Internet radio - classical music, etc
 

Don Pearce wrote in message news:49941ae5.337034484@localhost
On Sun, 8 Feb 2009 17:37:23 -0000, "BBC is biased towards DAB"
wrote:

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message

In article ,
BBC is biased towards DAB wrote:
BTW - I've never heard a decent DAB radio sound as bad as MW.

Try listening to Kerrang.

Just had a brief listen for the first time ever. Sounds exactly
the
same
as any other pop station.


The fact that you'd say that speaks volumes about this entire
issue.


And far better quality than off MW.


Listening to it now. It has improved since I last heard it, and I'd
put it at just above MW now - a triumph for 21st century digital
radio. Previously it was worse than MW. Seriously. And I bet the
one
you can hear is **** as well, but you won't admit that, because it
doesn't suit your argument.


A serious question - does your hearing cut off at under 5 kHz?


Fool.

Steve, for goodness sake stop back-pedalling, admit you were wrong
and
disappear.


Don't try to tell me what to do. And the MW recording you provided is
IMO easier to listen to than the DAB recording, IMO.


You storm in here like some juvenile bully, spewing your
venom at everybody and expect to be taken seriously?


I'm not exactly insecure about my knowledge, so I have no need for it
to be validated by people on here, thanks.

I came on here, noticed a thread, read the thread, noticed a whole lot
of nonsense being spewed, and I've replied to some of that nonsense so
that these people can see the error of their ways. That's it, really,
and I'll be off when I choose.

In fact, I think I'll stay a bit longer than I was going to now you've
tried to tell me what to do


I'm beginning to
wonder if you are perhaps a sock puppet of Phil Allison's.


I don't even know who that is.




--
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

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

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

I can't say I've listened to every single listen again programme
available,

You couldn't, unless you are capable of listening to many
programmes at
the same time 24 hours a day.


Gosh, how do you come out with such clever comebacks?

Well don't say daft things about not having heard every single
listen
again programme then!


If you re-read what I said, I think you'll find it was a perfectly
reasonable thing to say.


but yes, the quality of the listen again programmes I've listened
to
recently have been significantly better quality than on DAB.


Well don't listen to DAB then.


That's missing the point though, because the rest of the general
public
are being forcefully pushed towards DAB

Are they?, can't say I've noticed.


Get a TV set then. They happen to advertise DAB on TV a fair bit.


even though for millions of people the Internet or even digital TV
woudl
be a better platform for what they want.

Which is probably why the BBC offers those as well.


?


Also, because the BBC is so biased towards DAB and DAB offers crap
quality it's trying to keep the quality down on other platforms.
Basically, everything revolves around DAB. If they provided the
best
quality they could on other platforms and acknowledged taht there
are
problems with DAB's audio quality then I wouldn't mind.

Gosh, this is turning into a real conspiracy theory!


There's a hell of a lot of evidence that indicates that the BBC is
highly biased towards DAB and against the Internet streams (far and
away, they're mostly biased against the live streams rather than teh
on-demadn streams on the iPlayer, because they see that as being
complementary to some degree, whereas live is a competitor to DAB).

21 TV ad campaigns for DAB and zero TV ad campaigns for Internet radio
for starters.


Analogue radio will be with us for the
forseeable future, and most radio stations are now available as an
internet stream. So why get so excercised over DAB?


See above.


So, what are you listening to?

Yesterday's "Any Questions". Curiously I often notice the
distortion is
most noticable on the voices of the continuity announcers.


Yes, I have actually heard R4's listen again streams are screwed up
at
the moment.

Have you?, or did you just make that bit up?


Firstly, I had already heard the problems with the speech on R4 listen
again, and secondly someone else posted about this on
alt.radio.digital as well:

"They don't
sound nearly as good as 128kbps mp3 should. I don't know if this is
universal, or just on some programmes - the problem has been on all
the Radio 4 programmes I've tried over the last few months.

e.g. listen to the announcer during the first 40 seconds of this...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00h62xq/Afternoon_Play_The_Foresters_Daughter/"

So, no, I didn't make it up.


That's a temporary problem though, not an inherent problem.

Nonesense! the quality today is just the same as it's been for
months
(which is rather better than it was before).


Absolute rubbish. This is a new problem. The on-demand streams only
started using the long-awaited new encoders a couple of months ago,
which you won't even be aware of, so to suggest that the quality has
been the same as it is now for thet last few months is completely
wrong. Did you just make that up?


R4's listen again streams use 128 kbps MP3, whereas R4 on DAB uses
128
kbps MP2. And MP3 is a far better codec to use at 128 kbps than MP2
is,
that's for sure.

To be fair, speech on DAB isn't the main problem. The main problem
is
music.

BTW, the BBC's live and listen again streams should be moving over
to
using AAC/AAC+ over the next week or two (if you're not aware,
AAC/AAC+
is an excellent codec). And the bit rates should increase over
time,
because Internet bandwidth costs are plummetting.

I'm glad to hear it.

Stick to DAB if you like, but you'd be sticking with the lowest
quality
digital platform.

You mistake. I am not "sticking with DAB", I rarely listen to it.


You have actually been continually sticking up for DAB's audio quality
in this thread as a whole.



--
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

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

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


But the BBC is extremely biased against Internet radio, so the
BBC is
going to push everyone forcefully towards DAB whether that's the
best
system for them or not. That's the point.


Is it? well well, so all those BBC internet streams are a figment
of my
imagination are they?


Where did I say that? Hint: I didn't. I said "push everyone
forcefully
towards DAB". That's correct.

That may be your opinion, but it's far from being a fact, as the
existence
of internet streams clearly demonstrates. I see no "push" towards
DAB,
and you have failed to demonstrate that there is one.


21 TV ad campaigns for DAB versus zero TV ad campaigns for Internet
radio.

Does that indicate platform-neutrality?



--
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
 

Don Pearce wrote in message news:49951dcb.337776187@localhost
On Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:53:27 GMT, Rob
wrote:

Don Pearce wrote:
On Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:13:22 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
BBC is biased towards DAB wrote:
I see you've snipped what I was responding to, so here's what
Plowman
said:
"BTW - I've never heard a decent DAB radio sound as bad as MW."
So I was saying that Kerrang on DAB sounds as bad as MW.
Nice to see your logic is as always.

But if you take just one parameter, Kerrang on DAB is plainly
transmitting higher frequencies than you'll get off any AM
broadcast.
If you can't hear that it explains a lot.

OK this needs to be settled. I've recorded 10 seconds of Kerrang
from
DAB, followed by 10 seconds of a MW pop station, both from decent
tuners. As far as I am concerned there is no contest - DAB wins
hands
down. Van Gogh would have heard the difference.

The DAB goes to 12kHz, the mw is dying by 4kHz.

http://81.174.169.10/odds/dab_mw.mp3

d

That's interesting, thanks for taking the trouble.

FWIW I much prefer the MW (second) part from that extract from what
little music I can hear - the DAB sounds as if it's coming from an
echo
chamber, bass turned down, treble turned right up, tinny. The MW
sounds
focussed, muffled, treble turned right down, artificially bassy,
sonorous.

I buy on average a DAB radio each year, thinking I might like
it/what's
not to like. Then within a month or so I sell it or give it away,
and go
back to one of the cheap portable FM radios I have.

Perhaps FM masks the compression, perhaps blind prejudice, perhaps
FM
does 'sound better'.

Rob

The DAB actually has more bass than the MW, although they both
bottom
out at 42Hz (low E on the bass guitar). The MW has more level in the
mid-lows 100 to 500Hz, which gives a perception of warmth. That is
what you are hearing. The MW is exactly what my mother would have
described as mellow years ago.

My DAB radio lives by the bed, where it wakes me up and lets me hear
the occasional BBC7 programme late at night. The mw radio lives in
the kitchen - where it belongs (only I never use mw, just fm). All
serious listening is courtesy of Freeview.


Is your serious listening going to be via Freeview when the BBC's
Internet streams provide higher quality?




--
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
 

Don Pearce wrote:
On Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:53:27 GMT, Rob
wrote:

Don Pearce wrote:
On Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:13:22 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
BBC is biased towards DAB wrote:
I see you've snipped what I was responding to, so here's what Plowman
said:
"BTW - I've never heard a decent DAB radio sound as bad as MW."
So I was saying that Kerrang on DAB sounds as bad as MW.
Nice to see your logic is as always.

