Dumbed down DAB

[Mooly]

Up untill the mid 90's (when FM could be considered at it's best ??) it was linked I believe to the transmitters via a PCM system. I think it changed after that to a NICAM feed to the transmitters at 14 bit resolution).

"Digital" goes back much much further than most folk realise.

http://www.bbceng.info/Install/comms_projects/comms_reminiscences/pcm_changeover.htm

DAB as such IS capable of very high quality sound... virtually CD standard... but was never intended to be used at the low bitrates we find ourselves stuck with in the UK. When DAB first appeared and was showcased even 192kbs was considered to low and 256 and 320kbs was what we were led to believe would be used for the likes of national radio.

As ever more and more was squeezed out of the available capacity and that is why we have the poor quality DAB radio network of today.

But don't blame DAB as a technology

 

[wilco]

Fully agree that DAB is good technology and could have been a quality addition to hifi systems. Glad I recently woke up to streaming and bought an rDAC to connect via USB to my lap top. It would appear to be a handy addition now that DAB is going down hill.

Still angered by the arrogance of the owners who think they know what we want from their "products". I have taken the comments from all above and certainly will be browsing for online radio/streaming alternatives. Already tried Spotify and thinking about the £10 a month for their 320k feed. (Typical Scot tight on spend )

 

[Anonymous]

Also very annoyed that Jazz FM national has switched to mono. I did an A-B-C test the other evening, using the mono output via my tuner and stereo feed from a laptop into the DAC on my 8200CD (asynchronous btw). As I was doing this they happened to play a recording I had in my collection, hence the "C" comparison. Result, in descending order of audio "quality" (subjective, using AKG Q701 cans):

CD player (benchmark - obviously!)

Mono DAB feed

Internet streamed stereo feed

The mono IS annoying, but less so to me than the loss of quality on the internet stream.

As others have said, FM is head-and-shoulders above the pack. Where's all this "progress"? I've recently finished digitising some old audio cassettes (using a Pioneer CT-S740S) recorded under HX-PRO and Dolby-S onto metal tape and sourced from my previous Arcam tuner set to Radio 3 FM. They must be over 15 years old and they sound SUPERB on my current setup!

 

[dfa2124]

Also very annoyed that Jazz FM national has switched to mono. I did an A-B-C test the other evening, using the mono output via my tuner and stereo feed from a laptop into the DAC on my 8200CD (asynchronous btw). As I was doing this they happened to play a recording I had in my collection, hence the "C" comparison. Result, in descending order of audio "quality" (subjective, using AKG Q701 cans):

CD player (benchmark - obviously!)

Mono DAB feed

Internet streamed stereo feed

The mono IS annoying, but less so to me than the loss of quality on the internet stream.

As others have said, FM is head-and-shoulders above the pack. Where's all this "progress"? I've recently finished digitising some old audio cassettes (using a Pioneer CT-S740S) recorded under HX-PRO and Dolby-S onto metal tape and sourced from my previous Arcam tuner set to Radio 3 FM. They must be over 15 years old and they sound SUPERB on my current setup!

Which internet stream did you use Golden Ears, the 64k AAC+ or the 128k AAC+? The latter should be far better than 96k MP2 mono DAB!

 

[Anonymous]

Which internet stream did you use Golden Ears, the 64k AAC+ or the 128k AAC+? The latter should be far better than 96k MP2 mono DAB!

Going to the JazzFM site I only see the red "listen live" button. Clicking this pops up an onmyradio.net applet, which I can only assume is streaming 64k AAC+. Where are you finding the 128k feed?

My tuner really must be fabulous, if it can get the quality I'm hearing out of a low-bitrate mp2 encoded stream!

 

[dfa2124]

Yes that is the 64k AAC+ stream. The 128k AAC+ stream is at:

http://listen.onmyradio.net:8050/

The server can only handle about 50 listeners though so I'm guessing that's why there is little publicity for this stream. It does sound good though!

 

[wilco]

dfa2124

Do you have any software to check on the streaming bitrate. I am assuming that you found out the better quality site by other means. Is ther a good source of info on this.

Have had a search around but not been able to find software to check the internet bitrate. I have been using Audacity to check the quality of Hi res downloads and CD rips.