Phil Striplin wrote:
On Thu, 31 Jul 2003 15:45:49 +0100, "DAB sounds worse than FM"
wrote:
Phil Striplin wrote:
I believe, the first set not to require a second dedicated antenna
for DAB.
How have they managed this, or is it as complex as just using the FM
aerial and hoping for the best?
I don't know, and neither did the technical help guy at Goodmans. The
roof aerial I am using is, as it happens, about a quarter-wave for the
top end of Band III, so maybe I'm lucky. However, it seems to work.
I've tried an FM indoor aerial and a rooftop TV aerial with DAB and both
worked fine, so maybe they're just chancing their luck?
It plays CD's, although the access to the CD player is gained by
flipping down the front panel. The hinge feels rather flimsy, and
I'm not sure how long it will stand up to regular use. It doesn't
recognise MP3.
This might sound dumb, but do all CD players recognise CD-R/RW in WAV
format?
Um...wouldn't have thought so. Doesn't an audio CD have some sort of
indexing, so a simple WAV file wouldn't be picked up?
My 3 CD players can all play WAV files off CD-Rs, but I thought that not all
CD players could do it, but I'm not sure.
1 to 2 seconds to change stations! That is crap.
Given the size of some DAB local multiplexes, you've probably driven
through it and out the other side by the time you've got round to the
station you want...
That is shockingly slow. The channelspotters/channelhoppers will get a bit
frustrated with this stereo.
What a joke. I'm not sure they could get this worse than they've got
it by the sounds of it.
Plus the buttons are TINY. I'd like to see the correlation between
rear end incidents and people driving cars equipped with Goodmans DAB
near the borders of multiplex service areas ("which button do I
press..." WHAM)
So, DAB not content with sounding attrocious actually causes road traffic
accidents! It's not got much going for it has it...
You say below that you listen to a lot of speech stations. My
experience of listening to the speech stations is that the audio
quality is tolerable, but IMO the music stations' audio quality is
intolerable, so could you enlarge on what you think of the audio
quality of the music stations?
You're right, in car I mostly listen to speech.
There is inevitably a high level of background noise when listening in
a car compared with the home. There are also lots of compromises with
speaker placement and general acoustics, which IMO mean that no in-car
listening can be described as "hi-fi".
Given all that, I don't think that the deficiencies of our current DAB
system materially degrade the sound any further (after engine noise,
road noise, wind noise etc have taken their toll). Or, if they do,
it's not noticeable to my ears in the same way that, say, a good DSat
transmission sounds different to DAB at home.
In the car I always have the volume up pretty high and road and engine noise
isn't a problem at all unless I've got the window open driving down the
motorway, and then I think it comes down to the same factors that apply for
DAB in the home where it's the quality of the playback system that
determines the audio quality. If you just use the factory-fitted speakers
then I doubt it would make hardly any difference to the sound, but if you're
going to replace a factory-fitted car stereo then you're pretty likely to
upgrade the speakers too so I do think that audio quality is still important
in a car.
Incidentally this is a similar reason why I think the audio quality matters
for personal stereos too because people tend to have the volume pretty high
on those too and the sound is right "in your head" so say a horribly encoded
electric guitar would sound absolutely attrocious on a DAB personal stereo.
Or of course, for the £200 you'd get a far better audio quality
model that plays back CDs and mp3s I would imagine.
Absolutely - probably with a multi-changer thrown in, if you like
them. But that wouldn't do DAB.
I was thinking about getting this Goodmans to test its performance and then
sell it on a few months later, but you've put me off it and I'm going to get
a standard CD FM stereo that plays mp3s instead for the same money.
You can get the Blaupunkt Woodstock for not that much more than this
Goodmans if you're prepared to buy it from Germany.
Really? You wouldn't happen to have a source in mind? The web ones
I've seen (and yes, it's about £220) won't ship to the UK- and don't
seem to include the DAB aerial. The UK suppliers, I think, do.
Nicolas Croiset posts links occasionally with the latest and cheapest price
but I don't know if they deliver to the UK or not.
But could they please sort the damn station selection interface out!
And the bloody audio quality!
...and the coverage...
What's the coverage like for the national multiplexes? Does it correlate
well with the coverage maps?
--
DAB sounds worse than FM, Freeview, Digital Satellite and Cable --
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/
BBC DAB is a national disgrace
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