DAB Radio advice.

A.Penny.Saved

Moneyineptitude wrote: »

Interesting article here;
http://www.techradar.com/news/car-tech/why-dab-radio-in-the-uk-is-broken-and-how-to-fix-it-1217586

Yes that tells it like it is. DAB is useless unless you are half deaf and have zero appreciation of quality. They have just crammed too many stations in using old technology, mp2. I have stopped listening to it and gone back to FM with a decent roof aerial.

There is no fixing DAB, only replacing it with something like streaming. What annoys me are the adverts, trying to hoodwink people into believing that DAB offers quality.

John_Gray

A.Penny.Saved wrote: »

There is no fixing DAB, only replacing it with something like streaming.

What about DAB+ (if it ever gets to the UK)?

whitegoods_engineer

I can't really understand the point of an internet-enabled radio. There are apps for mobiles (Tunein, etc) which can access radio stations around the world as well as websites which do the same.

Maybe it's the convenience of having a dedicated 'box' to do the job, but with tablets being so cheap these days, you can pretty much listen to any station you like. Not sure how you would pause and rewind though!

Big_Graeme

whitegoods_engineer wrote: »

I can't really understand the point of an internet-enabled radio. There are apps for mobiles (Tunein, etc) which can access radio stations around the world as well as websites which do the same.

Maybe it's the convenience of having a dedicated 'box' to do the job, but with tablets being so cheap these days, you can pretty much listen to any station you like. Not sure how you would pause and rewind though!

Remind me, how long does the battery last on the average smartphone when streaming? Tablets are not far behind either.

To get anything like decent quality you'd have to link it up to speakers which kinda defeats the idea you put across.

buglawton

My Q2 internet radio runs for over 6 hours and it's a very small matter to recharge it. I use all the time when doing DIY or gardening.

A.Penny.Saved

John_Gray wrote: »

What about DAB+ (if it ever gets to the UK)?

You can buy DAB+ radios now but you cannot receive DAB+ stations. However they will most likely cram more stations in and we will only end up with the same problems as we have now. AAC is much better than DAB Mp2 but even AAC will not cope if the bitrate is lowered too far. It would work at the current bitrates and in stereo because 64 kbps is sufficient for AAC to do reasonable stereo sound, especially HE-AAC.v2 with SBR (Spectrum Band Replication) and PS (Parametric Stereo) which works well at low bitrates.

They would lower the bitrate so that the quality is reduced to little better than it is right now. I don't see DAB+ happening anytime soon.

J_B

A.Penny.Saved wrote: »

You can buy DAB+ radios now but you cannot receive DAB+ stations.

A bit like on the 'living in Cyprus' forum

Q.If I bring my DAB radio from the UK, what will I be able to get on it?

A. Dust!

:rotfl: