HD radio is suffering from an image problem -- a lack of image, to be exact. This technology is beloved by Clark, yet few people know about it or seem to care. The idea behind HD radio is simple: Radio has traditionally been broadcast as an analog signal, but today there are digital signals that make the HD experience available. However, the radio receiver you needed to pick up the HD signals previously cost thousands of dollars. But today you can get a receiver for your car for around $100. HD radio does two things for listeners: it dramatically improves the sound quality of a broadcast and it gives you more stations.

Clark recently had an HD radio installed in his wife's van. When you tune to a particular frequency, the radio first delivers the analog signal while it takes a few seconds to seek the digital one. Watch out when it kicks over to HD. Clark compares the difference in sound quality to listening to a standard car stereo versus listening to live music in a concert hall. The cool thing about the whole HD radio trend is that each station has been given three digital signals for every regular one they had. So a music station, for example, now has the opportunity to play two additional formats that weren't previously available -- in addition to its regular music format. So how much does this wonderful technology cost? Absolutely nothing, unlike satellite radio which offers a ton of channels if you pay the subscription fee. Now Clark wants to put an HD radio in his own Scion xB. He'll probably have the only Scion in the nation with HD radio. While satellite radio has spent a ton of money striking deals with the automakers, HD radio has nobody out there to advocate for it and get it built into cars. So it's a great technology that is going no place. We'll see if it catches on or goes the way of Betamax.