OFFCOM seems to agreee with me (scroll down to 'DAB sound quality' underneath proposal 4) which shows how most people are fine with dab
The research they are quoting has a number of statistical flaws which have been discussed here and pointed out to them making it, to many commentators, less than reliable. Jack Schofield in the Guardian commented that: "I suspect Ofcom's survey mainly shows that listeners think their £100 DAB radio (prices range between £40 and £250) sounds better than the old AM/FM tranny on which they spent, what, £25?" and there are other flaws in the research model used.
National Grid Wireless, who weren't specifically researching the issue for their bid, recently said that they were surprised by the number of respondents who spontaneously mentioned that reception wasn't always good and often sounded as though the radio was in an aquarium which underlined their own concerns about the audio quality being offered by some multiplexes.
National Grid Wireless, who weren't specifically researching the issue for their bid, recently said that they were surprised by the number of respondents who spontaneously mentioned that reception wasn't always good and often sounded as though the radio was in an aquarium which underlined their own concerns about the audio quality being offered by some multiplexes.
I suppose that National Grid Wireless and NTL/Arqiva were contracted to provide coverage for external reception with roof aerials, but most DAB sets have rod or headphone aerials and therefore reception is marginal in some cases with "burbling" and cutouts.
With RRC06 National Grid Wireless and NTL/Arqiva can now improve DAB reception for indoor devices like they have for Digital One in London, but have the problems of getting the right powers and tx locvations to do this without interfereing with other muxes in other areas, also to get the mux operators and stations to pay for this.
Looks like Virgin are happy that their DAB 160k can replace the AM network but there are concerns that they are processing the transmitted audio correctly. Seems OK to some but too much treble and not enough bass for some DAB sets that do not have tone controls
wonder if anyone can tell me why some dab stations sound better I mean louder and sharper than others ive got a sony tuner seperate linked to my hifi and when say I tune to virgin radio its ok but not great then tune to smooth radio its twice as good ?? the signal reads 100% i'm baffled
wonder if anyone can tell me why some dab stations sound better I mean louder and sharper than others ive got a sony tuner seperate linked to my hifi and when say I tune to virgin radio its ok but not great then tune to smooth radio its twice as good ?? the signal reads 100% i'm baffled
hi i might be wrong but i think its all down to what bit they use.
This is just all really depressing - radios should be things that last for a long time and people take pleasure in, now they have just become another tool in the endless quest to have something 'better'. Well guess what, I like my current DAB radios, the sound quality is quite good enough for me, I can hear the bloody programme without FM interference drowing it out, so if they take it away from me I refuse to pay for a new one - they can replace it for free or I will steal a new one from dixons. I refuse to pay again in 5 years for something that is working fine NOW for non-geeky use. If you want better sound quality, get rid of all the crap like smash hits, or just put up with it. Anyone who thinks FM is better for ordinary use must live at the top of crystal palace transmitter - cos where I live FM doesn't work, DAB does, so LEAVE IT ALONE!!!!!!!
Spot on Joshua123. Even as an audio geek I still find DAB generally acceptable, and when it's not (as when Radio 3 gives up part of it's bitrate) there is still FM. I now have a portable, a hi-fi tuner, personal & bedside clock radio invested in the current technology and I too do not want them reduced to landfill just because a few vociferous people who have probably purchased naff radios don't think it sounds perfect - neither does FM or CD! These same people are happy to don an I-Pod so their arguement falters. My interest is the extra choice which includes stuff I appreciate, albeit that there is much dross too.
The gradual introduction of the new technology alongside the existing is feasable, and the best way forward.
We need to grow out of the fast changing consumer technology marketting con because we have a planet to protect. No good having the latest gizmo if the basics of survival fall appart!!!
wonder if anyone can tell me why some dab stations sound better I mean louder and sharper than others ive got a sony tuner seperate linked to my hifi and when say I tune to virgin radio its ok but not great then tune to smooth radio its twice as good ?? the signal reads 100% i'm baffled
That's the problem with DAB. Because different stations use different bit rates the decent sounding ones show up the poorer ones. I wish Ofcom would enforce some consistency in the broadcast sound quality plus only allow mono for talk format stations only.
