John Lewis are correct with DAB+ audio, just that no UK station currently meets this but take the set to some European cities and the quality is on some stations.
Would be good if TWG/Switchdigital could simulcast Virgin on London 2 in DAB+ stereo at good bitrate?

My understanding is that it's worse than that, "HD Ready" meaning merely that the screen is basic HD but that it doesn't necessarily have a built-in HD tuner so some form of Set Top Box would have to be used.

Using the same analogy, MW/FM-only car radios could be described as "DAB/DAB+ Stereo Ready" because you could use a Pure Highway converter with them !

IMHO that amounts to misrepresentation because it's fair to assume that most sets sold in the UK will be used in the UK.

It's also rather misleading to use in-store DAB/DAB+ signal boosters. The result is that at Bluewater for example you'll find their radios will receive far more far more stations than you are likely to get at home.

It's one thing to use in-store boosters to overcome the building's screening and interference levels because they aren't representative of domestic conditions, but IMHO secretly boosting the signals dramatically so that they receive muxes that are far out of area (e.g. Surrey & N. Sussex) is very dishonest, especially for the majority of sets that have captive aerials.

I didn't know they did that - last time I bought a DAB radio in JL was in Oxford St and the sets on display only picked up national and regional London multiplexes.

The out of area multiplexes perhaps - but in some locations they would be very advantageous to have the indoor boosters - Nottingham's Castle Marina retail park is a particular blind spot (screened from the transmitter by Castle Mount and other hills to the south) meaning you aren't able to test most of the radios in store, and not representative of what can be picked up at home, even a few hundred meters away (i.e. nothing in store, everything (BBC, D1, SDL, Nottingham, Derby, Leicester) at the entrance to the car park!). On the other hand, a radio which gets a decent signal in the Curry's there is a rather sensitive one!

And of course, no less "dishonest" than the mobile networks which offer in-store boosters to ensure the customer is able to test the device even if coverage a few stores away may be non-existent.

I wish my local supermarket used a booster so I could carry on listening to TMS while shopping.

Quote.
"It's also rather misleading to use in-store DAB/DAB+ signal boosters. The result is that at Bluewater for example you'll find their radios will receive far more far more stations than you are likely to get at home."

At my local JL there was no DAB reception, and very little FM, in their TV and radio department until they installed a distribution system because it is in the basement. I suspect that if you tried your DAB radio at Bluewater, especially if it has a multi-storey carpark you could go up the roof level of, you would get all those stations. Stores can't be held responsible for poor reception at your house which could be due to a vast number of reasons. I get more stations at home than in their store.

Not many people live on the roofs of multi-storey car parks.

The key point is that John Lewis need to have a prominent notice that they are using boosters, so that customers will be aware that the in-store conditions are optimum and that their mileage may well vary.

I don't understand the problem. You don't live in the store, you live at home !! So it's irrelevant the number of services you can and or cannot receive inside the shop.
The important thing is to have good reception of something (I'd suggest the BBC national mux) to assess the audio quality of a DAB radio, and in the case of a mobile phone shop, have reception of the network(s) that store is a dealer for, to be able to demonstrate problems etc, and for the store to activate SIMs etc

It's misleading because if you are buying from John Lewis you are almost certainly going to be in the UK, so then "as soon as you turn it on" you get the same sort of audio quality as plain vanilla DAB, given the 24-48 kb/s bitrates of the DAB+ stations.

Indeed ! I fear that DAB+ is at risk from being marketed as 'HD Radio', which in this country it never will be.

It's not irrelevant. I'd feel very disappointed and ripped off if I found that, unlike in the store, it would never be able to receive Jazz FM Stereo or Union JACK on SDL at home.

The BBC National Mux would be the worst possible one to demonstrate because it doesn't have any DAB+ stations, half of its stations are simulcasts of analogue transmissions, and nothing has launched recently so people are already familiar with its offerings.

So why didn't you just take the radio back? Not that there was anything wrong with it. If you try out a DAB+ radio in central Manchester you will get the Manchester mini mux, in the suburbs you probably won't, that's life isn't it.

I get more stations at home than the radios in JL get, the fact that I can see Winter Hill, Piccadilly Plaza and Manchester One out of the window needless to say is the reason.

I had a browse through Wohnort a few days back at some of the European DAB multiplexes, particularly Germany and the Netherlands and had a look at the bitrates.

Most are broadcasting at least at 80kbps aac and many are at 96 kbps. Clasical music stations even higher.

24 and 32 kbps aac is a bit of a travesty, surely. There aren't even that many at 48 kbps in Europe.

Until the BBC lead the way I fear this will be the norm in the UK.

I doubt the BBC will run their stations at 32 kbpsd.

A lot of European stations are using the v1 variant of HE-AAC. The UK stations are using the more efficient HE-AAC v2.

HE-AAC v2's only of any use at lower bitrates and would be detrimental to the audio reproduction at higher bitrates.

HE-AAC v2 was designed to specifically work at 48kbps. Even that is being degraded by the bitrates now being used in the U.K.

RTE is broadcasting Radio 1 at 48kbps using HE-AAC v2. Minimising the bitrate of BBC stations would provide an incentive to lease out spare space on the BBC National DAB multiplex for an extra revenue stream to keep the licence fee down, a la BBC Select on BBC One and Two in the early 90s.

The question is, are these low bit rates being done for cost saving or are Arqiva trying to cram more in to make more money?.

Both. Cost saving for radio stations, financial security for multiplex operators where they'll lose less money if a lower bitrate station goes under and of course, more choice which is what DAB is being sold for...

...except, digital radio listenership habits are not the same as digital television viewership habits.