The research shows that most DAB radios are the kitchen or bedside type that have one speaker (or two speakers so close together that you can't hear the stereo image).
For people who listen while they are at the kitchen table, or doing household jobs etc. it will make no difference to them, as long as the audio doesn't sound too rough.
It's a gamble by TIML but it's a big saving in transmission costs and they might not lose any ad revenue at all.
The distortion on Abs 80 yesterday now seems to have been reduced so it is sounding better, but still occasional clipping.
I had a search and could not find any reference to the set type research, I seem to remember a Jazz FM manager quoting it on the Jazz FM webpage to justify going mono, but has been removed. GfK seem to be working with makers and shops to publish total set sales, but has not publically published any type breakdown as far as I can find.
BBC and Global are keeping stereo for those with home pocket and car stereos. Can see Jazz FM, Teamrock, Absolute, Kiss, Kerrang and other stations wanting to keep any losses under control, but to go mono just when stereo car sets are taking off (as ewarwoowoo says) is not a good move.
The distortion on Abs 80 yesterday now seems to have been reduced so it is sounding better, but still occasional clipping.
I had a search and could not find any reference to the set type research, I seem to remember a Jazz FM manager quoting it on the Jazz FM webpage to justify going mono, but has been removed. GfK seem to be working with makers and shops to publish total set sales, but has not publically published any type breakdown as far as I can find.
BBC and Global are keeping stereo for those with home pocket and car stereos. Can see Jazz FM, Teamrock, Absolute, Kiss, Kerrang and other stations wanting to keep any losses under control, but to go mono just when stereo car sets are taking off is not a good move.
Thats it, ironically just heard on Abs 80s an ad for DAB car radios, but the clipping and levels still needs sorting.
The justification was that a car was not the best ennviroment to get good stereo, but does depend on the car and the lack of stereo is more noticable.
Just had a listen on a mid-range Panny (SC-HC27DB located in Southend-on-Sea) and didn't notice any clipping/levels problem. However there's a lot of bass and not much mid-range. It sounds a bit like different processing stages in series are contending with each other but could in the end be the 'sound' that they're after.
...what I'm saying is that there are more options out there now and more manufacturers fitting as standard than there were previously. What was an expensive option is now coming as standard and more car manufacturers will follow I'm sure. I agree it's been a slow process to get to this point and I have no experience of the add-on units except for the portable dab radio I bought years ago to plug into the car that was totally useless...
The missus has just ordered a new Skoda Fabia GreenLine II. To my dismay the sales drone was stumped when I asked about factory-fitted DAB. On her second visit she returned with a Skoda-produced leaflet for a 'dealer fitted' Pure Highway 300Di, but only with the crap on-glass antenna option. If this is the current state-of-the-art for in-car DAB I'm not impressed, although at least the 300Di bakes in the switch to DAB+ at some point in the distant future.
It's 2013 and radio stations on DAB are in mono, unbelievable, Planet Rock and Absolute 80's now removed from my car radio presets, thank goodness for Radio 2 and the USB socket so I can listen to music files all in S T E R E O
Oh come on...'more and more'? They are not exactly rushing. 'Numerous retrofitting options'? Have you read all the comments on the web on how naff these are and the problems?
It's 35.4% (it will be over 50% by the end of 2013):
Just had a listen on a mid-range Panny (SC-HC27DB located in Southend-on-Sea) and didn't notice any clipping/levels problem. However there's a lot of bass and not much mid-range. It sounds a bit like different processing stages in series are contending with each other but could in the end be the 'sound' that they're after.
The missus has just ordered a new Skoda Fabia GreenLine II. To my dismay the sales drone was stumped when I asked about factory-fitted DAB. On her second visit she returned with a Skoda-produced leaflet for a 'dealer fitted' Pure Highway 300Di, but only with the crap on-glass antenna option. If this is the current state-of-the-art for in-car DAB I'm not impressed, although at least the 300Di bakes in the switch to DAB+ at some point in the distant future.
My car is VW, they've been fitted as standard for a while, Audi is about to follow suite so I would imagine Skoda won't be far behind.
As for the glass mounted antenna, well I fitted one with a Pioneer head unit to the wife's car and as I said earlier, it hasn't lost signal when we've been out yet, where as my factory fit with a roof antenna drops out quite regularly.