That's the problem with DAB. Because different stations use different bit rates the decent sounding ones show up the poorer ones. I wish Ofcom would enforce some consistency in the broadcast sound quality plus only allow mono for talk format stations only.
A good point, but it goes wider than that. There are cases where because of poor handling elsewhere in the chain you get stations like Virgin that sound worse at 160kbps than Radio 1, 2 and 6 Music sound at 128kbps.
(I mean it's made up of square blocks for goodness sake- if you don't believe me switch from analogue immediately to the same channel on digital and it's like you've just put on misty glasses)
When I switch to analogue it looks like I've put on filthy glasses, especially in the summer when distant transmitters start causing interference.
Some channels (the ITV family, shopping and music services for instance) do look like rubbish, but then again so is their programming so it doesn't matter.
BBC ONE is so much sharper on DTTV - no reds bleeding all over the place, reliable stereo sound (NICAM is rather unreliable here on BBC ONE) and generally a sharper picture.
Not all of us are lucky enough to live ontop of the transmitter we get pictures from, and digital seems to work more reliably in those cases (To give you an idea of signal strengths I can get Multiplex 1 and 2 from Waltham on a loop aerial (and Mux 2 from Belmont) where as I get a fuzzy picture at best on the analogue services (BBC ONE is black and white ffs).
thanks for the info virgin sounds very low here in west yorkshire and so does the newly name gold- Leeds was Capital Gold, classic gold sounded very good now they have merged they both sound the same as in low wish they would sort it out it gives dab a bad name people expect cd sound from digital radio:mad:
I own two DAB Radios and I was thinking about buying a new one with recording facilities but the only radio I have spotted that can be ' upgraded ' to DAB+
{ for a extra cost of around £ 10 }
It's very unlikely that they will change the standard again within at least the next 15 years or so. A lot of countries have now decided to go with DAB+ and it would create a lot of issues. In terms of the codec it's difficult to envisage that you can get much more efficient than AAC+ anyway.
The UK & Denmark are largely on their own with the obsolescence issue because DAB sets haven't sold in great numbers anywhere else. We dived in too early and didn't have cross-European support for the MP2 version. As a result we will have to pay the price by continuing with an old-fashioned sub-standard system for a few years while everyone else gets 21st century technology.
Nearly all of Pure's new models will now include the Venice 5 chip, which is upgradeable to receive DAB+ broadcasts by software update. From around December/January their radios will include the new Venice 6 chip which will decode DAB+ broadcasts without any upgrade required. It pays to wait, especially if Digital One or Channel 4 start broadcasting DAB+ next year using the 30% of the mux that was previously intended for mobile TV.
This really takes the biscuit - you watch no sooner will they be selling DAB+ sets and all of a sudden the ' WorldDMB ' (formerly World DAB Forum) http://www.worlddab.org/index.php will think up a new standard - DAB+2 perhaps.
They certainly take the biscuit with some of the dodgy claims they make !
"It “blankets” wide geographical areas with an even, uninterrupted signal".
Amazing - it defies the inverse square law !
"... a driver will be able to cross an entire country staying tuned to the same station with no signal fade, without altering frequency."
Luxembourg, perhaps? Not true in England, Ireland, Scotland or Wales, even with national stations.
"The DAB system requirers (sic) a low field strength, which allows the technology to much (sic)more mobile than other standards".
"DAB/DMB allows broadcasters to provide a wide range of material simultaneously on the same frequency. This not only makes room for a vastly increased number of programmes to increase user choice, but also has important broadcast cost-cutting implications."
Try telling that to a small ILR station that owns its own transmitter where the ongoing FM broadcasting costs amount to little more than landline rental. £70k per year for DAB wouldn't amount to cost cutting !:rolleyes:
"Aside from distortion-free reception and CD Quality sound, DAB offers further advantages as it has been designed for the multimedia age."
The ASA banned this claim long ago.
"Transmission will be cheaper, too. DAB can be transmitted at lower power than today's FM and AM signals yet with no loss in geographic coverage, which means less cost to the broadcaster (and less power consumption means DAB is more environmentally friendly than conventional FM and AM)."
How many porkies can you squeeze into two sentences?
Based on the present charges and provided that mux rental cost is related to bit rate (this is the way that Now Digital calculates it), the transmission of 48kbps AAC+ is cheaper than the cost of FM transmission for a small station.
The transmission powers are lower, the main stations use 250kW for FM but 10kW for DAB so I'm not sure what your point is here.
Based on the present charges and provided that mux rental cost is related to bit rate (this is the way that Now Digital calculates it), the transmission of 48kbps AAC+ is cheaper than the cost of FM transmission for a small station.
The transmission powers are lower, the main stations use 250kW for FM but 10kW for DAB so I'm not sure what your point is here.
The no loss in geographic coverage is misleading though, as DAB is transmitted in Band 3 at the moment you need more transmitters as it is more prone to holes in coverage where you need a low power on channel repeater, FM also reverts to mono at marginal signal levels whereas DAB burbles.
[*]"... a driver will be able to cross an entire country staying tuned to the same station with no signal fade, without altering frequency."
Luxembourg, perhaps? Not true in England, Ireland, Scotland or Wales, even with national stations.[/LIST]
How many porkies can you squeeze into two sentences?[/I]
[/LIST]
Having a DAB car radio for two and a half years now I find that this claim is not that way out. What holes there were a while back have been mostly filled. In fact the ability to stick with a station without re-tuning or losing it for miles is a major plus for the system. It works far better than AM or FM worked in the past when I was travelling around. The critical thing is to fit a decent roof mounted DAB or multiband aerial (which seeing that roof mounted aerials are fitted to most newer models anyway should enable easy fitting of a DAB enabled one).
Don't believe all the negative hype. Just like the original claims, when it comes to DAB it's not all black or white. Some of the shades of grey are quite acceptable.
Based on the present charges and provided that mux rental cost is related to bit rate (this is the way that Now Digital calculates it), the transmission of 48kbps AAC+ is cheaper than the cost of FM transmission for a small station.
The transmission powers are lower, the main stations use 250kW for FM but 10kW for DAB so I'm not sure what your point is here.
I've assumed that the comparison was between FM and plain vanilla DAB transmission systems rather than with any future DAB+ system. I understand that once a small station has paid the capital cost of its own FM transmitter and mast, the only significant RF ongoing costs are a small electricity bill (plus landline and site rental if the FM transmitter is not at the studio site).
I don't have exact figures but I understand that the FM cost would be a few thousand pounds per annum at most, whereas DAB would be over £60k per annum. But I'm happy to be proved wrong if anyone has detailed figures available.
When it comes to being environmentally friendly, there's no comparison. True, the ERPs on a handful of FM TXs may be higher, but the true environmental costs include the energy consumption of millions of power-hungry DAB receivers and a much bigger battery mountain (or should that be battery pile? ).
Alternatively, think of all those permanently connected mains-plug transformer units that are lukewarm 24/7 and often quite hot when in active use. It's all about the total footprint, as the slogan might say.
The point I'm making is that the World DMB website makes a lot of claims (ranging from 'sound quality on an equal footing with the CD player' to 'the BBC in the UK has a transmitter network that covers 90% of the population') about things that are not delivered in reality.
Govt has announced a DAB radio scrappage scheme. All obsolete DAB radios - those older than 6 months - will qualify. The new purchase must have an Ecologic certificate and a loudspeaker of less than 3" diameter.
Govt has announced a DAB radio scrappage scheme. All obsolete DAB radios - those older than 6 months - will qualify. The new purchase must have an Ecologic certificate and a loudspeaker of less than 3" diameter.
The trouble is people WILL be expecting something like that scheme if DAB is abolished to make way for DAB+.
No one who currently owns a DAB set is going to shell out all over again just to get DAB+. How do they know that DAB+ won't be replaced after a couple of years?
And the government can't possibly get rid of FM either. Every so often someone posts a "switchoff date" for analogue radio on here but when you read the small print it always turns out to be just a proposal or a guess, there's never been any firm decision made about this topic. No government is going to turn round to a huge proportion of the electorate and tell them their car/phone/hi-fi/clock FM radio will stop working, especially when DAB tuners aren't as widely embedded into other devices.
And DAB is unlikely to ever be embedded into as many devices as FM because it's not anywhere near as widely used as FM.
Most radio listening isn't through dedicated sets any more, and people have got to stop seeing dedicated sets as viable ways to built a new radio standard.
True, but I really wonder why TV viewers are not only happy to accept a complete analogue switch off a few years from now, but also the fact that Freeview tuners & TVs bought today will be obsolete commencing this October.
Maybe because set-top boxes are accepted as being throwaway items while home radios and car radios are not.
The trouble is people WILL be expecting something like that scheme if DAB is abolished to make way for DAB+.
No one who currently owns a DAB set is going to shell out all over again just to get DAB+. How do they know that DAB+ won't be replaced after a couple of years?
It isn't quite as simple as that. 70% of people haven't bought a DAB set - that's a large majority of the population.
In general people don't buy radios as standalone devices, they tend to be built into other devices as standard (cars, bedside clock radios, midi-hifi etc.)
With France, Germany & Sweden all launching DAB+/DMB over the next nine months DAB+ radios will be incorporated in a large number of devices on sale in Europe (including new cars) shortly so a large number of people in the UK will be buying DAB+ by stealth.
Joe Public 1: "Have you got a DAB+ radio built into your new car?"
Joe Public 2: "I'm not sure what it is, it's digital and it works, that's all I know."
Freeview tuners bought today will not be obsolete from October. They won't receive the new HD broadcasts but that's quite different to them being only suitable as ornaments. There are five other multiplexes with SD channels.
The trouble is people WILL be expecting something like that scheme if DAB is abolished to make way for DAB+.
But DAB isn't going to be abolished. And there are no plans from any UK broadcasters to broadcast in DAB+
No one who currently owns a DAB set is going to shell out all over again just to get DAB+. How do they know that DAB+ won't be replaced after a couple of years?
Why not? Sets will cost from, what, £20? People replace their mobile phones/other consumer electronics all the time
And the government can't possibly get rid of FM either. Every so often someone posts a "switchoff date" for analogue radio on here but when you read the small print it always turns out to be just a proposal or a guess, there's never been any firm decision made about this topic. No government is going to turn round to a huge proportion of the electorate and tell them their car/phone/hi-fi/clock FM radio will stop working, especially when DAB tuners aren't as widely embedded into other devices.
Well, we'll see next month.
Most radio listening isn't through dedicated sets any more, and people have got to stop seeing dedicated sets as viable ways to built a new radio standard.
I don't think people are. Whilst Evoke-style radios are popular (the Evoke being the world's best selling radio). A quick scan through Currys or Argos would show that DAB's in clock radios, mini hi-fi's, docks and all.
Comments
The research they are quoting has a number of statistical flaws which have been discussed here and pointed out to them making it, to many commentators, less than reliable. Jack Schofield in the Guardian commented that: "I suspect Ofcom's survey mainly shows that listeners think their £100 DAB radio (prices range between £40 and £250) sounds better than the old AM/FM tranny on which they spent, what, £25?" and there are other flaws in the research model used.
National Grid Wireless, who weren't specifically researching the issue for their bid, recently said that they were surprised by the number of respondents who spontaneously mentioned that reception wasn't always good and often sounded as though the radio was in an aquarium which underlined their own concerns about the audio quality being offered by some multiplexes.
