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DAB sounds awful.

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I got a DAB radio, connected it's line-out to my hi-fi and the sound quality is abysmal. Same with earphones. Reception was fine.
I won't be using it as I listen to Radio 3 a lot.
I shot a vein in my neck and coughed up a Quaalude.
Lou Reed The Last Shot
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Comments

  • TiTheRev
    TiTheRev Posts: 3,215 Forumite
    The vent board is further down ;)
    :A Luke 6:38 :A
    The above post is either from personal experience or is my opinion based on the person God has made me and the way I understand things. Please don't be offended if that opinion differs from yours, but feel free to click the 'Thanks' button if it's at all helpful!
  • Fifer
    Fifer Posts: 59,413 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Yes. The sound quality on DAB radio is often poor. Blame the use of too lossy compression.
    There's love in this world for everyone. Every rascal and son of a gun.
    It's for the many and not the few. Be sure it's out there looking for you.
    In every town, in every state. In every house and every gate.
    Wth every precious smile you make. And every act of kindness.
    Micheal Marra, 1952 - 2012
  • This site is a bit anti-DAB but tells you a bit about the technology behind DAB (Dates from the 1980s!) and some possible reasons why DAB's sound quality is bad.

    Despite the not brilliant sound quality I do like DAB and have a few DAB radios - I like the choice of stations and the scrolling text can be handy! FM still beats it hands down for audio quality though.
    Total debt as at Jul 2012: Too much!
  • Dreamnine
    Dreamnine Posts: 8,370 Forumite
    Thanks- didn't see the vent board. Yeah, DAB would be fine as a kitchen/bedroom radio, but why make them with headphone and lineout sockets.?
    I shot a vein in my neck and coughed up a Quaalude.
    Lou Reed The Last Shot
  • penrhyn
    penrhyn Posts: 15,215 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    What make and model of DAB radio did you buy?
    That gum you like is coming back in style.
  • Sput2001
    Sput2001 Posts: 1,206 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture
    When you say "awful" what do you mean?

    It's DAB so it's likely to sound compressed and a bit digital/metallic. Some players sound better than others, though.
  • Belnahua
    Belnahua Posts: 1,493 Forumite
    Cashback Cashier
    I seem to remember that R3 broadcast at 192kbits and the others at 128kbits. The recommendation is 192-256Kbits for decent audio.

    There was a huge problem when R3 dropped to 128, far too low for any decent classical music quality.

    We're the only country where they try and cram in too many stations to money grab, instead of concentrating on consumer quality.

    We'll never receive DAB where we are, but they'll switch off FM, and we'll be left with nothing. People keep saying it's on SKY etc, but you can't get SKY on a car radio (yet), although Sirius car satellite radio in the USA was fun, we even got Radio 1 in better quality than at home!
    A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are.
  • Halloway
    Halloway Posts: 1,612 Forumite
    The bandwidth is only part of the problem. For unfathomable reasons, the chosen codec is MP2 which is even worse than MP3. There is a DAB+ format which uses HE-AAC which is much superior but clearly that has yet to be introduced and it's entirely probably that your existing DAB radio will be obsolete.

    As Belnahua rightly points out, instead of using DAB for quality and flexibility, the powers that be decided to go for quantity which in this case meant lots and lots of utterly crap radio stations which no-one listens to.
  • weegie.geek
    weegie.geek Posts: 3,432 Forumite
    If they change the codec used, then people will need new radios, yeah. I can't imagine many manufacturers using a general purpose processor when one specifically to decode that codec would be cheaper.

    I agree that it made no sense whatsoever for them to use MP2. The same as they use for the audio on freeview.

    I guess the chipsets that decode/encode MP2 are cheaper, or the licensing is cheaper.

    There are several codecs that would give better quality in half the bitrate, so there must have been a reason they chose MP2, and I can only think it was for financial reasons.
    They say it's genetic, they say he can't help it, they say you can catch it - but sometimes you're born with it
  • There's another standard called DAB+ which I believe uses the AAC codec which is much better sound quality wise. However, if they bought that standard in nearly all the current DAB radios in the UK would be rendered obselete and useless as most of them aren't upgradeable. There's apparently no plans to introduce DAB+ in the UK - but I wouldn't be surprised if they did - after all it would be in the manufacturers' interests to sell you 2 DAB/DAB+ radios instead of one!

    I wish though they'd either stop trying to squash so many stations into the multiplexes (Kerrang! Radio is virtually unlistenable on DAB as it's only 64Kbps for example!) or preferably increase the bandwith if possible so that all stations could broadcast at higher bitrates.
    Total debt as at Jul 2012: Too much!
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