Thats it, ironically just heard on Abs 80s an ad for DAB car radios, but the clipping and levels still needs sorting.
The justification was that a car was not the best ennviroment to get good stereo, but does depend on the car and the lack of stereo is more noticable.
There must be other people like me who spend a good while commuting in there cars where in the car is really the only place they get to listen to music at volume for a good period of time, I never have the time at home or there's other people to consider so I iPod things, in car I like to take the opportunity to crank it up to 11 and bang out my favourite hits, stereo sound and quality is great in car if set up correctly, and important to me which is why I can't stick poor quality mono sound, apart from XFM & 5live I really can't stick and listen to anything else on dab anymore, such a shame, far cry from when I used to have the fantastic sounding 'The Arrow' blasting out in quality on MXR WM..
There must be other people like me who spend a good while commuting in there cars where in the car is really the only place they get to listen to music at volume for a good period of time, I never have the time at home or there's other people to consider so I iPod things, in car I like to take the opportunity to crank it up to 11 and bang out my favourite hits, stereo sound and quality is great in car if set up correctly, and important to me which is why I can't stick poor quality mono sound, apart from XFM & 5live I really can't stick and listen to anything else on dab anymore, such a shame, far cry from when I used to have the fantastic sounding 'The Arrow' blasting out in quality on MXR WM..
LOL....if I was a car manufacturer who had finally been brow-beaten or given financial incentives or sweeteners go to all that trouble of sticking an antiquated technology in my new cars ...only to find that the quality of the end product was dropping through the floor...I'd be pretty miffed.
LOL....if I was a car manufacturer who had finally been brow-beaten or given financial incentives or sweeteners go to all that trouble of sticking an antiquated technology in my new cars ...only to find that the quality of the end product was dropping through the floor...I'd be pretty miffed.
I don't think there has been any incentives.
Theres still R1-4, 6, Classic, Absolute, Heart, Capital, Gold, Magic, BBC local etc in stereo, but see what you mean.
For home listening if you have broadband then you can listen to Absolute 80s' 160k Ogg stream, which I'd guess is about 5 times higher quality, in theory, than the DAB stream.
Also the FLAC stream is working at the moment. Eats about 1 Mbit of bandwidth but is totally lossless. (Of course, that does nothing to stop them buggering up the quality at their end with horrible audio processors and whatnot.)
The Ford Fiesta is the no 1 selling car in the UK and the new model has DAB fitted as standard:
Ford Fiestas don't all have DAB radios fitted as standard which I think is what you're implying. The ST may have one but most people buying the "new Fiesta" won't be getting DAB unless they pay for it as an option.
.....
Ford Fiestas don't all have DAB radios fitted as standard which I think is what you're implying. The ST may have one but most people buying the "new Fiesta" won't be getting DAB unless they pay for it as an option.
...
Well spotted, Alan.
Old South City is great at posting 'GOOD NEWS' about DAB...even though a lot of the time, as you have pointed out, it is all hype and BS.
Just had a listen on a mid-range Panny (SC-HC27DB located in Southend-on-Sea) and didn't notice any clipping/levels problem. However there's a lot of bass and not much mid-range. It sounds a bit like different processing stages in series are contending with each other but could in the end be the 'sound' that they're after.
Level has been reduced and now sounds cleaner, especially mid range, having too much bass intermodulation could have been messing up the processing?
My car is VW, they've been fitted as standard for a while, Audi is about to follow suite so I would imagine Skoda won't be far behind.
As for the glass mounted antenna, well I fitted one with a Pioneer head unit to the wife's car and as I said earlier, it hasn't lost signal when we've been out yet, where as my factory fit with a roof antenna drops out quite regularly.
My Ford using the factory fitted aerial was dropping out all the time except in good signal areas or in the published service area. Bought a roof replacement aerial which is vertical and never looked backed. The manufactures don't seem to be aware yet that DAB is vertically polarized. From a cosmetic point of view it may not be so good looking but so what if it works properly. Especially good in fringe and beyond areas.
When I bought a Pure DAB tuner for my existing hifi seperates system in July 2006, all music stations were either 128 or 160kbps stereo, with the exception of one small station called 'Passion For The Planet' which was 80kbps mono. The sound quality of all of the stations broadcasting at 128 or 160kbps stereo were just about passable, but by the end of that same year, Arqiva were messing about selling off spectrum on Digital One to mobile TV companies and then launched a new station called 'theJazz' which resulted in existing stations 'Core' and 'Captial Life' being reduced to 80kbps mono, the tuner was quickly sold and I moved to satellite. I can only imagine how bad things must sound now...
