Channel 4 pulls out of DAB

DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:

The large majority of people who buy DAB do so because they think
they're going to get higher quality!


I think the biggest benefit is for people in cars - better "quality" due
to lack of multi-path, and a greater selection of channels.

Actual acoustic quality for those listening in a car is fairly
immaterial anyway due to the environment - a horrible shape and
positioning of speakers with a rather load background noise from the engine.

wrote in message

On Oct 12, 5:01 pm, "DAB sounds worse than FM" [email protected] wrote:

The large majority of people who buy DAB do so because they think
they're going to get higher quality!

********.


Market research carried out by the evil DAB industry themselves says
you're wrong.



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

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm

In message
,
writes
On Oct 12, 5:01*pm, "DAB sounds worse than FM" [email protected] wrote:

The large majority of people who buy DAB do so because they think
they're going to get higher quality!

********.

He didn't say they _are_, he said they _think_ they are. The extra
choice and convenience (whether real or only imagined) also affect the
choice too.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL(+++)IS-P--Ch+(p)Ar+T[?]H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
** http://www.soft255.demon.co.uk/G6JPG-PC/JPGminPC.htm for thoughts on PCs. **

When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut.

Bill Wright wrote:

The tragedy here is that those in broadcast (and outside it, hello Steve)
who lobby for better DAB audio have an uphill struggle, because the
beancounters can point to the lumpen masses and say, 'They're happy enough'.
It takes a determined and principled person (or lobby) to stand up against
this, and as far as I can see no such person (in a suitable post) exists.


Why do people actually listen to radio?

For the majority does quality matter?

I think the most common type of radio listener are those in their cars
(especially driving to/from work) and background music in the workplace.

For both of those types of listener quality isn't that important. Cars
are a horrible place to listen due to the large noise making engine a
few feet in front of you, and the workplace is equally bad - maybe some
mono speakers in the suspended ceiling or a small cheap set in the
middle of the office. And anyway it is only on as background music while
you are doing the more important work.

Quality really matters if you are making a concious decision to listen.
So those with portable radios with headphones and people listening on
their hi-fi. These are a minority.

In message en.co.uk,
Roderick Stewart writes
[]
Audio technology has progressed a bit since the days of 2LO, crystal sets and

Actually, a crystal set was capable of very good quality (though
admittedly the headphones probably let that down a lot!).

wind-up gramophones playing 78rpm records, so *somebody* must care.

Rod.
Some of the changes from those have come with different manufacturing
techniques: it's probably easier/cheaper to make a CD player than a
wind-up gramophone these days!
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL(+++)IS-P--Ch+(p)Ar+T[?]H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
** http://www.soft255.demon.co.uk/G6JPG-PC/JPGminPC.htm for thoughts on PCs. **

When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut.

In message en.co.uk,
Roderick Stewart writes
[]
It's also worth considering broadcasting as a form of historical
documentation because some of it will be kept as recordings. We cannot know
what will be regarded as important in the future, so there is a value in
preserving what we can at the highest quality we can manage. When CDs first
appeared, some of the first ones I bought were re-issues of recordings I'd
already been familiar with for years as LP records or cassete tapes, yet I
was suddenly able to hear subtleties in some of them that I'd never heard
properly before. In other words, the original recordings had been made to a
higher standard of quality than was needed for gramophone records, and would
only be heard properly on equipment not yet invented. I wonder if anybody

A good and interesting point.

involved in sound or television recording is thinking along these lines now?
[]
I fear rather few )-:. (Well, actually, those involved in the actual
recording - i. e. the engineers - probably do care, but have a lot less
- i. e. approaching no - influence over those who decide on things, than
they once did.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL(+++)IS-P--Ch+(p)Ar+T[?]H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
** http://www.soft255.demon.co.uk/G6JPG-PC/JPGminPC.htm for thoughts on PCs. **

When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut.

In message , Bill Wright
writes

"DAB sounds worse than FM" [email protected] wrote in message
...
There's lots of reasons for this:


http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/ar...people-mind-DA
Bs-sound-quality.php

Mainly it's that "it's digital, so it's better, innit".

The media persist in propagating the myth that digital is always better than

Indeed - and the {inability to concentrate for more than a few
minutes}/{shameful lack of science/engineering knowledge} on the part of
the majority of the public will perpetuate that.

analogue. This is partly because this is the official line and partly
because journos are mostly lazy no-good arts educated people.

