Blues stations here cover a long chronology, from country and Delta blues recorded in the twenties and thirties, through the electrified Chicago sound of the post-war years, to blues rock and contemporary electric blues. These are separated by decades and by radically different recording technology, and a station that mixes them freely will swing between hiss-laden 78rpm transfers and modern studio production.
That variation makes bitrate less decisive than the source material. Early blues recordings carry substantial surface noise, which is noise-like and therefore expensive to encode; a 1930s recording at 96 kbps can sound worse than a 1970s recording at 64. Stations that specialise in the pre-war repertoire benefit disproportionately from higher bitrates for that reason.
Blues also has one of the healthiest community radio scenes of any genre, with a lot of the best programming coming from volunteer-run stations with presenters who know the catalogue. Those stations tend to run shows rather than rotations, so the schedule matters.
