Had heard the W.S. radio at a friends place and liked the reproduction but got deterred by the high initial cost. So, when these guys announced a discounted offer around diwali , I immdtly got their rep over for a demo and also to see whether
I could get a signal in my house at the lace where I keep my main stereo(I hope you agree that there wuld ’nt be much fun if the only place where the antenna could be placed in the proper orientation was the bogs or the kitchen or such likes).
Fortunately , ther was a window where the antena could be placed which was bang next to the stereo-so we were up and going in a short order.
I have now been enjoying the radio for a few months, and would like to share the pluses and minuses with other members;
PROS;
1.great music clarity-the broadcast is at 128 kbps i.e.standard mp3 quality, and sounds pretty good when hooked up to a proper music system.
2.categorywise broadcast-so, if you feel like listening to indian classical only, tune to Gandharva, if your fancy is old hindi songs go for farishta and so on-jazz, rhythm& blues, rock , pop, western classical, country etc etc- this is truly the standout feature of this radio service, to my mind.
nice compact receiver, handy remote with a very useful 10 presets(wish their were more), since otherwise tuning is a pain.
no commercials, mostly straight music.
this is the only radio service that gives a wide selection of western music of a wide variety-FM mostly is a khichri of all sort of hindi music.
these guys have a pretty good music library.
CONS;
1.highly location specific/non portable-you just cant takethe receiver to whichever room you’re sitting in since the dish antenna needs a clear line of sight to the satellite in the SE. direction.
2.their local(hindi) programming is highly limited and in some channels(e.g.Jhankar-contemporary hindi film music) pretty crappy.
So, for a person who doesn’t care to much for ’’english’’ music, W.S is no value for the money. I have feedbacked theseguys that if they want to really expand and make a whole lot of more people happy, they should seriously do some thing to increase the local content-but still have’nt got a response!
3.Can’t be installed in your car for orientation reasons-so you can only enjoy it when you’re back home and have nothing more exciting to do than listen to radio!So, a socially active and career minded person would get very little time to enjoy it bec of non portability reasons aforementioned.
4.W.S doesn’t treat all its members fairly and equally- I know for a fact that to some members(friends/big shots?) they’ve offered a 2yr subscription @2400 (I’ve read such offer letterrs) while to the rest of the ordinary public the only choice is1800 per year or the dabba falls dumb. This kind of discrimination stinks!
5.With the recent auctioning of a lot of FM licenses, there is going to be a whole lot more competition- like delhi alone is slated to add a dozen more channels to the six existing ones-and they will all be free to air.
- Likewise, with the spread of broadband, Internet radio-and then these guys will be in real trouble; I’ve listened to internet radio stations- my word such variety, such quality, even broadcasts at 360 kbps and up!
Till such time , these guys really need to get their act together, like increase the local content-we have such a rich variety of genres in our country-e.g. in north India;ghazals, light classical forms such as thumris, dadras , tappa, hori etc such an entrancing variety of folk music, and also come up with more consumer friendly packages, else how long can they survive when competition as mentioned above takes hold?