Virgin Radio, now Absolute Radio was one of several stations at the time broadcasting in 160kbps stereo, believe it or not! How things have changed!
When I bought a Pure DAB tuner for my existing hifi seperates system in July 2006, all music stations were either 128 or 160kbps stereo, with the exception of one small station called 'Passion For The Planet' which was 80kbps mono. The sound quality of all of the stations broadcasting at 128 or 160kbps stereo were just about passable, but by the end of that same year, Arqiva were messing about selling off spectrum on Digital One to mobile TV companies and then launched a new station called 'theJazz' which resulted in existing stations 'Core' and 'Captial Life' being reduced to 80kbps mono, the tuner was quickly sold and I moved to satellite. I can only imagine how bad things must sound now...
Virgin Radio, now Absolute Radio was one of several stations at the time broadcasting in 160kbps stereo, believe it or not! How things have changed!
I think your memory might be playing tricks with you.
Passion for the Planet was a 96kbps station for the whole time it was on DAB.
In 2006, Digital One had GCap Media as the majority shareholder.
When theJazz was launched by Gcap Media in 2006, it was a 96kbps mono station. Life and Core were still stereo stations.
It wasn't until autumn 2007 that Life and Core went mono, and in Core's case it was replaced with a stereo BFBS in January 2008.
In 2006, the only stations broadcasting at 160kbps were Absolute/Virgin and Classic FM on Digital One, Red Dragon/Capital Gold on Cardiff and Capital FM on London 1.
I think your memory might be playing tricks with you.
Passion for the Planet was a 96kbps station for the whole time it was on DAB.
In 2006, Digital One had GCap Media as the majority shareholder.
When theJazz was launched by Gcap Media in 2006, it was a 96kbps mono station. Life and Core were still stereo stations.
It wasn't until autumn 2007 that Life and Core went mono, and in Core's case it was replaced with a stereo BFBS in January 2008.
In 2006, the only stations broadcasting at 160kbps were Absolute/Virgin and Classic FM on Digital One, Red Dragon/Capital Gold on Cardiff and Capital FM on London 1.
Thank you for clearing that up. I was almost there, just those stations went mono a year later than I thought they did! Core and Life went mono and reduced bit rates as a result of the mobile TV service launching on Digital One I think? These days though, the reason why so many stations are in mono and low bit rates is because there are far to many of them, quantity over quality.
If the bit rates went back to how they were in 2006, eg. all music stations in 128kbps stereo at the very least - as a guaranteed minimum, I think I would buy another DAB tuner separate, being the radio enthusiast that I am. It's such a shame what has happened as DAB has so much potential. I honestly couldn't bare listening to music stations in 112kbps stereo or 80kbps mono no matter what equipment I am using.
For home listening if you have broadband then you can listen to Absolute 80s' 160k Ogg stream, which I'd guess is about 5 times higher quality, in theory, than the DAB stream.
Or if you.have satellite you can listen to 80's and Absolute @128kbps, Classic FM @ 192kbps and Planet Rock @ 160 kbps
Comments
I had a search and could not find any reference to the set type research, I seem to remember a Jazz FM manager quoting it on the Jazz FM webpage to justify going mono, but has been removed. GfK seem to be working with makers and shops to publish total set sales, but has not publically published any type breakdown as far as I can find.
BBC and Global are keeping stereo for those with home pocket and car stereos. Can see Jazz FM, Teamrock, Absolute, Kiss, Kerrang and other stations wanting to keep any losses under control, but to go mono just when stereo car sets are taking off (as ewarwoowoo says) is not a good move.
Do you mean this page hans?:
http://web.archive.org/web/20120123133534/http://www.jazzfm.com/2011/08/national/
The justification was that a car was not the best ennviroment to get good stereo, but does depend on the car and the lack of stereo is more noticable.
