I recently had in the studio some old AM radio aircheck tapes, circa late 60's and early 70's,
covering several AM stations in metro NYC area. These were half-track 7.5IPS tapes made on an old
Ampex belt-drive consumer deck from the early 60's, probably an "A" type model. I was told the tuner
was a Scott tube AM tuner from the 50's. These tapes sound GOOD, not full fidelity but certainly
more frequency range and much better clarity on voices and musical instruments than modern AM I
receive in my vehicles (I don't have an AM tuner at home, perhaps there are still decent-fidelity
tuners made but I can't get any AM stations worth listening to witha a clear signal in my neck of
the woods). I also know from point-of-origination and network-line sourced radio transcriptions
that, back in the day, there was the potential for very good sound quality headed out to AM
transmitters. So here's my question -- what happened to modern AM sound? Is it the broadcast itself
or modern AM radios?

-- Tom Fine