Not just about surround

[bobou2]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2103-1641072,00.html

I like the way the argument is put forth....
but the truth hurts

 

[Scottmoose]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2103-1641072,00.html

I like the way the argument is put forth....
but the truth hurts

DON'T get me started on DAB!

TOO LATE! Time for a broadside!

DAB is the devil's work, spawned from his own backside. It is the most loathsome piece of audio junk ever foisted on the general population, and they have the termity to do it by playing on the gullible assumption of Joe Public that 'digital' must somehow be 'better'. Ha!

In the UK, we have unquestionably the best VHF commercial-broadcasting network in the world. Very few would dispute it, because it's all but indisputable. Quality is downright stagggering, or it can be, particularly on BBC Radio 2 and 3. These remain the best way to listen to music in stereo in my view. Oh for the long-lost surround version mooted! All of the others could match that quality, but thanks to the nature of the compressed junk they transmit, it's often not great. NOT the fault of the network however. A decent tuner like the Denon TU-260L MK2 costs very little. Feed it a strong signal through a decent outdoor ariel and be astonished. Hifi World magazine have done a big Tuner issue this month interestingly enough.

Welcome to DAB! It uses MP2 compression, here known as Musicam. A piece of obsolete technology dating from circa 1990. Yep; that's the predecessor to MP3, which I already loath, though since it's started using some compression routines swiped from DCC (remember those?) it's improved. Marginally. MP2 was pretty much abandoned because it was so bad. If this isn't bad enough, most stations are running at around 96KBS/sec or less. Sound quality is grim, to be polite. You can get better DAB quality out of a digital TV box than an alleged 'Hifi' unit because when broadcast through digital TV the bitrate is (slightly) higher! What in the name of princely moose is going on?

This odious piece of scrap originates from Germany I believe, where at least one state have switched off all DAB transmissions, and reverted back to the old way. I applaude long and loudly. Interestingly, the BBC & the UK Government have all but stopped mentioning DAB sound quality (as a selling point) and are now pushing it as the new Medium Wave with lots of choice. Great. All the stations play almost all the same thing (apart from the few extra BBC stations, which they could have done via VHF long ago if they's had the will to do it), so exactly what 'choice' is there, as the article you proveded the link to mentions. Not much is the answer. Yet still our wonderful political leaders :worthy (aren't they supposed to do what the people tell them in a democracy, not dictate to the people? I could have sworn that was how it's supposed to work.) are attempting to sell off radio bandwidth to the mobile phone operators for a cheap shot of cash. To quote Will Self in Grumpy Old Men (wonderful program) 'Never in human history have so many people talked to so many others about so very little.' Allegedly, they want to switch off all analogue broadcasting within the next decade.
Oh and you can't recieve DAB in many areas, as the signal gets blocked much more easily than the old fashioned way.

Is this progress?
Scott

 

[mandel]

Well said 'The Times' and ScottMoose there. Nice to see that kind of opinion appearing in The Times.

"Digital music could have been great. The technology for superb sound reproduction is out there in products such as DVD Audio and SACD, which take the 20th-century CD and turn it into something stunning for today. But, instead, we want everything reduced to MP3 pop pap, three or four minutes of unrelated gratification downloaded over the net for idle listening on the next train journey. And this is progress?" :worthy

I want somebody to make a t-shirt: "MP3s SUCK". Could make a fortune selling them on audiophile (I use the term broadly) forums :banana:

 

[Whitehall]

For a discussion of why the North American version of DAB - "HD Radio" is doomed, see this radio marketing blog and especially the comments by yours truly:

http://www.radiomarketingnexus.com/2005/05/the_premature_d.html

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I want somebody to make a t-shirt: "MP3s SUCK". Could make a fortune selling them on audiophile (I use the term broadly) forums :banana:

I have a DTS tee shirt that says "Stereo sucks." Will that do?

Kal

 

[Cai Campbell]

I have a DTS tee shirt that says "Stereo sucks." Will that do?

Kal

No.

 

[neil wilkes]

It has to be MP3 sucks.

And the cynic in me says the real reason that DAB is so heavily promoted is so that our stinking government can resell all the bandwidth they have already sold once to lots of different people.
Plus they get to finally dump any form of open to all national radio as all the analogue transmitters are to be switched off.

It's also the only way a lot of todays mass produced garbage will ever sound anything close to listenable.

 

[Ge Someone]

Welcome to DAB! It uses MP2 compression, here known as Musicam. A piece of obsolete technology dating from circa 1990. Yep; that's the predecessor to MP3, ... most stations are running at around 96KBS/sec or less.

Not that is changes anything what you say about DAB ....
One thing about MP2 (or more precisely Mpeg 1 layer 2), it is not the predecessor of MP3 as that it is replaced. MPEG 1 layer 3 just add more compression (by using what I think was called MDCT).
Now the quality of MP2 doesn't have to be that much worse than MP3 but the compression is. Did you know that most (big) radio stations (over here) play 384 kbs MP2 all day long, using a computer based application called DALET?
96 kbs is absurdly low, even most Internet (radio) streams offer higher bit rates than that. And for MP2, 256 kbs or up is requiered for good quality.

Allegedly, they want to switch off all analogue broadcasting within the next decade.

Yes, I'm hearing the same plans here, who needs the hundreds of channels with the same crap over and over?

 

[Lucanu]

Well, I don't have DAB system in my car/home, but I have a satellite receiver, and I can receive radio stations via satellite.
Those streams are mp2, and quality is not so bad, because of 16 bit 48000 Hz 256Kbps.
Don't know exactly at what bitrate is DAB transmissions.

 

[phydo]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2103-1641072,00.html

I like the way the argument is put forth....
but the truth hurts

A good read! I love the line: "But it chose to offer us 16 versions of Mongolian nose-flute rap instead of one."

Justin