With RRC06 National Grid Wireless and NTL/Arqiva can now improve DAB reception for indoor devices like they have for Digital One in London, but have the problems of getting the right powers and tx locvations to do this without interfereing with other muxes in other areas, also to get the mux operators and stations to pay for this.
Looks like Virgin are happy that their DAB 160k can replace the AM network but there are concerns that they are processing the transmitted audio correctly. Seems OK to some but too much treble and not enough bass for some DAB sets that do not have tone controls
hi i might be wrong but i think its all down to what bit they use.
Spot on Joshua123. Even as an audio geek I still find DAB generally acceptable, and when it's not (as when Radio 3 gives up part of it's bitrate) there is still FM. I now have a portable, a hi-fi tuner, personal & bedside clock radio invested in the current technology and I too do not want them reduced to landfill just because a few vociferous people who have probably purchased naff radios don't think it sounds perfect - neither does FM or CD! These same people are happy to don an I-Pod so their arguement falters. My interest is the extra choice which includes stuff I appreciate, albeit that there is much dross too.
The gradual introduction of the new technology alongside the existing is feasable, and the best way forward.
We need to grow out of the fast changing consumer technology marketting con because we have a planet to protect. No good having the latest gizmo if the basics of survival fall appart!!!
That's the problem with DAB. Because different stations use different bit rates the decent sounding ones show up the poorer ones. I wish Ofcom would enforce some consistency in the broadcast sound quality plus only allow mono for talk format stations only.
A good point, but it goes wider than that. There are cases where because of poor handling elsewhere in the chain you get stations like Virgin that sound worse at 160kbps than Radio 1, 2 and 6 Music sound at 128kbps.
When I switch to analogue it looks like I've put on filthy glasses, especially in the summer when distant transmitters start causing interference.
Some channels (the ITV family, shopping and music services for instance) do look like rubbish, but then again so is their programming so it doesn't matter.
BBC ONE is so much sharper on DTTV - no reds bleeding all over the place, reliable stereo sound (NICAM is rather unreliable here on BBC ONE) and generally a sharper picture.
Not all of us are lucky enough to live ontop of the transmitter we get pictures from, and digital seems to work more reliably in those cases (To give you an idea of signal strengths I can get Multiplex 1 and 2 from Waltham on a loop aerial (and Mux 2 from Belmont) where as I get a fuzzy picture at best on the analogue services (BBC ONE is black and white ffs).
http://www.worlddab.org/index.php
will think up a new standard - DAB+2 perhaps.
I own two DAB Radios and I was thinking about buying a new one with recording facilities but the only radio I have spotted that can be ' upgraded ' to DAB+
{ for a extra cost of around £ 10 }
is the Pure Siesta
http://www.pure.com/Products/Product.asp?Product=VL-60907
and really this is not what I am after .
Of course more will become available but I bet if you walk into your local High street shop and ask them about DAB+ they will not have a clue.
The UK & Denmark are largely on their own with the obsolescence issue because DAB sets haven't sold in great numbers anywhere else. We dived in too early and didn't have cross-European support for the MP2 version. As a result we will have to pay the price by continuing with an old-fashioned sub-standard system for a few years while everyone else gets 21st century technology.
Nearly all of Pure's new models will now include the Venice 5 chip, which is upgradeable to receive DAB+ broadcasts by software update. From around December/January their radios will include the new Venice 6 chip which will decode DAB+ broadcasts without any upgrade required. It pays to wait, especially if Digital One or Channel 4 start broadcasting DAB+ next year using the 30% of the mux that was previously intended for mobile TV.
Amazing - it defies the inverse square law !
Luxembourg, perhaps? Not true in England, Ireland, Scotland or Wales, even with national stations.
Try telling that to a small ILR station that owns its own transmitter where the ongoing FM broadcasting costs amount to little more than landline rental. £70k per year for DAB wouldn't amount to cost cutting !:rolleyes:
The ASA banned this claim long ago.
