Internet radio - classical music, etc
 

"Brian Gaff" wrote in message
m

Very few stations seem to be above evn 64kbits and the windows
formats do seem to
be able to squeeze listenable stuff out of this, albeit with some
loss of
phase resolution on stereo.


There are over 8,000 Internet radio streams on
http://classic.shoutcast.com/ that are using MP3 (or AAC+) at bit
rates of 128 kbps or higher.


--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm

Internet radio - classical music, etc
 

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message

Hi,

During the last week or so I finally changed over to broadband for
my
connection. One of the things I have since started to explore is
'internet
radio'. However I haven't yet found much that is interesting.
Wondering if
this is because I haven't yet looked in the right places, or if it
isn't
present! :-)

My interest is in three areas of music.

1) 'Classical' music. By this I don't just mean clones of Classic
FM. But
stations that are as likely to play Stravinsky or Britten as
Beethoven or
Brahms.

2) 'Classical Indian'. Again, I don't just mean Ravi Shankar or
Bangra.
:-) I am also interested in other forms of non-European 'classical'
music
like those from the 'far east'.

3) Jazz. As with the above, with a decent range of content. Not just
'easy
listening' or 'MOR' under another name.

FWIW Since I don't use windows/mac/linux I can't access 'real audio'
or
'wma' streams. So am looking for open formats based on mp3, etc.
Preferrably 192kbps or 128kbps to make the results worth hearing.

Anyone know of some good stations, or can point me to websites that
list
them? Or don't they exist?...


I'd suggest going to http://classic.shoutcast.com/ (that's the old
"look" of shoutcast, which provides more information than the new
version), and have a look through the stations for the genres you're
looking for (e.g. there's classical, contemporary, opera, symphonic).
For example, there's 8 pages for "classical", and 25 statinos per
page, so there'll be about 200 stations.

It shows the bit rate and whether it's MP3 or AAC+, and for most
stations it lists what they're currently playing (you need to refresh
the page occasionally though if you have the page there for a while
and you want to see what's actually being playing at the time because
it doesn't update itself).




--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm

Internet radio - classical music, etc
 

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message

In article ,
James R wrote:
Why bother with the radio when you can listen through a PC. As
always,
if it is "digital" it's crap - so sounds like a Medium wave station
on
a good day. Some stations are mono with low bitrates like the
"crystal
clear" DAB system the UK was inflicted with. Worse than FM stereo!

You may not have noticed that Mr Lesurf is mainly interested in
classical
music and R3 uses a higher bitrate than other DAB stations. Which
will in
most cases sound better than FM if you have a less than perfect
signal for
that.


Hardly a fair comparison.


Other option is a FreeView tuner for radio. Not everyone will want a
noisy PC in the room if they're doing serious radio listening.

BTW - I've never heard a decent DAB radio sound as bad as MW.


Try listening to Kerrang.



--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm

Internet radio - classical music, etc
 

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message

In article ,
David Looser wrote:
Where I live in East Anglia, MW is pretty much useless. The only
station
I can at anything approaching usable quality is BBC World Service,
everything else is buried under a mush of interference. OTOH I do
get
excellent BBC FM from a transmitter just a few miles away and I
also use
digital satellite for stations that aren't on FM. Until recently I
had
never listened to DAB, but I bought my daughter a DAB radio for
Christmas (she's a fan of BBC7) and I was pleasantly surprised at
how
good it sounded after seeing DAB regularly rubbished here.

Indeed. But of course it's fashionable to slag off DAB - even from
those
who normally listen to their music off low bitrate MP3, etc. To say
128kbps DAB sounds worse than MW is simply nonsense and does no
credit to
its opponents.

I also wonder how many who say 'internet' radio sounds better than
DAB are
comparing like for like. Do they have a DAB tuner fed into the same
sound
system as their PC? Or are they comparing their PC sound system to a
DAB
portable radio?


Utterly ridiculous. Why would anyone compare the quality on a DAB
portable radio with what you hear on a hi-fi system??



--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm

Internet radio - classical music, etc
 

"David Looser" wrote in message

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...

I also wonder how many who say 'internet' radio sounds better than
DAB
are comparing like for like. Do they have a DAB tuner fed into the
same
sound system as their PC? Or are they comparing their PC sound
system to
a DAB portable radio?