(-:

But that isn't really the point. The man on the Clapham bendybus is

I like it!

completely and utterly unable to differentiate between good FM and bad DAB.
I know it's almost incredible, but it's true.

Indeed.
[]
It turned out that the audio was on a setting called 'cathedral'. After I
altered it the sound was remarkably better to my ears, but the blank looks
from the assembled throng suggested that the improvement had not been
discerned, or at least was not appreciated.

Bill


I can well imagine it.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL(+++)IS-P--Ch+(p)Ar+T[?]H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
** http://www.soft255.demon.co.uk/G6JPG-PC/JPGminPC.htm for thoughts on PCs. **

When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut.

Stuart Clark wrote:
Bill Wright wrote:

The tragedy here is that those in broadcast (and outside it, hello
Steve) who lobby for better DAB audio have an uphill struggle, because
the beancounters can point to the lumpen masses and say, 'They're
happy enough'. It takes a determined and principled person (or lobby)
to stand up against this, and as far as I can see no such person (in a
suitable post) exists.


Why do people actually listen to radio?

For the majority does quality matter?

I think the most common type of radio listener are those in their cars
(especially driving to/from work) and background music in the workplace.

For both of those types of listener quality isn't that important. Cars
are a horrible place to listen due to the large noise making engine a
few feet in front of you, and the workplace is equally bad - maybe some
mono speakers in the suspended ceiling or a small cheap set in the
middle of the office. And anyway it is only on as background music while
you are doing the more important work.

Quality really matters if you are making a concious decision to listen.
So those with portable radios with headphones and people listening on
their hi-fi. These are a minority.

That's all very well, but the sound quality broadcast on DAB is so poor,
that I found it irritating even in a car. I could accept reduced sound
quality in my car, but I can't accept it being reduced to the levels of DAB.

Richard E.

In message , Agamemnon
writes
[]
Given that bitrates on DAB were always too low from the very start and

Debatable; certainly, there are some here who think (especially with the
CoDecs then available) that, but in its early days it _was_ broadcast at
rates high enough to give a signal of comparable quality to that
obtainable from an average FM set without an external aerial - some of
the time. (Didn't last, though.)

the sound quality was abysmal why should anyone have bought the super
expensive receivers when they were first introduced and why should
anyone buy them now when they offer barley any improvement over the
sound quality of Medium Wave.

Well, for whatever reason, they _are_ buying them now: just look in your
local CurDiGosWorths.


The vast majority of those who listen to radio are perfectly happy with
the present DAB (if they own a set). Try asking your neighbours rather
than those with axes to grind on here, etc.

The vast majority of people who listen to radio are not and have never
been satisfied with the present DAB. What people want is quality, not

That is your opinion.

Actually, it would be interesting - whichever side of the current debate
one is on - to obtain figures for repeat buyers - by which I mean people
who've bought a set _in the last year or so_ and come back to buy
another one. Such figures I suspect are not available.

qunatity. DAB in the UK should have been launched with a minimum bit
rate of 320 kbps so that it was comparable to the sound quality on the
equivalent system on the continent, near CD quality, and designed so
that it would be compatible with 5.1 surround. It should have allowed

Why the 5.1? (I'm just curious - no axe to grind one way or the other.)
[]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL(+++)IS-P--Ch+(p)Ar+T[?]H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
** http://www.soft255.demon.co.uk/G6JPG-PC/JPGminPC.htm for thoughts on PCs. **

When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut.

Stuart Clark wrote:


Why do people actually listen to radio?

For the majority does quality matter?

I think the most common type of radio listener are those in their cars
(especially driving to/from work) and background music in the workplace.

For both of those types of listener quality isn't that important. Cars
are a horrible place to listen due to the large noise making engine a
few feet in front of you, and the workplace is equally bad - maybe some
mono speakers in the suspended ceiling or a small cheap set in the
middle of the office. And anyway it is only on as background music while
you are doing the more important work.

Quality really matters if you are making a concious decision to listen.
So those with portable radios with headphones and people listening on
their hi-fi. These are a minority.

This is all very well, but there are limits, and as far as I'm concerned
DAB goes well below these limits. I could accept reduced sound quality
in my car, and probably wouldn't notice. However I can not accept DAB in
my car. I tried it, but the the poor sound quality was obvious and
irritating even in an in car environment.

Richard E.