How many porkies can you squeeze into two sentences?
The transmission powers are lower, the main stations use 250kW for FM but 10kW for DAB so I'm not sure what your point is here.
The no loss in geographic coverage is misleading though, as DAB is transmitted in Band 3 at the moment you need more transmitters as it is more prone to holes in coverage where you need a low power on channel repeater, FM also reverts to mono at marginal signal levels whereas DAB burbles.
Having a DAB car radio for two and a half years now I find that this claim is not that way out. What holes there were a while back have been mostly filled. In fact the ability to stick with a station without re-tuning or losing it for miles is a major plus for the system. It works far better than AM or FM worked in the past when I was travelling around. The critical thing is to fit a decent roof mounted DAB or multiband aerial (which seeing that roof mounted aerials are fitted to most newer models anyway should enable easy fitting of a DAB enabled one).
Don't believe all the negative hype. Just like the original claims, when it comes to DAB it's not all black or white. Some of the shades of grey are quite acceptable.
I don't have exact figures but I understand that the FM cost would be a few thousand pounds per annum at most, whereas DAB would be over £60k per annum. But I'm happy to be proved wrong if anyone has detailed figures available.
When it comes to being environmentally friendly, there's no comparison. True, the ERPs on a handful of FM TXs may be higher, but the true environmental costs include the energy consumption of millions of power-hungry DAB receivers and a much bigger battery mountain (or should that be battery pile?
Alternatively, think of all those permanently connected mains-plug transformer units that are lukewarm 24/7 and often quite hot when in active use. It's all about the total footprint, as the slogan might say.
The point I'm making is that the World DMB website makes a lot of claims (ranging from 'sound quality on an equal footing with the CD player' to 'the BBC in the UK has a transmitter network that covers 90% of the population') about things that are not delivered in reality.
Cheers
[ Joke Alert ]
The trouble is people WILL be expecting something like that scheme if DAB is abolished to make way for DAB+.
No one who currently owns a DAB set is going to shell out all over again just to get DAB+. How do they know that DAB+ won't be replaced after a couple of years?
And the government can't possibly get rid of FM either. Every so often someone posts a "switchoff date" for analogue radio on here but when you read the small print it always turns out to be just a proposal or a guess, there's never been any firm decision made about this topic. No government is going to turn round to a huge proportion of the electorate and tell them their car/phone/hi-fi/clock FM radio will stop working, especially when DAB tuners aren't as widely embedded into other devices.
And DAB is unlikely to ever be embedded into as many devices as FM because it's not anywhere near as widely used as FM.
Most radio listening isn't through dedicated sets any more, and people have got to stop seeing dedicated sets as viable ways to built a new radio standard.
Maybe because set-top boxes are accepted as being throwaway items while home radios and car radios are not.
It isn't quite as simple as that. 70% of people haven't bought a DAB set - that's a large majority of the population.
In general people don't buy radios as standalone devices, they tend to be built into other devices as standard (cars, bedside clock radios, midi-hifi etc.)
With France, Germany & Sweden all launching DAB+/DMB over the next nine months DAB+ radios will be incorporated in a large number of devices on sale in Europe (including new cars) shortly so a large number of people in the UK will be buying DAB+ by stealth.
Joe Public 1: "Have you got a DAB+ radio built into your new car?"
Joe Public 2: "I'm not sure what it is, it's digital and it works, that's all I know."
Freeview tuners bought today will not be obsolete from October. They won't receive the new HD broadcasts but that's quite different to them being only suitable as ornaments. There are five other multiplexes with SD channels.
Why not? Sets will cost from, what, £20? People replace their mobile phones/other consumer electronics all the time
Well, we'll see next month.
I don't think people are. Whilst Evoke-style radios are popular (the Evoke being the world's best selling radio). A quick scan through Currys or Argos would show that DAB's in clock radios, mini hi-fi's, docks and all.