The Ten Myths of DAB

[Bryn]

I only have DAB in the kitchen (Pure Evoke 2) and a small bedside radio. Both are perfectly good for speech channels, R4 and Five Live (much better for Five than on medium wave). I wouldn't expect those radios to be any good for serious music. I listen to Radio 3 mainly via VHF and sometimes Freeview and cannot judge DAB for hifi listening because I have never had any reason to invest anything up to about £600 in a DAB tuner that might deliver appropriate quality.

If you can find a cheapish DAB radio with a digital output, that could well be fed to an external DAC to give as good as DAB has to offer (not a lot, really - Radio 3 at 192kbps mp2 is roughly equivalent in audio quality to 128kbps mp3).

[Resurrection Man]

And the BBC has 93 % DAB coverage, soon to be 97 %

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/broadcast/radio-ops/coverage/Annex_C.pdf

Looking good!

What tosh - unless there is a missing 'wink-eye' emoticon. Phrases like although there is not yet a transmitter plan in place that will deliver that. and

the CSPG has agreed that the value of outdoor location variation used in coverage predictions should be reduced
from 5.5 dB to 4.0 dB with what effect indoors on reception?

The BBC network has already reached the stage where its coverage is, in places, being
limited by self-interference


I could go on but it is pointless talking to someone who selectively quotes websites but clearly doesn't bother to read the text.

[An_Inspector_Calls]

What tosh - unless there is a missing 'wink-eye' emoticon. Phrases like . . . the CSPG has agreed that the value of outdoor location variation used in coverage predictions should be reduced from 5.5 dB to 4.0 dB ]with what effect indoors on reception?
I could go on but it is pointless talking to someone who selectively quotes websites but clearly doesn't bother to read the text.

Unfortunately, I did read the report I quoted, unlike you it seems, because the full paragraph you quote with relish, reads:

Since the publication of the first version of this document in June 2011, the CSPG has agreed that the value of outdoor location variation used in coverage predictions should be reduced
from 5.5 dB to 4.0 dB. The maps and tables of predicted coverage in this document have been revised to show the effect of that change.

Oh, and Bryn knows full well that coverage maps (FM and DAB) have always been subject to, shall we say, interpolation, or modelling.

[Resurrection Man]

Unfortunately, I did read the report I quoted, unlike you it seems, because the full paragraph you quote with relish, reads:

Oh, and Bryn knows full well that coverage maps (FM and DAB) have always been subject to, shall we say, interpolation, or modelling.

Yes and what does that do to internal reception?

[gurnemanz]

If you can find a cheapish DAB radio with a digital output, that could well be fed to an external DAC to give as good as DAB has to offer (not a lot, really - Radio 3 at 192kbps mp2 is roughly equivalent in audio quality to 128kbps mp3).

Thanks for that info. Your comment in brackets encourages me to stick with what I have. My Sony VHF tuner (a "best buy" at the time) must be about twenty years old and to my ears still gives excellent results.

[An_Inspector_Calls]

If you can find a cheapish DAB radio with a digital output, that could well be fed to an external DAC to give as good as DAB has to offer (not a lot, really - Radio 3 at 192kbps mp2 is roughly equivalent in audio quality to 128kbps mp3).

For a non-portable, mains driven digital radio receiver recommendation, that's not a very good suggestion for radio 3.

You'd be better off buying a decent Freeview receiver and getting guaranteed 192 kbps mp2. Freeview receivers are usually very cheap as well. For that, the sound will have good dynamic range, and very low noise. The single problem, as we all know, is mp2 does not give a good sound on certain types of music such as some quiet string playing. Contrast that with the pathetic FM dynamic range, oodles of distortion all the time (albeit, nice, comforting second harmonic) and lots of noise. Hardly minor differences. This suggestion also deletes one external aerial from your house as it can share your DTT aerial. If you're exclusively on satallite, then a cheap satellite receiver would also do nicely.