But if you take just one parameter, Kerrang on DAB is plainly transmitting
higher frequencies than you'll get off any AM broadcast. If you can't hear
that it explains a lot.
OK this needs to be settled. I've recorded 10 seconds of Kerrang from
DAB, followed by 10 seconds of a MW pop station, both from decent
tuners. As far as I am concerned there is no contest - DAB wins hands
down. Van Gogh would have heard the difference.

The DAB goes to 12kHz, the mw is dying by 4kHz.

http://81.174.169.10/odds/dab_mw.mp3

d
That's interesting, thanks for taking the trouble.

FWIW I much prefer the MW (second) part from that extract from what
little music I can hear - the DAB sounds as if it's coming from an echo
chamber, bass turned down, treble turned right up, tinny. The MW sounds
focussed, muffled, treble turned right down, artificially bassy, sonorous.

I buy on average a DAB radio each year, thinking I might like it/what's
not to like. Then within a month or so I sell it or give it away, and go
back to one of the cheap portable FM radios I have.

Perhaps FM masks the compression, perhaps blind prejudice, perhaps FM
does 'sound better'.

Rob

The DAB actually has more bass than the MW, although they both bottom
out at 42Hz (low E on the bass guitar). The MW has more level in the
mid-lows 100 to 500Hz, which gives a perception of warmth. That is
what you are hearing. The MW is exactly what my mother would have
described as mellow years ago.


Yes, i'd go with mellow. But that DAB extract couldn't be much more than
'grating'?!

My DAB radio lives by the bed, where it wakes me up and lets me hear
the occasional BBC7 programme late at night. The mw radio lives in
the kitchen - where it belongs (only I never use mw, just fm). All
serious listening is courtesy of Freeview.


Well, it just shows. I didn't/don't mind DAB at all for speech (R4, 70%
of my radio listening), but then I don't mind the FM clock radio. If I
listen to pop radio (R6, from time to time, Gideon Coe, Tom Robinson)
I'm afraid I prefer FM to DAB and FTV.

Curiously, I think classical (R3) sounds excellent on FTV and just fine
on DAB - but then I only really listen to classical in the car - and I
might as well have a cassette, as it's a noisy car (Mini).

People I know who've 'adopted' DAB like it for it's sound, in the sense
there's little interference, and nothing to do with fidelity. Also, the
sense of choice and convenience - presets, and my brother likes sport,
for example. The inconvenience of aerial and lack of convenience
features are nothing to me. I would, however, like R6 on FM, which ain't
going to happen.

Make of that what you will :-)

Rob

Internet radio - classical music, etc
 

On Sun, 8 Feb 2009 18:24:23 -0000, "BBC is biased towards DAB"
wrote:

Don Pearce wrote in message news:49951dcb.337776187@localhost
On Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:53:27 GMT, Rob
wrote:

Don Pearce wrote:
On Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:13:22 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
BBC is biased towards DAB wrote:
I see you've snipped what I was responding to, so here's what
Plowman
said:
"BTW - I've never heard a decent DAB radio sound as bad as MW."
So I was saying that Kerrang on DAB sounds as bad as MW.
Nice to see your logic is as always.

But if you take just one parameter, Kerrang on DAB is plainly
transmitting higher frequencies than you'll get off any AM
broadcast.
If you can't hear that it explains a lot.

OK this needs to be settled. I've recorded 10 seconds of Kerrang
from
DAB, followed by 10 seconds of a MW pop station, both from decent
tuners. As far as I am concerned there is no contest - DAB wins
hands
down. Van Gogh would have heard the difference.

The DAB goes to 12kHz, the mw is dying by 4kHz.

http://81.174.169.10/odds/dab_mw.mp3

d

That's interesting, thanks for taking the trouble.

FWIW I much prefer the MW (second) part from that extract from what
little music I can hear - the DAB sounds as if it's coming from an
echo
chamber, bass turned down, treble turned right up, tinny. The MW
sounds
focussed, muffled, treble turned right down, artificially bassy,
sonorous.

I buy on average a DAB radio each year, thinking I might like
it/what's
not to like. Then within a month or so I sell it or give it away,
and go
back to one of the cheap portable FM radios I have.

