Digital radio - outrageous

"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote in message
...
jamie powell wrote:
"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote in message
...
You'll need a decent sound card (one that doesn't perform sample rate
conversion) to make the most of it, but decent sound cards start at
around £40.

erm.... virtually *all* consumer grade sound cards perform sample rate
conversion, unless you have an ancient (12+ years old) one.
Everything is resampled to the card's native rate - usually 48 or 96KHz.


Mine doesn't perform sample rate conversion, and I think it cost £50 a couple
of years ago. The latest Soundblaster (or maybe the last 2
versions/generations) don't perform sample rate conversion, and they cost a
bit less. So I think what I said was fine.


I think you'll find that it most certainly does, and you simply haven't noticed.

If it didn't, you'd have:
1) the inability to playback more than a single sound file at once, unless they
all used the same sample rate (and even then, the amplitude would have to be
reduced to prevent clipping, which still requires some interventional audio
processing by the sound hardware/drivers)
2) the ability to playback files with only a limited choice of sample rates-
those which the DAC's clock was able to lock to, as opposed to the almost
arbitrary selection (up to and often beyond the native rate) which modern cards
can support through resampling.

"Pikey G." wrote in message
...
I'll probably be dead before FM closes (I'm in good health by the way)
but if I am still around when that unhappy day comes I will simply use
a small FM transmitter and supply it with audio from whatever source
is convenient. It isn't a big deal to have the audio from your PC
feeding into an aux input on a normal domestic audio pre-amp. The PC
would of course have all sensible sources of audio built in. The pre-
amp could have a DAB tuner and CD player amongst other things feeding
it as well. An aux output of the pre-amp could feed the FM
transmitter. All very old fashioned and low tech, but it would provide
a simple solution. I don't need to cater for more than one radio
channel at once.

ew. what a bodge.


Incidentally I see that the powers-that-be have made it much more
difficult of late to obtain small FM transmitters in the UK.

********.

jamie powell wrote:

erm.... virtually *all* consumer grade sound cards perform sample rate
conversion, unless you have an ancient (12+ years old) one.
Everything is resampled to the card's native rate - usually 48 or 96KHz.


My Aureon runs at 48KHz - now I use Vista. Under XP it switched rates
with the content.

Andy

DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:

They're supposed to be fitting DAB as standard in all new cars by 2014. But
the time it takes to replace all the cars on the road is 12 - 13 years -
there's 30 million cars on the road, and sales are about 2.3 million per
year. So even 5 years after all new cars have DAB fitted as standard would
leave a lot of people having to use a DAB car adaptor, and people will not
want to use them, because they require wires dangling all over the place, a
working cigarette lighter for the power. It's just a disastrous idea,
basically.



I think you'll find that 12-13 years is the _average_ lifetime of a car.
That doesn't mean that there aren't any cars older than that.

Mine is 10 years old, and I have no intention of replacing it until
something big goes wrong. As it's garaged most nights, and lives under
cover in the day, and other cars of the same type have done 5 times the
milage mine does I don't expect it do die any time soon. (says he
tempting fate!).

Andy

In message , tony sayer
writes



Digital radio has been a grade One cock up since it was devised and
where engineers once trod we now have some old duffers who know sod all
about the subject making decisions they know SFA about..

Or, more likely, "young duffers".
--
Ian

jamie powell wrote:
"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote in message
...
jamie powell wrote:
"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote in message
...
You'll need a decent sound card (one that doesn't perform sample rate
conversion) to make the most of it, but decent sound cards start at
around £40.

erm.... virtually *all* consumer grade sound cards perform sample rate
conversion, unless you have an ancient (12+ years old) one.
Everything is resampled to the card's native rate - usually 48 or 96KHz.


Mine doesn't perform sample rate conversion, and I think it cost £50 a
couple of years ago. The latest Soundblaster (or maybe the last 2
versions/generations) don't perform sample rate conversion, and they
cost a bit less. So I think what I said was fine.


I think you'll find that it most certainly does, and you simply haven't
noticed.


I've got an M-Audio Audiophile 2496, which doesn't perform sample rate
conversion.



--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - digital radio news & info

The BBC's "justification" of digital radio switchover is based on lies

"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote in message
...
jamie powell wrote:
"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote in message
...
jamie powell wrote:
"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote in message
...
You'll need a decent sound card (one that doesn't perform sample rate
conversion) to make the most of it, but decent sound cards start at
around £40.

erm.... virtually *all* consumer grade sound cards perform sample rate
conversion, unless you have an ancient (12+ years old) one.
Everything is resampled to the card's native rate - usually 48 or 96KHz.