It's 35.4% (it will be over 50% by the end of 2013):
http://www.getdigitalradio.com/dab-news/view/405
The Ford Fiesta is the no 1 selling car in the UK and the new model has DAB fitted as standard:
http://www.autoevolution.com/news/ford-has-over-1000-orders-for-new-fiesta-st-in-britain-58421.html
My car is VW, they've been fitted as standard for a while, Audi is about to follow suite so I would imagine Skoda won't be far behind.
As for the glass mounted antenna, well I fitted one with a Pioneer head unit to the wife's car and as I said earlier, it hasn't lost signal when we've been out yet, where as my factory fit with a roof antenna drops out quite regularly.
There must be other people like me who spend a good while commuting in there cars where in the car is really the only place they get to listen to music at volume for a good period of time, I never have the time at home or there's other people to consider so I iPod things, in car I like to take the opportunity to crank it up to 11 and bang out my favourite hits, stereo sound and quality is great in car if set up correctly, and important to me which is why I can't stick poor quality mono sound, apart from XFM & 5live I really can't stick and listen to anything else on dab anymore, such a shame, far cry from when I used to have the fantastic sounding 'The Arrow' blasting out in quality on MXR WM..
And how many million cars already on the road with FM radios?
LOL....if I was a car manufacturer who had finally been brow-beaten or given financial incentives or sweeteners go to all that trouble of sticking an antiquated technology in my new cars ...only to find that the quality of the end product was dropping through the floor...I'd be pretty miffed.
Theres still R1-4, 6, Classic, Absolute, Heart, Capital, Gold, Magic, BBC local etc in stereo, but see what you mean.
Just checked Wohnort and as far as I can see, in London the only stations on DAB in stereo that are not already available in FM stereo are:
BBC 6Music
Sunrise
Gold
Punjabi
Gaydio
That's not good, is it?
BBC 1Xtra is in stereo as well.
Well I guess that that is one way of upping their listener numbers !
True, missed that one.
Also the FLAC stream is working at the moment. Eats about 1 Mbit of bandwidth but is totally lossless. (Of course, that does nothing to stop them buggering up the quality at their end with horrible audio processors and whatnot.)
Ford Fiestas don't all have DAB radios fitted as standard which I think is what you're implying. The ST may have one but most people buying the "new Fiesta" won't be getting DAB unless they pay for it as an option.
No, you don't have to sign up or sign in to listen. They claim you get fewer ads though if you do so. (I haven't tested this.)
Well spotted, Alan.
Old South City is great at posting 'GOOD NEWS' about DAB...even though a lot of the time, as you have pointed out, it is all hype and BS.
Who DOES pay South City's salary?
http://www.mediauk.com/article/34424/radio-in-car-the-future-is-dab-together-with-the-internet
No mention about the now mono stations on DAB when nearly all car sets will be stereo! Level has been reduced and now sounds cleaner, especially mid range, having too much bass intermodulation could have been messing up the processing?
Virgin Radio, now Absolute Radio was one of several stations at the time broadcasting in 160kbps stereo, believe it or not! How things have changed!
Passion for the Planet was a 96kbps station for the whole time it was on DAB.
In 2006, Digital One had GCap Media as the majority shareholder.
When theJazz was launched by Gcap Media in 2006, it was a 96kbps mono station. Life and Core were still stereo stations.
It wasn't until autumn 2007 that Life and Core went mono, and in Core's case it was replaced with a stereo BFBS in January 2008.
In 2006, the only stations broadcasting at 160kbps were Absolute/Virgin and Classic FM on Digital One, Red Dragon/Capital Gold on Cardiff and Capital FM on London 1.
Thank you for clearing that up. I was almost there, just those stations went mono a year later than I thought they did! Core and Life went mono and reduced bit rates as a result of the mobile TV service launching on Digital One I think? These days though, the reason why so many stations are in mono and low bit rates is because there are far to many of them, quantity over quality.
If the bit rates went back to how they were in 2006, eg. all music stations in 128kbps stereo at the very least - as a guaranteed minimum, I think I would buy another DAB tuner separate, being the radio enthusiast that I am. It's such a shame what has happened as DAB has so much potential. I honestly couldn't bare listening to music stations in 112kbps stereo or 80kbps mono no matter what equipment I am using.
Or if you.have satellite you can listen to 80's and Absolute @128kbps, Classic FM @ 192kbps and Planet Rock @ 160 kbps
I don't think so. Will people really sign up just so they can listen to a radio station that plays their favourite songs? I wouldn't.