Perhaps FM masks the compression, perhaps blind prejudice, perhaps
FM
does 'sound better'.

Rob

The DAB actually has more bass than the MW, although they both
bottom
out at 42Hz (low E on the bass guitar). The MW has more level in the
mid-lows 100 to 500Hz, which gives a perception of warmth. That is
what you are hearing. The MW is exactly what my mother would have
described as mellow years ago.

My DAB radio lives by the bed, where it wakes me up and lets me hear
the occasional BBC7 programme late at night. The mw radio lives in
the kitchen - where it belongs (only I never use mw, just fm). All
serious listening is courtesy of Freeview.


Is your serious listening going to be via Freeview when the BBC's
Internet streams provide higher quality?

You really think I want a pc in my living room? I'm starting to build
a picture of the way you live, and it is mostly week-old pot noodle
containers and used socks.

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

Internet radio - classical music, etc
 

Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article , Rob
wrote:
Jim Lesurf wrote:

Note that you need a RO machine for the system to work. (It may work
with an emulator, but I can't say.) However the code for what I'm
using is based on source code provided as an example. This is in 'C'
so if you can follow 'C' you can read it.

http://users.skynet.be/Andre.Timmerm...r/download.htm


Ah, right, I see. I can't see the stream capture plugin, but that was
all I meant - and you seem to be using it. I was confused by your
original phrase 'recording a stream of music'. I'd just adopted
'capture' because that's what the young people tend to use: record
sound, capture data.

I'm more used to the idea that we record data or music. For getting the
info from a URL I'd be more likely to say 'fetch' and then 'record'.

RO is 'modular', so any program can call on other sections of the code
provided. This makes it easy for a program to treat a URL as if it were a
file on your machine - provided the fetching then can work OK. e.g. you
haven't bungled the URL and have a suitable connection. The advantage is
that RO programs can avoid repeated re-inventions of wheels. This means
most RO applications are quite compact, as is the OS.


V. nice. I used to have a passing interest in Windows and DOS, but
recently fled to Mac because I decided, once and for all, that I just
wanted it to work and be done with all the .exe and .bat and .dll things.

But that means that to understand the process fully you'd also need to see
what the PlaySample module and the URL fetching code are doing. I can't
comment on that as I haven't looked at it. Just use them via the interfaces
they provide.

And what a marvellous piece of software function over style it seems :-)

Not sure if you are referring to Andre's programming style or the way RO
tends to work. ;-


Well, the screenshots remind me of Windows 3.1. Although in all honesty
if it works, go with it. I find Mac apps look like something out of
(what i might imagine to be) a child's nightmare. But they just toddle
along in a *consistent and reliable* sort of way.

My own programs are nightmares as I rarely comment and often hack until it
sort-of-works...

[snip]
...

Luck, a grim determination, work and money.

Actually, not *too* much money - about £300 for cutting edge hardware,
£30 for something that works. Pleased to see they outstrip Intel's
latest on power consumption. And pleased, obviously, that you're happy
with it.

You can't budget for irrationality. I'd prefer to travel by steam train
and listen to music amplified by valves. All to do with the journey,
apparently.

The drawbacks with RO machines tend to be limited hardware, and lack of
'compatability' with widely used proprietary filetypes/methods. Hence the
snag when people use some formats for net radio. 'Real' because of its
proprietary nature, 'aac' because no-one has yet done the decoder for RO.
:-)

But the advantage (for me) is that the RO systems are quite simple to use,
and work with an efficiency that belies the crude measures like cpu speed
and available ram.[1] Of course, this also is because it is what I'm used
to and like. Just like a preference for steam train or valve amps. What
suits best depends on who you are, what you wish to do, and the style in
which you wish to do it. :-)


Quite, wouldn't argue with that at all.

[1] Analogy here with the point about not just judging cameras by
'megapixels' but also checking things like the lens capability and how well
the images are encoded.

However the above is all straying OT... :-)


Indeed. Life bumbles along :-)

rob

Internet radio - classical music, etc
 

"Don Pearce" wrote in message

On Sun, 8 Feb 2009 18:24:23 -0000, "BBC is biased towards DAB"
wrote:

Don Pearce wrote in message news:49951dcb.337776187@localhost
On Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:53:27 GMT, Rob
wrote:

Don Pearce wrote:
On Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:13:22 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
BBC is biased towards DAB wrote:
I see you've snipped what I was responding to, so here's what
Plowman
said:
"BTW - I've never heard a decent DAB radio sound as bad as
MW."
So I was saying that Kerrang on DAB sounds as bad as MW.
Nice to see your logic is as always.