[Resurrection Man]

Another good website is here http://savefm.net/

As an aside, just before Christmas we bought a replacement CD./radio for the kitchen. After much searching, buying and rejecting for various reasons four different makes and types, we settled on a Philips DCB852. This is not cheap and to be honest I could have done without all the iPod/iPhone connectivity gizmo but there you go. Sound quality is extremely good especially for classical music. It does come with DAB as well as FM. So I tried DAB. It worked for a while but then boiling mud sound started to kick in. I brought in a Morphy Richards Ordio that was bought several years ago. That seemed to work fine on Radio 4 DAB. But then after a few minutes, the Philips seemed to settle down. So is it duff? Or just that the DAB signal is so pernickety.

And that, to my mind, sums up the difference between FM and DAB.

FM. Turn on. Listen. Enjoy

DAB. Turn on. Fiddle. ADjust. Fiddle some more.


Bit like the difference between Mac's and PCs

[gingerjon]

Were others on this board as irritated as I was by the number of plugs for digital radios the BBC gave airtime to in the run-up to Christmas, presenting them as an ideal gift? Not to mention the large picture of a DAB radio that adorns the programme info for the Media Show on R4 ...

I'm judging this equal with the constant references on Five Live for the 'BBC smartphone app'.

This is the same 'BBC smartphone app' that, several months after its release, is still not available for Android users.

[Resurrection Man]

I'm judging this equal with the constant references on Five Live for the 'BBC smartphone app'.

This is the same 'BBC smartphone app' that, several months after its release, is still not available for Android users.

I remember the flak that the BBC got when they brought out iPlayer and it only ran on Microsoft!

[teamsaint]

I'm judging this equal with the constant references on Five Live for the 'BBC smartphone app'.

This is the same 'BBC smartphone app' that, several months after its release, is still not available for Android users.

probably.
After trying to load the app for my kindle fire for about a fortnight , I decided that there are CDs , youtube, spotify, R3 on DAB/car radio/FM, my MP3 player, or any number of other ways to listen to music.

[teamsaint]

I remember the flak that the BBC got when they brought out iPlayer and it only ran on Microsoft!

it wouldn't be quite so bad if they didn't constantly tell us how great all this stuff is , and they are, RM.!!

[Flosshilde]

.

FM. Turn on. Listen. Enjoy

Not quite.

FM - turn on. Fiddle with tuner to try & get interference-free sound. Get it. Sit down to enjoy music. Change of position creates interference. Get up. Move arial. Get rid of interference. Sit down. Interference back again. Give up. Go to kitchen. Switch on radio. Pick up kettle to make a cup of tea. Storm on radio. Give up. Put on CD.

[Bryn]

Not quite.

FM - turn on. Fiddle with tuner to try & get interference-free sound. Get it. Sit down to enjoy music. Change of position creates interference. Get up. Move arial. Get rid of interference. Sit down. Interference back again. Give up. Go to kitchen. Switch on radio. Pick up kettle to make a cup of tea. Storm on radio. Give up. Put on CD.

In my experience over the decades (and yes, I have been using DAB for over a decade), both require a decent, preferably external, aerial to get worthwhile results. In my case, a five element Yagi for FM and a simple dipole for DAB. I find both FM and DAB offer enjoyable listening within their limits (principally in dynamic range in the case of FM, and in tonal quality where DAB is concerned).

Three cheers for the iPlayer's Radio 3 HD Sound option, when, as is usually the case, it is working properly.

[teamsaint]

Not quite.

FM - turn on. Fiddle with tuner to try & get interference-free sound. Get it. Sit down to enjoy music. Change of position creates interference. Get up. Move arial. Get rid of interference. Sit down. Interference back again. Give up. Go to kitchen. Switch on radio. Pick up kettle to make a cup of tea. Storm on radio. Give up. Put on CD.

[teamsaint]

Not quite.

FM - turn on. Fiddle with tuner to try & get interference-free sound. Get it. Sit down to enjoy music. Change of position creates interference. Get up. Move arial. Get rid of interference. Sit down. Interference back again. Give up. Go to kitchen. Switch on radio. Pick up kettle to make a cup of tea. Storm on radio. Give up. Put on CD.