OT - DAB

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)"
writes
In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
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?..

Not heard this in the car. Where you do lose signal - like in a tunnel etc
where it still survives longer than FM - it just stops.
This could simply be because it the frequency difference. 200MHz may
propagate down the tunnel better than 100MHz.

For the bubbling
mud effect you need prolonged poor reception.
This would depend on whether the radio is set to mute as soon as the
bubbling starts (at a certain bit error rate), or whether the mute
threshold is set so low that it only mutes when the signal is totally
unusable.

Sounds like you live in an area with poor DAB coverage. Try a decent
aerial.

Maybe I'm old fashioned but, in a car, I rather expect a bit of dodgy
reception from time-to-time. It's all part of the 'experience'. With all
the car and traffic noise, and less-than-ideal listening conditions in
general, I reckon that I can settle for generally adequate
'entertainment quality' rather than the supposed superb Hi-Fi of DAB
(with all its problems).

Ian.
--

In article , Dave Plowman (News)
writes
In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
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?..

Not heard this in the car. Where you do lose signal - like in a tunnel etc
where it still survives longer than FM - it just stops. For the bubbling
mud effect you need prolonged poor reception.

Sounds like you live in an area with poor DAB coverage. Try a decent
aerial.

I've got a decent aerial M8!, and several of them. If this Dabble is so
good why are hardly any new cars fitted with it?..
--
Tony Sayer

In article , Dave Plowman (News)
writes
In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
Just have a four element her aimed midway between Peterbourgh and
Madingley and thats good enough for purposes.

Ah. You live in one of the flattest parts of the country. Say no more.


They've discovered that the earth isn't that flat anymore?..

London isn't that hilly.. well except you do have a bit of a rise in
sarf Lunnon
--
Tony Sayer

In article om,
ercial wrote:
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.

Do they? And do you think everyone only listens to music?

For me DAB's failings are poor audio, power consumption and
all-or-nothing reception.

So you've never experience poor audio with FM or AM? Always get perfect
reception? Power consumption simply isn't an issue except with portable
equipment where you'll not get really good audio either due to the power
requirements of decent amps and speakers anyway.


Audio quality doesn't really matter in most applications and will never
matter in a car,

Oh dear. Perhaps I shouldn't have spent the thick end of a thousand quid
on mine, then.

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.

I'd suggest you actually try a decent DAB receiver in a car before
theorising...

DAB seems best suited to kitchen table radios and is squarely marketed
as such.

I don't possess a kitchen table radio. Or a portable DAB set - apart from
a personal radio.

DAB and Lidl were made for each other!

Ah - a snob. Lidl sells some things at a price/quality the UK supermarkets
don't come even close to matching. But you must watch their ads since they
have a DAB portable radio on offer today. First time I've seen this.

--
*Few women admit their age; fewer men act it.

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

In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
DAB started out with a very much higher bitrate. And few were
interested in it - including I'd guess the likes of you who are now
complaining about the quality. Only after the rates were reduced and
the choice increased did it become popular. Chicken and egg - I dunno.
But if every audio enthusiast had bought tuners early on - who knows?

Pity those who did spend and then were short changed eh?..

Not so: BBC7 alone is worth it.

I often if you listen to progs or just sound quality?

Oh - I forgot. You like jass. 'Nuff said.

--
*Could it be that "I do " is the longest sentence? *

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

In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
In article , Jim Lesurf [email protected]
and.demon.co.uk writes
In article , tony sayer

wrote:

In the beginning there was AM as that was all they knew. You cannot
blame anyone for that as that medium had its limitations. Then came FM
which was an order better in many respects. Then came FM on VHF which
took some time to grow as they didn't have the semiconductors in those
days, but it was an improvement on what went before.

I don't think the slow expansion of VHF/FM in the UK had much to do with
"semiconductors".

Yes it was Jim, suitable devices and fabricated chips weren't that
available into the 70's well ones that were any real cop and that
prohibited reasonable priced portable and car units..

The odd thing is that Grundig could make them. But that was because West
Germany had no mw after WW2 and put effort into making vhf work.

--
From KT24 - in "Leafy Surrey"

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.11

In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
In article , Dave Plowman (News)
writes
In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
Just have a four element her aimed midway between Peterbourgh and
Madingley and thats good enough for purposes.

Ah. You live in one of the flattest parts of the country. Say no more.


They've discovered that the earth isn't that flat anymore?..

London isn't that hilly.. well except you do have a bit of a rise in
sarf Lunnon

..... and a large number of man-made concrete lumps which create severe
multipath problems.

--
From KT24 - in "Leafy Surrey"

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.11

On Jun 26, 10:39 am, tony sayer wrote:

I've got a decent aerial M8!, and several of them. If this Dabble is so
good why are hardly any new cars fitted with it?..

According to my BIL, who works for a major motor car manufacturer, the
cost of a basic DAB receiver module is still not low enough. Needs to
be 15 Euros. Also of course the UK is one of the few countries to
have embraced DAB, but then again the same applies to right hand
driving :-)

On 26 Jun, 10:42, "Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:
In article om,
wrote:

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.

Do they? And do you think everyone only listens to music?

For me DAB's failings are poor audio, power consumption and
all-or-nothing reception.

So you've never experience poor audio with FM or AM? Always get perfect
reception? Power consumption simply isn't an issue except with portable
equipment where you'll not get really good audio either due to the power
requirements of decent amps and speakers anyway.

Audio quality doesn't really matter in most applications and will never
matter in a car,

Oh dear. Perhaps I shouldn't have spent the thick end of a thousand quid
on mine, then.

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.

I'd suggest you actually try a decent DAB receiver in a car before
theorising...

DAB seems best suited to kitchen table radios and is squarely marketed
as such.

I don't possess a kitchen table radio. Or a portable DAB set - apart from
a personal radio.

DAB and Lidl were made for each other!

Ah - a snob. Lidl sells some things at a price/quality the UK supermarkets
don't come even close to matching. But you must watch their ads since they
have a DAB portable radio on offer today. First time I've seen this.

--
*Few women admit their age; fewer men act it.

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


Dave, you've got to stop taking this sort of thing so personally! I
think it's funny getting accused of being a snob by someone who has
gladly thrown £1000 at a car audio system that by definition they are
only ever going to listen two whilst doing something more important at
the same time. Hmmm...

DAB is the Kodak Advantix of the radio world. You can buy a seriously
expensive little Ixus for far more than a second hand fujica SLR with
a pentax f1.4 50mm M42 on its nose but just don't try to convince
anyone that it takes pictures that are just as good if not better
simply because you can get 40 exposures on a film instead of 36. Enjoy
it for what it is, a way of getting much more choice. Just remember
that not so long ago nicam was castigated for 'only' using 728Kbs.

Anyway well done putting big expensive speakers and amplifiers around
a DAB receiver. If there's money left over why not put a big exhaust
pipe on the car too!

In article , Dave Plowman (News)
writes
In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
DAB started out with a very much higher bitrate. And few were
interested in it - including I'd guess the likes of you who are now
complaining about the quality. Only after the rates were reduced and
the choice increased did it become popular. Chicken and egg - I dunno.
But if every audio enthusiast had bought tuners early on - who knows?

Pity those who did spend and then were short changed eh?..

Not so: BBC7 alone is worth it.

If you say so Dave;!..

I often if you listen to progs or just sound quality?

No I like the music but I like it right not nagered up with..


Oh - I forgot. You like jass.

As well as a wide range of other genres



'Nuff said.

Now that is another argument entirely.. do we really have to bore the
arse of the denizens of a TV ng for that I wonder;?..


--
Tony Sayer