But if you take just one parameter, Kerrang on DAB is plainly
transmitting higher frequencies than you'll get off any AM
broadcast.
If you can't hear that it explains a lot.

OK this needs to be settled. I've recorded 10 seconds of Kerrang
from
DAB, followed by 10 seconds of a MW pop station, both from
decent
tuners. As far as I am concerned there is no contest - DAB wins
hands
down. Van Gogh would have heard the difference.

The DAB goes to 12kHz, the mw is dying by 4kHz.

http://81.174.169.10/odds/dab_mw.mp3

d

That's interesting, thanks for taking the trouble.

FWIW I much prefer the MW (second) part from that extract from
what
little music I can hear - the DAB sounds as if it's coming from
an
echo
chamber, bass turned down, treble turned right up, tinny. The MW
sounds
focussed, muffled, treble turned right down, artificially bassy,
sonorous.

I buy on average a DAB radio each year, thinking I might like
it/what's
not to like. Then within a month or so I sell it or give it away,
and go
back to one of the cheap portable FM radios I have.

Perhaps FM masks the compression, perhaps blind prejudice,
perhaps
FM
does 'sound better'.

Rob

The DAB actually has more bass than the MW, although they both
bottom
out at 42Hz (low E on the bass guitar). The MW has more level in
the
mid-lows 100 to 500Hz, which gives a perception of warmth. That is
what you are hearing. The MW is exactly what my mother would have
described as mellow years ago.

My DAB radio lives by the bed, where it wakes me up and lets me
hear
the occasional BBC7 programme late at night. The mw radio lives
in
the kitchen - where it belongs (only I never use mw, just fm). All
serious listening is courtesy of Freeview.


Is your serious listening going to be via Freeview when the BBC's
Internet streams provide higher quality?

You really think I want a pc in my living room?


I've no idea. You could get a Squeezebox 3 instead:

http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_squeezebox.html


I'm starting to build
a picture of the way you live, and it is mostly week-old pot noodle
containers and used socks.


That's such an uncanny description of my life it's as if you're able
to look in on my world through my non-existent webcam.



--
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
...

21 TV ad campaigns for DAB versus zero TV ad campaigns for Internet radio.

Does that indicate platform-neutrality?


Can't say I'd noticed any TV adverts for DAB, though I have seen many for
I-Player. And of course "listen again" is trailed after almost every radio
programme that is available on it.

David.

Internet radio - classical music, etc
 

BBC is biased towards DAB wrote:
Don Pearce wrote in message news:49941ae5.337034484@localhost
On Sun, 8 Feb 2009 17:37:23 -0000, "BBC is biased towards DAB"
wrote:

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message



You storm in here like some juvenile bully, spewing your
venom at everybody and expect to be taken seriously?


Blimey!


I'm not exactly insecure about my knowledge, so I have no need for it
to be validated by people on here, thanks.

I came on here, noticed a thread, read the thread, noticed a whole lot
of nonsense being spewed, and I've replied to some of that nonsense so
that these people can see the error of their ways. That's it, really,
and I'll be off when I choose.

In fact, I think I'll stay a bit longer than I was going to now you've
tried to tell me what to do


I'm beginning to
wonder if you are perhaps a sock puppet of Phil Allison's.


I don't even know who that is.


I'd say Phil is someone who knows his subject (audio engineering), and
is quick to criticise anyone (novice to expert) who suggests anything
that differs with his opinion. His manner of criticism is, well, unique.
His presence is interesting because I've rarely seen a thread end on a
reasoned critique of his technical analysis - almost always his manner.
He rarely *needs* to concede a technical point.

Familiar? :-)

This NG has changed over the past couple of years to a technical forum -
it's less about 'recreational audio', and more about uncritical
correlation between measurement and good sound. it's not really about
communicating audio. As a result it's lost some valuable and lively
contributors from many points of view. I have a passing interest in
audio technology so I listen in the wings.

Rob