Oooo, those digital stations....

[plastic penguin]

I've been listening a lot recently to the radio, playing it via my television and hi-fi.. I know the bit rates vary, but commercial stations sound awful. BBC stations sound is a dramatic improvement over other digital stations.

I listened to Heart and Absolute radio, Kerrang! and Smooth radio, I can't believe the 'orrible sibilance you get from these stations. Not only that, they sound flimsey.....gawd I hope it improves when the analogue 'switch off' arrives.......

 

[jimdonnelly]

Could not agree more PP. I feel a bit cheated by turning to DAB. The quality is very bad on some stations but luckily the ones I listend to most are better. In fact maybe that is the reason I listen to them more. I also expected a much larger number of stations by now, guess I expect too much.

What happened to Chill? My daughter loved listening to that while she went to sleep.

 

[Anonymous]

Funny thing some people swears that FM sound quality is better, despite FM has a serious limitation of frequency response and dynamics in the first place, and usually send the same compressed music anyway.

Makes me wonder if the main part of the problem is that people usually listen to FM through a tuner hooked up to the stereo, while most DAB radios are tiny little table top thingies...

 

[Anonymous]

I have to agree, my FM tuner sounds great when going through my cyrus and spendors, but when I tried my mates denon DAB tuner, it sounds awful.

A good FM tuner with a loft ariel etc, can sound fantastic and bea dab hands down.

I take DAB with a pinch of salt, as why if we all listen to CD's or lossless etc, would you want to seriously downgrade to a DAB tuner / radio?

 

[Anonymous]

The quality of the "DAB" stations is better through digital TV than DAB broadcast. I listen to them regularly and they're OK. Radio 3 is quite good!

 

[plastic penguin]

igglebert:The quality of the "DAB" stations is better through digital TV than DAB broadcast. I listen to them regularly and they're OK. Radio 3 is quite good!

You're right - but it's not about how wonderful FM broadcasts are; you get background noise and iffy signal strength. It's just that digital radio at the moment is so inconsistant. BBC stuff is good, but commercial stations reall are left wanting.

 

[Frank Harvey]

I used to listen to Kerrang! a lot, but after the quality of material went downhill (moved more towards Indie) and found the DAB quality of the station to be naff, I stopped listening to it. Fast forward a few years I'm now enjoying listening to internet radio stations, which most of them seem to sound far better.

 

[Anonymous]

igglebert:The quality of the "DAB" stations is better through digital TV than DAB broadcast.

If I'm not much mistaken, that's because the former use AAC, rather than the older MPEG standard.

I still don't understand the faith some people puts in FM though. Even if the source is the highest quality, the limitations of the FM format will degrade the music far below CD quality.

Actually I suspect the reason so many people prefer FM is the high level of distortion. People tend to like distorted music (vinyl, tube amps, speakers with 'warmth')... Live music can be shrill; a distorted reproduction masks this shrillness.