In article ,
BBC is biased towards DAB wrote:
I argued that DAB costs aren't intrinsically higher than any other
transmission medium.

But since this is too difficult for you to understand I'll not
bother
again.


And Tony Sayer told you that DAB was intrinsically more expensive.

No actual figures. Easy enough to find out what stations have to pay - a
very different matter

What would you know about this anyway? Your early comments on this
subject seemed to suggest that you thought that it was mainly down to
electricity bills, which shows how utterly clueless you are about the
whole subject of transmission costs.

As I said you never read anything carefully.

But perhaps as an expert on such matters you'd give a breakdown of the
transmission costs of AM, FM and DAB?

No? Thought as much.

--
*Young at heart -- slightly older in other places

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article 4993162c.335825750@localhost,
Don Pearce (Don Pearce) wrote:
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

Typical of both mediums, I'd say. Both smashing into limiters. And some
two octaves missing at the top end off MW.

Our DAB 'expert' does himself no favours by talking rubbish in among the
snippets of truth.

--
*What was the best thing before sliced bread? *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

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. You storm in here like some juvenile bully, spewing your
venom at everybody and expect to be taken seriously? I'm beginning to
wonder if you are perhaps a sock puppet of Phil Allison's.

d

Don Pearce wrote in message news:4993162c.335825750@localhost
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


Both are ****, but for different reasons.

To be honest, I could listen to the MW for longer than I could the DAB
version before resorting to pulling my wisdom teeth out to distract my
mind from the pain.




--
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

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message

In article ,
BBC is biased towards DAB wrote:
I argued that DAB costs aren't intrinsically higher than any other
transmission medium.

But since this is too difficult for you to understand I'll not
bother
again.


And Tony Sayer told you that DAB was intrinsically more expensive.

No actual figures. Easy enough to find out what stations have to
pay - a
very different matter

What would you know about this anyway? Your early comments on this
subject seemed to suggest that you thought that it was mainly down
to
electricity bills, which shows how utterly clueless you are about
the
whole subject of transmission costs.

As I said you never read anything carefully.

But perhaps as an expert on such matters you'd give a breakdown of
the
transmission costs of AM, FM and DAB?


Already done that on uk.tech.digital-tv. If you didn't pay attention I
suggest you toddle over to have a look.


No? Thought as much.


See above.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have work to do.



--
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

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

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message

In article 4993162c.335825750@localhost,
Don Pearce (Don Pearce) wrote:
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

Typical of both mediums, I'd say.


That doesn't say much for DAB, does it?


Both smashing into limiters. And some
two octaves missing at the top end off MW.

Our DAB 'expert' does himself no favours by talking rubbish in among
the
snippets of truth.


I don't need to justify myself to a know-nothing like you, Plowman.



--
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

"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!


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.

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!


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?

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).

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.

David.

"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.

David.

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.

d