In article , Keith G wrote:

When FM radio (2 in the evenings often and 3 most of the time) hits the
spot, which it frequently does, it really is the best 'audio' you can get
and is altogether better than any TV or digital sound!

I agree entirely on the superb quality of analogue FM broadcasts when
they do hit the spot.

However, on the subject of "better than any ... digital sound" sorry to
quibble but I believe the UK national "analogue FM" transmtter network
is fed with digital NICAM-encoded content. Assuming I'm right, even
though the transmission is analogue FM the source is still digital.
And what's more it's just 14-bit digital at 32 ksamples/sec before we
even get to the issue of 10-bit NICAM transcoding.

Back to BBC Radio 3 FM, I think the signal is compressed to prevent
over-deviation and keep low-level detail above the transmission system's
noise floor. It certainly sounds "warm" to me compared to DAB (yes I
know about the arguments but at least R3 gets some bandwidth). This does
not detract from my keen enjoyment of the best of R3 on FM, BTW.

--
John Phillips