FM Radio R3 - audio quality?

[Dave2002]

I have had problems with my hearing recently, but this morning I had great lumps of wax removed, and I think my hearing is improving fast. However the sound quality on my car radio FM on R3 has been bad today - it sounds as though the feed has been taken from poor quality digitally compressed sources. The Helios overture this morning was pretty bad, though the piano music which followed was substantially better. Things weren't hugely better this afternoon either. Another possibility is that my car radio is failing in some way. A week or two back I would have blamed my hearing, but now it seems really quite detailed. Has anyone else noticed poor quality on FM?

[Anastasius]

I get confused between that and the poor quality of Radio 3 in the morning.

[Dave2002]

Sorry - I should have thought of a better heading. I have now done that in the post above, but not in the thread title.
I am more inclined to believe it wasn't my hearing which was at fault. I enjoyed my evening out to see Acis and Galatea yesterday, with a lot of balloon popping, and that seemed to me to show that the clean out of my ears earlier on in the day had been very effective.

However I will keep listening to R3 on FM and report back.

[Gordon]

In view of comments above [and in many previous posts going back years!!] posters may wish to see this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-43458695

This might help see what others are doing with DAB+ and heading for switchover. UK suffers from having started early:

https://www.worlddab.org/news the BBC statement is down the list of news items.

[Stanfordian]

I have had problems with my hearing recently, but this morning I had great lumps of wax removed, and I think my hearing is improving fast. However the sound quality on my car radio FM on R3 has been bad today - it sounds as though the feed has been taken from poor quality digitally compressed sources. The Helios overture this morning was pretty bad, though the piano music which followed was substantially better. Things weren't hugely better this afternoon either. Another possibility is that my car radio is failing in some way. A week or two back I would have blamed my hearing, but now it seems really quite detailed. Has anyone else noticed poor quality on FM?

I always find R3 very poor in a moving vehicle as opposed to CFM which sounds far better. However classical music is certainly not the best type of music to listen to in a car. But you probably already know all this.

[Gordon]

I always find R3 very poor in a moving vehicle as opposed to CFM which sounds far better. However classical music is certainly not the best type of music to listen to in a car. But you probably already know all this.

It's possible that CFM uses more Optimod than R3? Compressing dynamic range might help perceived quality in a vehicle.

In what way is reception "very poor" cf CFM? The respective transmitter sites are not necessarily co-incident so you may be in an area of differing signal strengths?

[Stunsworth]

I always find R3 very poor in a moving vehicle as opposed to CFM which sounds far better. However classical music is certainly not the best type of music to listen to in a car. But you probably already know all this.

Apart from occasional forays over to R4 it's all I play in my car. I can't say I've ever thought about it as being very poor - in the context of it being a car radio and not a proper hifi.

[Dave2002]

Since the 19th, when I started this thread, I've hardly listened to R3 via FM, but today I made several trips in my car with the radio on. The audio quality was pretty much as I remembered it before - certainly satisfactory - probably not stunningly good, but not by any means dreadful. It could have been "me" on the 19th, though I really thought the audio quality then was dreadful, and sounded as though the source material was poor, or was suffering from dire digital compression artefacts.

Let's put it down as a glitch - either me - or the transmission.

[Lordgeous]

Talking of car radios, I've always listened almost entirely to R4 FM while travelling but in recent years the signal strength appears to have deteriorated while other stations are all received OK. I put it down to my ageing car radio, but just having changed cars (and radios!) I have exactly the same problem and talking to friends many experience the same problem. I'm in the Bath/Bristol area and signal is usually fine in town but disappears entirely in the country and travelling wider afield (Yes I have all the auto search/tune features turned on). Only solution has been to switch to LW. I can find nothing on BBC or transmitter info sites which might explain this. Any thoughts anyone?

[DracoM]

I know it keeps rearing its head, but what irks me is the sometimes startling differences between the sound levels on the same channel from one programme to the next, and even within the same programme.

[gradus]

Re car radio sound, I find DAB BBC R3 pretty good and better than CFM although the latter has improved.

[Dave2002]

Re car radio sound, I find DAB BBC R3 pretty good and better than CFM although the latter has improved.

You are probably right. In a car the sonic deficiencies of R3 via DAB may be hardly noticeable. What is the coverage like these days?

When I last checked, by taking a portable DAB radio out in a car, I was surprised that the coverage in some areas (around Derbyshire) was much better than I expected, though I feel sure that there must be parts of the UK where DAB coverage is poor. The far north and Scotland may present problems. What areas have you explored?

[Bergonzi]

I know it keeps rearing its head, but what irks me is the sometimes startling differences between the sound levels on the same channel from one programme to the next, and even within the same programme.

Yes, I find this as well. It *should* be better these days as the BBC uses LUFS meters which give an overall reading of the average loudness of a programme. (Integrated Loudness). Unfortunately though, it's the live announcements between or at the start of a programme, where they obviously don't bother. So you turn down the announcement to find the recorded programme about 8dB lower. LUFS is a huge improvement on peak meter readings, or RMS and other meters, as it means programmes (and CD's) can have integrated levels which means you do not have to keep jumping up to change the volume. It's often the live levels from the studio that are the problems, and announcers who screech over the aplause at the Wigmore Hall broadcasts.

[Dave2002]

Yes, I find this as well. It *should* be better these days as the BBC uses LUFS meters which give an overall reading of the average loudness of a programme. (Integrated Loudness). Unfortunately though, it's the live announcements between or at the start of a programme, where they obviously don't bother.

Part of the problem is that different users have different requirements. I suspect that I would like the music relatively loud compared to the announcements, but others want to treat the music as background.

It ought to be possible to have behaviour built in to a digital system, with markers. So a user could ask for music content to be played 10 dB higher than announcements, or vice versa - though there would then be complaints if the programme markers weren't handled properly. There's probably not much which can be done in this area with FM though I think. If there ever was a window of opportunity for side content to be useful in this way I suspect it has now passed, as no broadcaster or distributor is likely to invest in the modest technology or services to make that possible for FM now. Note that there are side channels, which allow the programme details to be displayed on a small display. I think equipment manufacturers could quite easily build in a fix, but there is probably no incentive for them to do so at the current time.