OT - DAB

In article ,
Andy Burns wrote:
Radio 3 is about the only one that comes somewhere near being OK, but
the rest don't .. It could be though..Even radio 3 has that odd
"tiring" sound about it..

but due to the large amounts of (near) silence on R3, you need a damned
near perfect aerial and receiver to avoid hiss on FM.

And on any car radio you'll hear the interference limiter at work. As well
as it blending to mono and back as the signal strength varies. But this is
perfection to those who simply can't hear anything wrong with FM...

--
*What was the best thing before sliced bread? *

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

The message
from tony sayer contains these words:

In article , Dave Plowman (News)
writes
In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
I often wonder if Tony etc have ever heard DAB. Their description of it
makes no sense to me. Of course I probably don't listen to the same
stations as they do. My default is R4 with some R3 if there's something
I want to listen to on it.

Well its maybe OK for in car use on some stations like Radio 3 but the
rest leave a lot to be desired!..


In the car I often listen to Magic, which sounds very much better on
DAB than it does on FM - same as at home. Many pop stations mod so high
my various FM tuners distort. But DAB doesn't. I'm surprised the FM
lovers haven't experienced this. Perhaps they simply don't understand
such things.


====snip====

Sorry to have to rely on quotes of quotes of quotes, but either the
origional is hitting my killfile or the quotage has gotten totally
screwed up somewhere along the line.

Anyway, the distortion on FM being attributed as the result of
excessive modulation by many pop stations suggests it might be a
multipath distortion issue.

This is a common problem when operating a portable FM radio which is
relying on it's built in telescopic antenna indoors and in an urban
location. The distortion is noticeably worse when stereo reception is
involved and is characteristically 'gritty' in nature.

A permanent Hi-Fi tuner installation relies on three strategies to
eliminate the problem. The first is to set up a roof mounted antenna,
the second is to employ a directional roof mounted antenna if a simple
dipole can't reduce the multipath reception sufficiently and the third
is to use a tuner with as low a capture ratio as possible (3db being
good and 1.5db being excellent).

It is very rare for the application of all three measures to fail to
provide distortion free FM reception on at least the stations of musical
interest. Sadly, there are locations which suffer too severely from
multipath for such basic measures to resolve adequately. This is the
only serious failing of the VHF FM broadcast system.

In the early days of FM broadcasting predating the stereo upgrade,
multipath distortion was hardly noticed by the majority of listeners.
The advent of stereo changed the situation somewhat forcing many Hi-Hi
enthusiasts to upgrade their antennas and tuners.

It's true that digital systems eliminate multipath distortion, but, as
implemented by the current DAB system, we suffer downgraded audio
quality by use of an inneficient codec and inadequate bit rates all in
the name of 'choice' over quality.

This reduction of quality is not a major issue provided the stations
concerned aren't trying to pass themselves off as a 'Music Station'(tm).

The biggest drawback with _any_ digital system, no matter how
excellent, it might be, is that it permits the bean counters too much
control over the quantity versus quality issue. Unless there is a
consumer rights based authority to set and enforce minimum quality
standards for the various classes of broadcasting, this will always be
an issue.

--
Regards, John.

Please remove the "ohggcyht" before replying.
The address has been munged to reject Spam-bots.

In article , Dave Plowman (News)
writes
In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
You think? Alienating many does not advance much.

I dunno?, he's bought that to the attention of a wider public. Suppose
this system we've been lumbered with is OK for then?..

It needed bringing to their attention? You seem to think it's so terrible
no one would want to listen to it.


No people will listen to it but we could have better!...
--
Tony Sayer

In article , Dave Plowman (News)
writes
In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
You seem to have marvellous crystal clear FM reception everywhere you
go. Some of us don't. I'd say the majority. And I simply don't believe
you get perfect FM reception always in your car - unless it never
leaves the garage. FM is a diabolical system for mobile quality use.


David..

I don't have perfick reception "everywhere" I go on either Long, Medium
or VHF or on either of the mobile phones I've got. And you should know
that any mobile transmission system has its shortcomings.

