OT - All DAB receivers to be obsolete - DAB is dead

DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:

charles wrote:


BTW, I can't hear the "bubling mud" effect, maybe because my hearing
has deteriorated with age.

Believe me, you can't miss it if you're afflicted by it, and it's miles,
miles more annoying than FM hiss. If you've got a DAB portable radio just
put the aerial down, that should produce the bubbling mud sound. You're a
reception man, so I don't need to tell you how to degrade the reception
quality.

That is fair criticism of DAB (and, indeed, DVB): I found my portable
DAB radio useless in the Forest of Dean as the signal broke up too much.
On the other hand, I could still receive some distant FM stations.

Cheers,
Luke


--
Lincoln City 0-2 Southend United (AET)
Swansea City 2-2 Southend United
We went up twice with Tilly and Brush

Roderick Stewart wrote:

On Sat, 11 Nov 2006 09:36:23 GMT, "DAB sounds worse than FM"
wrote:

Too late. Tried DAB. Didn't like it. Not interested any more. I've got
more important things to spend my money on. They had their chance to
impress, and as far as I'm concerned they blew it.


What an absolutely ridiculous attitude to take.

Why is it ridiculous to decide what I want to spend my money on, based
on previous experience? Like most people I haven't got an unlimited
amount of money to spare, so I have to make choices, and I have to
base those choices on something.

My previous experience in this particular case is that I bought
something that was promised to provide an improvement, but didn't. It
seems perfectly reasonable to me to be suspicious when a very similar
promise is offered a second time, and to think carefully about whether
I want it at all.

'To think carefully' is to change your stance. You claim that it's too
late yet you haven't auditioned the newer system. I, to the derision of
some others here, have good experiences of DAB. Others do not. We made
up our own minds by, I would hope, auditioning what was on offer.

Cheers,
Luke


--
Lincoln City 0-2 Southend United (AET)
Swansea City 2-2 Southend United
We went up twice with Tilly and Brush

Mike Henry wrote:

In , Edster wrote:

"Graham" wrote in message

There are no BBC stations "on SKY"

There is on mine.

No. Sky Digital is a subscription satellite service. The BBC stations
can be picked up by a Digibox and they also appear in the EPG (which is
regulated by Ofcom). Those stations are not, and never have been, part
of Sky's subscription satellite service and so they are not "on Sky".
They are just digital satellite stations.

Do you take everything 100% literally?

Cheers,
Luke


--
Lincoln City 0-2 Southend United (AET)
Swansea City 2-2 Southend United
We went up twice with Tilly and Brush

In article
1hon7xc.19l18ef1d1f1qaN%gogogo.tilson.5.lukebosma ,
Luke Bosman wrote:
And that's the key. The reception I have on DAB is better than that
on FM because FM requires a properly installed aerial.


Bull****. I have an internal aerial and get excellent reception on most
stations - all of the BBC ones - and good reception on everything else.

Oh, do calm down. You may disagree with me, and you are welcome to do
so. Please do not, on the other hand, dismiss what I say as 'bull****'.
Your experience is different from mine. Do I declare that what you say
is 'bull****'?

This is the problem with 'Mr DAB'. FM and DAB reception is the same
everywhere as in his bedsit, and anyone who says different is a fool.

--
*For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism *

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

Luke Bosman wrote:
DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:

Luke Bosman wrote:


Oh, do calm down. You may disagree with me, and you are welcome to
do so. Please do not, on the other hand, dismiss what I say as
'bull****'. Your experience is different from mine. Do I declare
that what you say is 'bull****'?


The way you said it it sounded like you were claiming that "FM
requires a properly installed aerial" in general, which is bull****.

Fair enough. I should have been more specific. Having said that, I've
just spent the afternoon listening to the Southend vs. PNE commentary
on BBC Lancashire on FM. Mostly, the audio is great. It's just the
slight hiss that annoys me (and the inability of BBC Lancashire's
commentators to actually describe the game).


And if you were listening to music on a station with slight hiss, when the
music is playing the hiss is imperceptible.


How much did your internal aerial cost?

£15 including cable. It's just a single-element dipole.

I'm still using the cheap one that came with the tuner (Denon
TU260L-II). I recall once being told that low-cost aerials were
pointless as an upgrade


Whoever said that didn't know what they were talking about. A proper aerial,
even if it has to go in the same room, has got to be the best value for
money upgrade to a hi-fi system going. The main benefit is that you can put
the aerial in different parts of the same room (if you're constrained to
having it in that room) rather than having to have the aerial right next to
the hi-fi system.


so never bought one and really cannot justify
the cost of a roof-mounted aerial.


The next best thing is putting it in your loft, which wouldn't be expensive,
but you'd have to get the cable to the tuner, so it's a bit of work.

Basically, whoever said that you either have to have an external aerial or
you're best sticking with the supplied aerial needs an aerial shoved
somewhere to help him see the light, or maybe stars.


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

Find the cheapest Freeview & DAB prices:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/fr..._receivers.php
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/dab/dab_radios.php

In article ,
DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:
Don't try and patronise me, pal. I'll eat you for breakfast, spit you
out and eat a Dave Plowman for brunch.