I'm no great enthusiast for the concept of "internet radio". I
appreciate
"Listen Again" to allow me to catch up on Radio 4 programmes I have
missed, but the quality is crap,


The quality of BBC listen again is crap? When did you last try it?


so I don't bother with internet music.
But as I said I was pleasantly surprised by DAB, it sounded fine to
me.


Which stations "sound fine"?




--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm

Internet radio - classical music, etc
 

"BBC is biased towards DAB" wrote in message
...


I do find this phrase "BBC is biased towards DAB", odd to say the least. DAB
simply stands for "Digital Audio Broadcasting" it says nothing about coding
standards or bit rates. And internet radio is a completely different animal,
which can exist alongside digital broadcasting, but is hardly a replacement
for it.

David.

Internet radio - classical music, etc
 

"David Looser" wrote in message

"tony sayer" wrote in message
...


I don't supposed you've listened to that much net radio .. some
indeed
is poor but some is very good...
--

Well no, I haven't, I don't see the point. I've got FM radio, I've
got
satellite radio, I've got CDs and tapes galore, why do I need
internet
radio?


If you think DAB sounds fine, Internet radio either already does or
will in the near future provide much better quality.


I don't want to tie up my broadband connection


Tie up your broadband? We're talking about sub 200 kbps streams here.


(and risk paying
extra because I've exceeded my monthly download allowance).


What's your monthly bandwidth allowance?




--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm

Internet radio - classical music, etc
 

"David Looser" wrote in message

"Mike O'Sullivan" wrote in message
...

I normally listen on FM of course, but yesterday I checked on the
bit
rate on Radio 4 yesterday morning and it was 128 kbps. Noticeably
inferior to FM.

FM doesn't have a "bit rate", so it's meaningless to say that
128kb/s is
"noticeably inferior" to it.

Or perhaps you mean that the sound quality was "noticeably
inferior"?, in
what way?, and what scientific listening tests did you set up to
determine
it?

I have noticed that this thread seems to be afflicted by a similar
phenomenon to digital camera "megapixelitis", when it's the number
of
megapixels that matter, not the quality of the pictures.


For perceptual audio coding, the following always holds:

"with all else being equal, a higher bit rate will always provide a
higher level of quality than a lower bit rate level, and vice versa"





--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm

Internet radio - classical music, etc
 

"David Looser" wrote in message

"Rob" wrote in message
om...

Of course. In fairness the centre of the DAB 'whinge' was always
that it
could have been so much better, and not that it was/is
intrinsically bad.
'Better', as you seem to suggest below, can't always be detected
even if
it has theoretical advantages.


Of course it could have been better, broadcasting quality is a
compromise
between performance and cost, always has been. The broadcaster's aim
is to
provide a quality that is "good enough" without being too expensive,
both
for themselves and the buyers of receiving equipment.


And you're an expert on the history of DAB now, are you? The reality
is that the BBC screwed up *massively*. They had the opportunity to
upgrade the system to use AAC, and the BBC R&D engineeers were
advising the execs to do that, but the execs ignored them, and the
quality is **** as a result.


The problem is that what is good enough for the bulk of the audience
may
not satisfy the enthusiasts, how much cost do you impose on the
system to
satisfy a small minority?


Better quality would have benefitted all. They had the chance, but the
non-technical execs thought they knew better than the engineers.


In the particular case of DAB I think a small improvement is
justified, as
it can be done at little extra cost. But even as things are now the
notion
that DAB is clearly worse than FM is challenged by some serious
commentators.


Such as?




--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm

Internet radio - classical music, etc
 

"David Looser" wrote in message


I wouldn't say it has to satisfy the enthusiasts as such but one
would
have hoped for something as good as the existing system - or better
would have been used..

I am not persuaded that, taking all real-world factors into account,
DAB
is not at least as good as FM.


Hahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahaha hahaahahaaha!!!


Well cost = MUX bitspace so it isn't that simple and seeing that
the UK
is going to be lumbered with the ancient system we have whereas
other
countries are adopting better ones!..

It's important to adopt common standards with other countries. And
now
would be a good time to do so.


If you're not aware, most of the rest of Europe turned their noses up
at using DAB. It is important to adopt common standards, but it's very
important that the standard is fit for purpose in the first place, and
the DAB standard simply isn't - all the countries who originally
supported DAB but then chose not to use it obviously didn't consider
it to be fit for purpose, so it's not just me saying that.




--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm