, there’s no cost to use your HD Radio, all you need is a station that broadcasts HD Radio (and more and more stations are doing just that). Your current radio may receive the artist’s name and the song title, something HD Radio can do as well along with some other basic data including more detailed song information, stocks, traffic, and weather. Plenty of options are available for buying a HD Radio, but be warned, they’re going to be a lot more expensive than your standard $5 FM radio from Target. The radio in the picture of this post costs $250, and while it has more features than that $5 radio, that’s still a lot of money for what is, in reality, a radio. Check out the links below for more information.

HD Radio official site - HD Radio on Wikipedia