As I posted a few weeks ago I have moved away from the London area now and my family up here have dab radio sets and the sound quality is just awful on a number of set's and the horrible dropping noise when the signal is weak. I think fm will be around after dab it time to stop the propaganda from the government this is a failure and the bit rate some of these stations are useing is ridiculous

famefm wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 10:47 am As I posted a few weeks ago I have moved away from the London area now and my family up here have dab radio sets and the sound quality is just awful on a number of set's and the horrible dropping noise when the signal is weak. I think fm will be around after dab it time to stop the propaganda from the government this is a failure and the bit rate some of these stations are useing is ridiculous

Unfortunately people will listen to any old shite these days regardless of sound quality, lets face it I'm sure we have listened to a pirate which didnt sound too great but listened anyway as the tunes were banging. DAB is a lesser sound I agree, its down to bitrates whereas FM is a whole different thing, the sound has a raw feel.

Quantity > quality. There's about 5 versions of Heart on D1 National (the main commercial multiplex) all of which are terrible (but what do you expect from the goons at Global). Most people don't care about the quality of the station (or the audio) and just want background music since that's all commercial radio is nowadays, and if that's all you're using it for you're not going to notice the encoding artifacts.

As far as why it's pushed so much by the industry it's because it's cheaper than conventional FM since one station doesn't need 200 transmitters to cover the UK, they just send it onto the DAB multiplex no infrastructure required. While it does give more """"choice"""" (I use that term lightly) it's still all the same garbage all day every day. The people I work with listen to Absolute every single day and don't seem to realise that it's the same playlist every day, hence why radio is garbage nowadays; the people just don't notice.

If you want real freeform radio you know where to find it - in London on the FM band.

Luckily I have tune in so that has softened the loss of my old loaction fm reception so not so bad and for the first time in about 40 years I won't be bothered to put up an arial

Blimey, if the anoraks can’t be bothered to put up an antenna, radio is doomed I tell ye, doomed...

I have a 94i now not really used dab its got Bluetooth usb playback and wifi radio.

I have moved to a very rural location miles away from any possible pirate station and the legal offerings are all the same global nonsense plus the other big player that owns kiss and tragic I will just use tunein for music and the fm for BBC radio 4 and no outside areal required for that

fmuser877 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 8:19 pm I have a 94i now not really used dab its got Bluetooth usb playback and wifi radio.

I rest my case more and more people are skipping a generation of technology if we say Am was phase 1 fm phase 2 dab phase 3 and online phase 4

Most stations do not sound as good audio wise, but there are exceptions Radio 6 sounds much better than other BBC stations on FM, its stereo 128 bit.

It does give an outlet to stations that otherwise would not have one legally, if they are using plus, low bit rates or bad audio feeds for DAB they can output a high quality web-stream for the more discerning.

Best to be on air than just another one of the zillions of online stations with 10s of listeners.

Like those on here still prefer FM but the dial is jammed with dross, so DAB is the only viable.

All this bad audio shit, I was locked into really bad FM audio wise pirates back in the day and didn't complain because it played the tunes I liked.

Yep & DJs more inclined to turn up for their shows, for legal DAB or unofficial rig on

It’s a shame though, whilst dab will never be as good as FM, it does have better potential than is currently being utilised, sadly because of cost and wanting to maximise the multiplex, if only they would put up more multiplexes and then up the quality of all existing stations, but they wont. Also, with regards too the audio of pirates, FM doesnt need to sound like trash, it takes very little money to make FM sound good so I dont buy the argument that we should let it slip when pirates sound awful (so long as they play music we like). Pirates should , just like dab, give their listeners a little bit of what they deserve, good quality audio to make it worth tuning in for longer.

zoostorm wrote: ↑Sun Aug 09, 2020 10:24 pm All this bad audio shit, I was locked into really bad FM audio wise pirates back in the day and didn't complain because it played the tunes I liked.

Have to agree locked into many stations where the rig is humming or it drifts slightly, if I wanted perfect sound I’d play an mp3 or a cd!!!!!!

Your lucky none of the are using Stereo. Now that was a nuisance if you had no mono switch on your boom box !

It’s not about being 100% ffs.

Enjoy if they are on. That’s the main thing in my opinion

zoostorm wrote: ↑Sun Aug 09, 2020 10:24 pm All this bad audio shit, I was locked into really bad FM audio wise pirates back in the day and didn't complain because it played the tunes I liked.

I think like with everything, technology evolves. It's easier to produce decent audio nowadays without having to fork our for expensive audio processors.

Shiv wrote: ↑Wed Aug 12, 2020 9:43 am

zoostorm wrote: ↑Sun Aug 09, 2020 10:24 pm All this bad audio shit, I was locked into really bad FM audio wise pirates back in the day and didn't complain because it played the tunes I liked.

I think like with everything, technology evolves. It's easier to produce decent audio nowadays without having to fork our for expensive audio processors.

Exactly,
no excuse for bad audio, every station owner should at least know the basics. Of course we make allowances, but if it comes down to it, and two pirates were playing the same music, but one had a nasty hum and the other sounded good, you would likely prefer the one without hum, no?

LeeCavanagh wrote:Blimey, if the anoraks can’t be bothered to put up an antenna, radio is doomed I tell ye, doomed...

I'll tell you Lee ive got at least 4 antennas on my roof 10 feet on each pole

Sent from my AMN-LX9 using Tapatalk

Electronically wrote: ↑Wed Aug 12, 2020 9:48 pm

LeeCavanagh wrote:Blimey, if the anoraks can’t be bothered to put up an antenna, radio is doomed I tell ye, doomed...

I'll tell you Lee ive got at least 4 antennas on my roof 10 feet on each pole

Sent from my AMN-LX9 using Tapatalk

Glad to hear it, faith restored, ive got 3, one of,them dab (even though I’m not a fan), and a 5 element yagi which could do with going higher, and need a rotator again, I miss my old rotator.

LeeCavanagh wrote:

Electronically wrote: ↑Wed Aug 12, 2020 9:48 pm

LeeCavanagh wrote:Blimey, if the anoraks can’t be bothered to put up an antenna, radio is doomed I tell ye, doomed...

I'll tell you Lee ive got at least 4 antennas on my roof 10 feet on each pole

Sent from my AMN-LX9 using Tapatalk

Glad to hear it, faith restored, ive got 3, one of,them dab (even though I’m not a fan), and a 5 element yagi which could do with going higher, and need a rotator again, I miss my old rotator.

I had one of those antennas that used a remote control so when I wanted to test antenna on other direction I was just press on remote control to turn my antenna in other direction I build it because I was sick of going on my roof so used a remote. Can't mind what I did with schematic for remote making but it worked a charm.

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zoostorm wrote:All this bad audio shit, I was locked into really bad FM audio wise pirates back in the day and didn't complain because it played the tunes I liked.

But are you still doing it?