By what means and how was your introduction to Radio 3 via DAB?

[Bryn]

Mine was via a Psion Waverfinder in November 2000, the month after its release. In those days all BBC National channels, R1, R2, R3 and R4 used 196kbps mp2 discrete stereo. However, things very quickly deteriorated. All bar Radio 3 dropped to 128kbps or lower and Radio 3 all too often got restricted to 160kbps lossy intensity joint stereo.

[Stunsworth]

I bought an expensive Musical Fidelity FM/DAB tuner when they were being remaindered. It currently sits on top of the wardrobe unused as I switched to streaming.

[Pulcinella]

Bush DAB FM radio NE-3160

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bush-Stereo-Radio-Alarm-Clock/dp/B00AAY20TA

Never sorted out how to store stations (it didn't do what the instruction manual claimed it did!).
On bedside cabinet originally for morning R4 Today and/or R3, but since I gave up on both of those long ago it stands idle.
Maybe I should try Scala Radio on it.

[Bryn]

I bought an expensive Musical Fidelity FM/DAB tuner when they were being remaindered. It currently sits on top of the wardrobe unused as I switched to streaming.

The attraction of the Wavefinder, and later the early Pure receivers, was their ability to save the mp2 stream as a file for later playback. I still use a DAB radio in the kitchen and have a little Sony portable, plus the car radio. BBC Sounds is indeed the way to go, these days.

[Bryn]

. . . Maybe I should try Scala Radio on it. . .

I'll pretend I did not read that.

[Pulcinella]

I'll pretend I did not read that.

Just did a factory reset (so a new scan to find stations).
Still won't save any: it goes into sleep mode instead.

It did find something like 75 stations though (yes, Scala Radio was one of them; ).

[cloughie]

Just did a factory reset (so a new scan to find stations).
Still won't save any: it goes into sleep mode instead.

It did find something like 75 stations though (yes, Scala Radio was one of them; ).

Easy listening Pulc!

[Bryn]

Just did a factory reset (so a new scan to find stations).
Still won't save any: it goes into sleep mode instead.

It did find something like 75 stations though (yes, Scala Radio was one of them; ).

My JVC car radio clearly does not have a backup battery for scanned muxes and stations. Every time I have to disconnect the car battery for maintenance, I lose the lot and have to start again from, dare I say it, scratch.

[cloughie]

A cheap Goodmans CD/DAB - not built for longevity - now have a much more substantial Yamaha DAB/FM/CD/USB ideal for kitchen/diner - also a small Sony DAB/FM for bedside - did use a Hitachi DAB Radio alarm - DAB not bad but never fathomed out how to use alarm - used for some time in lounge - this was replaced by Alexa recently! Main hi-fi systems are still FM. When FM goes I may try to get a DAB/FM tuner.

[Pulcinella]

A cheap Goodmans CD/DAB - not built for longevity - now have a much more substantial Yamaha DAB/FM/CD/USB ideal for kitchen/diner - also a small Sony DAB/FM for bedside - did use a Hitachi DAB Radio alarm - DAB not bad but never fathomed out how to use alarm - used for some time in lounge - this was replaced by Alexa recently! Main hi-fi systems are still FM. When FM goes I may try to get a DAB/FM tuner.

Oops! Forgot than my downstairs (ground-floor/dining room) Denon unit has a DAB tuner that I use occasionally.

[Stunsworth]

The attraction of the Wavefinder, and later the early Pure receivers, was their ability to save the mp2 stream as a file for later playback. I still use a DAB radio in the kitchen and have a little Sony portable, plus the car radio. BBC Sounds is indeed the way to go, these days.

These days I listen to R3 using the live radio function in Roon. Another of my favourite Roon stations is the Concertgebouw one, they broadcast concert recordings, no ads, no announcers. The online stream can also be listened to here...

https://www.concertgebouworkest.nl/radio

[johnb]

My first experience of DAB was via an Arcam DT81 tuner, currently in storage somewhere in the house. (I see that these days they go for around £100 on ebay.)

[Pulcinella]

Easy listening Pulc!

Well, probably easier than what would have been next on my Keeping score (What are you listening to now) list: it was far too nice a day for the Bartok String quartets.

[jayne lee wilson]

After reading reports and reviews by Angus Mackenzie (HFN) and Geoffrey Horn (Gramophone), in early 2000 I ordered the first DAB tuner available for home use, the hefty Arcam Alpha 10.
This had remarkable technical features: the viterbi error rate (I got mine down to 0 or 1 with a roof aerial - preferable to watching it whizz around, with alarming instability, from 12 to 27 to 34 and back to 8 if you used an indoor pickup ...), the display showing which transmitters you were picking up & their signal strengths, and much else. Even selectable dynamic range control (just in case you missed Optimodded FM....

I was excited at the thought of a wider dynamic range on R3 Concerts, and this did appear to be realised. Backgrounds even quieter than those from a well-optimised FM aerial/tuner.

But.....it was soon apparent that all was not well. Why was the sound so often thin, edgy, at times dominated by HF distortion? Especially on TTN?
I phoned up BBC Engineering......"cascading", someone said; i.e, lossy-codec recordings from European Stations processed through.... the lossy codec of Radio 3 mpeg2.....

Terrible. Those first few months were frustratingly inconsistent, but gradually I perceived that whilst brass and wind could be OK, classical strings, massed strings especially, nearly always suffered a very off-putting edginess, and the more complex the lines (Brucknerian counterpoint...) the worse it was - where all the edges rubbed...
I earnestly began close FM-DAB comparisons with Bach's Violin Partitas.... oh yes, there it still was; that inescapable edginess; it soon became impossible to ignore. It seemed 192 kbps was, after all that, classically inadequate.

You'd have the odd spectacular success, where the wide dynamics could blast aside any other reservations, if brass wind and percussion were to the fore - I recall a stunning Glagolitic Mass one afternoon....
I compared the Alpha 10 to a Quad FM4....Hindemith Mathis...impossible to ignore the vastly wider dynamic range of the one, but - the obviously greater tonal and timbral refinements, the 3D precision, of the other...each tuner, each medium, discouraged you from listening to the other!
You couldn't square that circle.
So when I heard how badly the vast resonances of the RAH sounded all summer long......
I soon gave up. And when the basic bitrates were often reduced to 160kbps, accompanied by bizarrely false, condescending justifications.........that was it for DAB really.

The DAB10 Tuner ended up in Mum's bedroom - she wasn't bothered by the HF distortions, with hearing that extended to 3khz at best... she'd play Classic FM at The Movies thunderously loud.

My last shot back then was to return to FM, a Magnum Dynalab MD100.... 2 or 3 great (if inconsistent) Proms Seasons until the Optimod DRC became too ubiquitous and Radio 3 became..... just something I used to listen to.
Until the advent of the 192 kbps AAC stream in 2009, my excited rushing into Richer Sounds to buy the Cambridge DacMagic, and my grande rapprochement with the Proms.... but that's another still continuing story.... (dreams...The Lossless Proms 2021...)

***

I still wonder occasionally though, how the story might have gone if DAB had been set at its originally proposed level, 256kbps, and with the possibilities of DAB+ far-seeingly built-in to those early designs.......

[cloughie]

To be honest I was not that interested in DAB until I found the AM reception for radio 5 so diabolical I needed something better.