On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 14:25:59 GMT, "DAB sounds worse than FM"
wrote:

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:
I know there are some bad reception areas for FM. My point, which
you've conveniently omitted or forgotten, is that just because a
smallish percentage of the population do have poor FM reception is
not justification to provide low audio quality on DAB. Do you
disagree?

The stations I listen to on DAB sound fine to me.


Well, this is part of the problem, because we will always be comparing
apples and oranges, because you probably listen to R3, R4 and maybe R5,
which are probably the least-affected radio stations on DAB, but my
issue is not about those stations; my issue is with regards to the
stereo music stations, which are being transmitted at 128kbps and sound
horrendous.

Does *anybody* listen to that other crap? Low bit rate is the least of
their problems.


The pop stations
are so heavily processed they sound awful on DAB or FM or DTV,


People of my generation will have grown up listening to stations that
have had dynamic range compression applied, so we're well used to that
sound, and I think it's mainly older people that object to it so
strongly. That's not to say that I like it, and especially the
commercial music stations apply it way too heavily. But it still beats
DAB hands-down. DAB just sounds nasty. It's muffled, constricted and
'orrible whereas, even with audio processing, the same stations on FM do
not suffer this. Good examples would be R1, R2 and Galaxy 102
(Manchester). On DAB they just sound nasty, whereas on FM they all use
audio processing but sound much better because of the lack of nasty
artefacts.

I don't get any artifacts on DAB, but then I live on top of the hill
at Hampstead Heath and get a signal on both DAB and TV that could
probably do with attenuation rather than anything else.

And if you think stations sound the same on FM and DTV then you've not
listened to them. Radio 1 especially sounds different on DTV. It varies
from show to show, because I think each producer for each DJ has their
own settings, but I listen to the Essential Selection on Fridays, and it
invariably sounds very good. You probably wouldn't like it, but you're
not meant to listen to it! The audio processing level on DTT is lower
than on FM and is significantly less intrusive.


so I'd
rather give them a miss regardless. Even if I liked most of their
music, which I don't.


Quite; they're not meant for you, so we're arguing about different
things.

My main objection with DAB is that in the beginning we were promised
compression (dynamic) free broadcast, and the ability to select our
own degree of compression on the receiver. Well, Arcam certainly kept
their promise for that last part, but the broadcasters went ahead and
compressed anyway. *******s.

d

Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com