Recently, the quality of the audio at 1520 has gone into the toilet. The bandwidth has been reduced, almost as if they put in a lower bandwidth feed to the transmitter to save money. Along with this, there is a lot of distortion. The audio is mushy and almost unlistenable. I can see the rationalizations that somebody might use for the bandwidth reduction, but why is there so much distortion??

Maybe that's what sells. I've noticed old movies on spanish cable channels are distorted at times. I've also noticed this with movies made in Bollywood's India. I think it's done for a comfort zone. It's what you grow up with I guess.

It's too bad. 1520 sounded amazing when it was "Sunny 1520."

It sounds like 1520 is throwing in the towel. 93.1 "El Rey" has excellent audio quality, and 1520 will never be able to compete with that!

Throwing in the towel? And to do what?

I know! How about Spanish radio infomercials?

It's time for Rom Popeil's Veg-O-Matic!

I would have to agree 1520 did sound amazing as Sunny 1520 and their stereo was great too. I have not heard them recently so I cannot say anything about their current sound quality

All Soccer!

> I have not heard them recently so I cannot say
> anything about their current sound quality

When Bustos first bought the station, the stereo was turned off, but the sound was still crisp and the distortion was very low. This is what the early "La Grande" sounded like. It is in the last nine months or so that the sound has really gone into the crapper. Not all of the Bustos Portland stations sound like this (1150 sounds much better).

Back in the 1990s, I was living in the Austin, TX area, and it did seem like all of the Spanish language stations in that area, both AM and FM, were trying to be the loudest and most heavily processed on the dial.

P.S. I think that the Sunny 1520 stereo exciter is now living in the racks at KBPS-AM.

The stereo exciter at KBPS-AM is from 970.

I'm pretty certain that the 1520 Stereo exciter is still kicking around Entercom somewhere.

OK, I stand corrected. What I do remember about the sale to Bustos is that although the Sunny 1520 format kept running for a little while under Bustos ownership, the stereo pilot was promptly turned off on April 1st. I remember posting on this board that if shutting off the stereo was some kind of April Fool's joke, it wasn't very funny.

well its spanish. what do you expect.

I went through East Portland on I 205 a couple of weekends ago. I punched up 1520 and just about hurled! Geezus Mary and Joseph ! I would hope this program quality is intentional. I wouldn't admit to being the engineer if the audio wasn't intentionally muddied up. And even then I might not.

The days of 1520 KYXI or KSGO or the Sunny 1520 sounded a lot better on that Johnson Road 50KW 3 tower "in line".

> well its spanish. what do you expect.

In years past, I have heard some very good and very bad audio on Spanish stations. It is very hit-or-miss. Is the rule of thumb that stations that use consulting engineers are generally going to suck because the management won't call in the engineer until something is very obviously broken?

Something is very obviously broken! What are they trying to do? Send all of their audience to 93.1?

Thay are doing a very good job at that. Everyone I know listens to El Rey 93.1

No one's gonna listen to music on AM unless it's a format for the older crowd.

And even that isnt assured anymore. About the only music that sounds good on AM is Motown or doo-wap.