Mine doesn't perform sample rate conversion, and I think it cost £50 a
couple of years ago. The latest Soundblaster (or maybe the last 2
versions/generations) don't perform sample rate conversion, and they
cost a bit less. So I think what I said was fine.


I think you'll find that it most certainly does, and you simply haven't
noticed.


I've got an M-Audio Audiophile 2496, which doesn't perform sample rate
conversion.

That's not a mainstream consumer-grade card, and if it really doesn't, then it
must have the limitations I described previously.

In message , tony sayer
writes
Round here the only clear channels are 87.5-87.8 even before adding numerous
micropower transmitters in DAB converters.

And 87.5 isn't a clear channel it needs to be 87.6 to allow 100 kHz
sideband clearance for mobile radio applications that use that band..

87.5 is a favourite pirate frequency.
These days, there doesn't seem to be much 'mobile radio' below the FM
band, so a choice of something just below 87.5 would be a better choice
for DAB converters. I'm pretty sure that my really cheap, fixed-tuned
wireless headphones are a bit out-of-band. I think my equally cheap
tuneable iPod adapter can also be set as low as 87MHz. The problem is,
not many radio receivers with synthesisers will go below 87.5!
--
Ian

tony sayer wrote:

In article , charles
scribeth thus
In article en.co.uk,
Roderick Stewart wrote:
In article , J G Miller wrote:
If they're serious about replacing FM with DAB, they'd need to do
something similar to what was done with TV in the 1960s and ban the
manufacture of any new receivers that could only receive the old
system for a reasonable interval commensurate with the expected life
of a receiver, before abandoning the old system.

Did that happen with analog television receivers?

Yes. I forget the exact dates and details, but many years before 405 was
switched off, you couldn't buy a TV set that was *only* 405 - it had to
be 405/625 dual standard, or 625 only.


When you think back some sensible broadcast decisions were made and
implemented..

Digital radio has been a grade One cock up since it was devised and
where engineers once trod we now have some old duffers who know sod all
about the subject making decisions they know SFA about..


As I remember, new tellies in the shop windows were sporting twirly UHF
tuning dials a year or two before BBC2 launched in London and more than that
before it was available nationwide. It was at least 20 years before 405 line
VHF was shut down so any telly bought just before the change would have been
pretty ancient before it could no longer get BBC1 and ITV.

Nowadays, it's just hopeless. The government doesn't dare decree anything
and there are no meaningful manufacturing associations. All the newfangled
Chinese-made boxes fight with one another so you have to push several
buttons on varying remote controls in some particular sequence to get
anything to happen. Not to mention having to rescan every few months.
Meanwhile, the Treasury isn't about to wait 20 years to auction off more
frequencies though they're deluded if they think they'll ever get the sort
of dosh again that was floating around during bubble.com.

I'm a techy type and can cope but I know there will be trouble tomorrow when
our analogue channels are gone and SWMBO tries to turn on the telly. I just
don't know how the really elderly are coping.

The Soviet regime collapsed after Gorbachev tried to cut off the vodka. I
don't suppose the same might happen here if the TV gets hosed since Rupert
and Richard are always ready to ride to the rescue (for a consideration, of
course).


--
Steve Hayes, South Wales, UK
----Remove colours from reply address----

In article , Ian Jackson ianREMOVET
scribeth thus
In message , tony sayer
writes
Round here the only clear channels are 87.5-87.8 even before adding numerous
micropower transmitters in DAB converters.

And 87.5 isn't a clear channel it needs to be 87.6 to allow 100 kHz
sideband clearance for mobile radio applications that use that band..

87.5 is a favourite pirate frequency.

Yes, don't we just know it!..

These days, there doesn't seem to be much 'mobile radio' below the FM
band, so a choice of something just below 87.5 would be a better choice
for DAB converters.

Thats will be illegal I think you'll find. There is Low band PMR
especially in London..

I'm pretty sure that my really cheap, fixed-tuned
wireless headphones are a bit out-of-band. I think my equally cheap
tuneable iPod adapter can also be set as low as 87MHz. The problem is,
not many radio receivers with synthesisers will go below 87.5!

--
Tony Sayer