DAB Performance of different makes?

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Agamemnon wrote:
DAB is utter CRAP and the sound quality is worse than Medium Wave.

You must have ears of cloth.

You obviously have some sort of hearing loss if you cant perceive the
severe distortion on DAB at 128Kbps which make it unbearable to listen
to.

And AM has no distortions?

Not where I live. The people don't sound like they squelching through mud
talking inside a diving helmet and breathing in helium.


Point is it may well be 'unbearable' for you to listen to but this can't
be the case with everyone, obviously.

--
*When you've seen one shopping centre you've seen a mall.*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Agamemnon wrote:
You obviously have some sort of hearing loss if you cant perceive the
severe distortion on DAB at 128Kbps which make it unbearable to listen
to.

And AM has no distortions?

Not where I live. The people don't sound like they squelching through
mud talking inside a diving helmet and breathing in helium.

Are you going to write for the same Hi-Fi rag as Steve?

--
*Generally speaking, you aren't learning much if your lips are moving.*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Agamemnon wrote:
You obviously have some sort of hearing loss if you cant perceive
the severe distortion on DAB at 128Kbps which make it unbearable
to listen to.

And AM has no distortions?

Not where I live. The people don't sound like they squelching through
mud talking inside a diving helmet and breathing in helium.

Are you going to write for the same Hi-Fi rag as Steve?


David, lumping all hi-fi magazines as being as bad as each other is
similar to suggesting that Channel 4 is just as bad as the shopping
channels.

I wouldn't disagree with you that magazines like What Hi-Fi are a joke,
but if you've not read all the others then how can you tell that they're
good or bad?


--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

Please sign the petition asking the BBC to provide better audio quality
on its radio stations on DAB, Freeview, satellite and cable:
http://tinyurl.com/a68e4

Agamemnon wrote:

"Clive Wallis" wrote in message
...

Hi,

I would like to try DAB, just to get some experience of this new
technology. I'm thinking about a clock radio or a mini music centre.


DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY !

DAB is utter CRAP and the sound quality is worse than Medium Wave.

One reason for getting DAB (ie for me getting DAB) is to access
channels not broadcast on analogue: in my case, I was able to
listen to the Middlesbrough match on 5-Live Sports Extra yesterday.
Yes, at 64kbs the sound is oddly muffled; although you don't get
cross-channel interference like you do on real medium wave, but it
sounds like you also don't get the full frequency range either.
However, because in this case the content is more important than the
quality, I still got just as incensed when the goal was given when the
ball hadn't actually crossed the line, which is the usual condition.

Pete.

Clive G3CWV

Hitchin, North Hertfordshire, UK.

In article ,
Peter Bunclark wrote:
One reason for getting DAB (ie for me getting DAB) is to access
channels not broadcast on analogue: in my case, I was able to
listen to the Middlesbrough match on 5-Live Sports Extra yesterday.
Yes, at 64kbs the sound is oddly muffled; although you don't get
cross-channel interference like you do on real medium wave, but it
sounds like you also don't get the full frequency range either.
However, because in this case the content is more important than the
quality, I still got just as incensed when the goal was given when the
ball hadn't actually crossed the line, which is the usual condition.

But people like Steve would stop you being able to do this. He'd have all
the usual stations duplicated on DAB at full bandwidth regardless of how
easy they are to access on other formats in decent quality, so the
minority channels just simply wouldn't be there. One of these days he'll
explain why.

--
*Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

What is the point of comparing the quality of DAC's when the signal being
dumped into them is utter **** and even if it was at 256 Kbps it would still
be **** so how are you supposed to notice any difference.

A 1930's valve radio would still offer better sound quiaity.


"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Clive Wallis
wrote:

Is there much difference in the radio performance between the more
expensive brands, such as Sony & Panasonic, and the cheaper ones, such
as Goodmans, Alba & Bush?

I'd welcome it if anyone is able to give any answer to the above question.
I have been wondering about various 'issues' (as modern-speak uses the
term).

1) If - given a decent RF signal - all the RX's recover exactly the same
digital results. (i.e. if all those fitted with SPDIF or equivalent would
feed the same series of values to an external DAC).

2) To what extent they vary in terms of RX noise level, ability to deal
with RF problems, etc, etc.

3) Decent quality of DAC's, audio output stages, etc, comparing on RX with
another.

4) When switched on, is there an appreciable delay whilst the tuner sorts
out demodulation, etc?

As explained in another posting I bought a cheap DAB 'adaptor' as an
experiment, not expecting much. However the results are better than I
feared with R3. It prompts me to ask (4), though, as when powered up it
takes a while to start providing an audio output. Bit like going back to
'valve radio' and waiting for the valves to warm up.... :-)

I'm not really interested in another round of:

A) But DAB would sound a lot better if they didn't use low bitrates.

B) FM sounds better anyway, so there.

Seen that rehearsed more than once. :-)

I'm curious to know if anyone has done some comparison tests in the above
terms. i.e. interested in the recievers on sale, not the arguments re DAB
itself.

Any pointers to suitable web sites, with reviews, would be much
appreciated.

Ditto.

FWIW The BBC RD have published some documents on how to test DAB RXs,
etc. However for obvious reasons they have not got into doing 'reviews' of
radios and tuners for commercial purposes...

"Which?" have published some comparisons, but how reliable they may be is
hard to decide...

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics
http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html

DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:



David, lumping all hi-fi magazines as being as bad as each other is
similar to suggesting that Channel 4 is just as bad as the shopping
channels.

Ever seen Richard and Judy's C4 show ?

--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

Mark Carver wrote:
DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:



David, lumping all hi-fi magazines as being as bad as each other is
similar to suggesting that Channel 4 is just as bad as the shopping
channels.

Ever seen Richard and Judy's C4 show ?


Which is your favourite early-evening news programme?

wrote:
Mark Carver wrote:

DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:


David, lumping all hi-fi magazines as being as bad as each other is
similar to suggesting that Channel 4 is just as bad as the shopping
channels.

Ever seen Richard and Judy's C4 show ?

Which is your favourite early-evening news programme?

You've got a powerful set of binoculars, :-)

C4 does indeed include some the worst, but also some of the best that UK TV
has to offer. (IMHO, YMMV)

--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

Mark Carver wrote:
wrote:
Mark Carver wrote:

DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:


David, lumping all hi-fi magazines as being as bad as each other is
similar to suggesting that Channel 4 is just as bad as the shopping
channels.

Ever seen Richard and Judy's C4 show ?

Which is your favourite early-evening news programme?

You've got a powerful set of binoculars, :-)

C4 does indeed include some the worst, but also some of the best that UK TV
has to offer. (IMHO, YMMV)


Okay, I'll rephrase it:

If you were on a desert island and you were allowed to watch one TV
channel and the choice was out of any of the shopping channels on
Freeview or Channel 4, which would you choose?