Strangely I'm still here, so your digestive system must be as effective as
your powers of reasoning...

--
*A day without sunshine is like... night.*

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

Luke Bosman wrote:
DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:

Luke Bosman wrote:


I'm not thick. I'm not stupid. I have had very good experiences
with DAB.

You're making yourself out to be, because most of the regulars on
here will be well aware that DAB sounds crap.

In their opinion. Once again, however, your bigotry is evident.

It's not bigotry - I'm just trying to help you out, because you have
blatantly fallen for the DAB hype - which is unsurprising,
considering that the BBC DAB adverts would have cost £155m if shown
on commercial TV, which is about £44 per DAB radio sold.

I bought DAB for one particular radio station which is unavailable on
analogue so that I could wake up to good music in the morning. I've
not fallen for the hype, I've fallen for the music, which is
broadcast in quite adequate quality and has fantastic reception.

I'm not claiming that it cannot improve but your insistence that 'it',
i.e. the whole of DAB, sounds crap weakens an otherwise very good
argument.


I've already said I'm not bothered about the audio quality on portable
radios, it's on hi-fi systems, car stereos, personal radios and even some
portable CD stereos that I'm bothered about, because they're *far* more
capable than crappy portable radios that don't come close to being able to
reproduce good quality.


Obviously, I would be happy to have high audio quality as well. The
current situation is known as a compromise.

A compromise, you say?

Taking your local Saaafend multiplex:

http://www.wohnort.demon.co.uk/DAB/ukloc.html#Southend

That's not my local multiplex. I live in Lancashire but your point
stands. However, if I understand the site correctly, my local mux
(Central Lancashire) is actually full.


Yes, yours is full, but the full ones are in the minority.


There's 806 out of 864 capacity units taken up, which means that the
multiplex is not full, which means that the audio quality could be
improved if they wanted to improve it.

Or take the Stoke multiplex:

http://www.wohnort.demon.co.uk/DAB/ukloc.html#Stoke

It's only 5/9ths full. That's a compromise, is it?

Well, it is, for me,


Put it this way, say all the multiplexes were rammed full, they could remove
one station and improve the audio quality of 50% of the stations - i.e. go
from:

9 x 128k stations per mux

to

4 x 160k + 4 x 128k stations per mux

THAT is a compromise. 128 kbps on literally 98% of stereo stations is a
****take.


when you consider that I pretty much only listen
to the BBC. I've only twice found a commercial radio station that
didn't drive me mad and Laser 558 went under years ago.


I could do the same thing for virtually all of the local DAB
multiplexes, the audio quality could be improved on the regional
multiplexes, and the only reason the audio quality can't now be
improved on Digital One is because 30% of the capacity is now taken
up by mobile TV channels.

It's never been a compromise - they chose to use low quality from
the start, and even when the multiplexes are half full they don't
increase the bit rates, because they don't want us to hear that it
could be better.

But hey, you know best, innit.

I don't claim to know best. And I've never met anyone who uses 'innit'
like that.


It was a ****take, innit boss.




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

Find the cheapest Freeview & DAB prices:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/fr..._receivers.php
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/dab/dab_radios.php

DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:
Don't try and patronise me, pal. I'll eat you for breakfast, spit you
out and eat a Dave Plowman for brunch.

Strangely I'm still here, so your digestive system must be as
effective as your powers of reasoning...

ROTFLOLPMP! Reason and dab.is must be one of the best oxymorons of the
decade!

Peter Crosland

On Sat, 11 Nov 2006 12:24:23 GMT, "DAB sounds worse than FM"
wrote:

My previous experience in this particular case is that I bought
something that was promised to provide an improvement, but didn't. It
seems perfectly reasonable to me to be suspicious when a very similar
promise is offered a second time, and to think carefully about whether
I want it at all.


It is ridiculous simply because you're writing off the new DAB standard
which is completely different to the first DAB system - you're not giving
the new system a chance. The original system was designed in the 1980s, and
it's now adopting the most efficient audio codec in existence. It's a
massive, massive improvement, and yet you're just going off what the
1980s-vintage system could provide.

Well, if it really is a "massive massive improvement", then my ears
will tell me this. And I'll consider what it costs. At that point I'll
be able to decide whether I want to spend my money on it. I haven't
"written off" the new system; I just haven't heard it yet.

Rod.

On Sat, 11 Nov 2006 17:30:40 +0000,
(Luke Bosman) wrote:

My previous experience in this particular case is that I bought
something that was promised to provide an improvement, but didn't. It
seems perfectly reasonable to me to be suspicious when a very similar
promise is offered a second time, and to think carefully about whether
I want it at all.

'To think carefully' is to change your stance. You claim that it's too
late yet you haven't auditioned the newer system.

The newer system isn't available yet. When it is, and if it really is
as good as it is claimed, and if I am convinced that the quality won't
be lowered again after we've all bought it, I *might* change my
stance. Unless and until that happens, I'm not really interested.

Rod.