Just as you live in an awkward bit of London this doesn't mean the rest
of the UK is so affected...

The majority of London is in both my cars on FM - regardless of the
station I'm listening to - although some are very much worse than others.
It's what happens when you have high buildings between aerial and
transmitter, on FM. And reception round much of the South coast is poor
too when on the move. There might be areas of England nice and flat where
reception is tolerable, but non I know. However, DAB reception in the car
round London is so much better. Not that I'd expect you to know that, or
care.


Dear David.. I don't have hat much need to go to Lunnon these days but
when I do I I find that pirate interference is more of a problem. I do
tend to avoid your corner of the smoke tho;!..

The only other area of the UK which is rather bad is the hilly bits on
the M62 and parts of Scotland but dab is bad there too being non
existent!.....
--
Tony Sayer

In article , Andy
Burns writes
On 25/06/2007 22:08, tony sayer wrote:

Radio 3 is about the only one that comes somewhere near being OK, but
the rest don't .. It could be though..Even radio 3 has that odd "tiring"
sound about it..

but due to the large amounts of (near) silence on R3, you need a damned
near perfect aerial and receiver to avoid hiss on FM.

Just have a four element her aimed midway between Peterbourgh and
Madingley and thats good enough for purposes.


--
Tony Sayer

In article , Dave Plowman (News)
writes
In article ,
Andy Burns wrote:
Radio 3 is about the only one that comes somewhere near being OK, but
the rest don't .. It could be though..Even radio 3 has that odd
"tiring" sound about it..

but due to the large amounts of (near) silence on R3, you need a damned
near perfect aerial and receiver to avoid hiss on FM.

And on any car radio you'll hear the interference limiter at work. As well
as it blending to mono and back as the signal strength varies. But this is
perfection to those who simply can't hear anything wrong with FM...

Better than a bubblin mudbath eh?..
--
Tony Sayer

On 26/06/2007 08:52, tony sayer wrote:

In article , Andy
Burns writes

but due to the large amounts of (near) silence on R3, you need a damned
near perfect aerial and receiver to avoid hiss on FM.

Just have a four element her aimed midway between Peterbourgh and
Madingley and thats good enough for purposes.

I have a three element aimed straight at Sutton Coldfield and the only
noticable issue is hiss on the quiet bits of R3 (unless switching to mono).

That said, I rarely use FM, I mainly listen to R4 and R5, I bought a DAB
radio for improved reception compared to AM at night before R5 invades
the local BBC FM frequencies, occasionally with R4 on DAB I hear that
it's been compressed /just/ a little more than is healthy to avoid
voices sounding "rounded-off" and "ringy".

On 25 Jun, 23:49, Andy Burns wrote:
On 25/06/2007 22:08, tony sayer wrote:

Radio 3 is about the only one that comes somewhere near being OK, but
the rest don't .. It could be though..Even radio 3 has that odd "tiring"
sound about it..

but due to the large amounts of (near) silence on R3, you need a damned
near perfect aerial and receiver to avoid hiss on FM.

Actually this is an argument against DAB proponents; they seem to
think the quality of the hiss is more important than the quality of
the music. For me DAB's failings are poor audio, power consumption and
all-or-nothing reception. Audio quality doesn't really matter in most
applications and will never matter in a car, power consumption will
worry the global warming brigade but it's not like we're seeing
flooding in the streets, but complete drop-outs of audio in a car
(compared to fading on FM) is worse than useless. DAB seems best
suited to kitchen table radios and is squarely marketed as such. DAB
and Lidl were made for each other!

On 26/06/2007 09:20, ercial wrote:

Actually this is an argument against DAB proponents;

I wasn't particularly arguing for or against the proponents, just
commenting on the technology.

On 26 Jun, 09:30, Andy Burns wrote:
On 26/06/2007 09:20, wrote:

Actually this is an argument against DAB proponents;

I wasn't particularly arguing for or against the proponents, just
commenting on the technology.

Sorry Andy, misread your post!

D.