DAB changes, new stations

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Discussion

Russ35

Original Poster:

2,491 posts

238 months

Tuesday 9th February 2016
quotequote all
So the new (2nd) national commercial frequency (Sound Digital multiplex) is due to switch on on the 29th Feb. It will have 18 stations, 3 of which will be broadcasting in DAB+.

It can be received in major conurbations of England, with the initial exception of East Anglia, Cornwall and coastal parts of the South-East. The multiplex will also broadcast across Central Scotland, parts of Northern Ireland and across South Wales and parts of North-East Wales.


The stations are

talk RADIO - News and current affairs

talkSPORT2 - Live sports and sports talk

Virgin Radio - Rock and pop music

Share Radio - Business and finance programmes

Mellow Magic - Relaxing and melodic music

Magic Chilled (DAB+)- A second sister channel from one of the UK’s most popular music stations

Absolute 80s - 80s music

Kisstory - ‘Old skool’ dance tunes and anthems

Heat - Pop music, celebrity gossip and entertainment

Planet Rock - Classic rock music

Sunrise Radio - Asian music and speech programmes

Awarsom Radio - New British Muslim lifestyle, music and speech station

UCB 2 - Christian music

Premier Christian Radio - Christian Music and Speach

Premier Praise -

Panjab Radio - Delivering extra choice for British Sikhs and Panjabi speakers

Fun Kids (DAB+) - National children’s radio station

Jazz FM (DAB+) - Jazz music


So 3 stations are moving from the current Digital 1 frequency, Planet Rock, Absolute 80 and Premier Christian Radio.

With space now being available on Digital 1, a new station Heat Extra will launch on there.



Apparently the test channel being transmitted is called Sound Waves or Sound Waves+ for DAB+ with the sound being the sound of waves lapping onto the coast





Beati Dogu

8,862 posts

138 months

Tuesday 9th February 2016
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Interesting, thanks. I don't have a DAB+ radio yet, but my kitchen DAB radio is playing up at the moment.

Regular DAB is pretty dated let's face it. Obsolete MP2 encoding that's mostly mono, combined with crappy bit rates and poor signal strength. It's no wonder the Germans turned their network off and switched over to DAB+.

Even a music station like Planet Rock is only 80 kbps mono. Anything is better than crappy MW though.

colin_p

4,503 posts

211 months

Wednesday 10th February 2016
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Will we still be able to get Planet Rock on an old DAB radio ?

It is the only thing that matters.

Beati Dogu

8,862 posts

138 months

Wednesday 10th February 2016
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Should do and if your radio is fairly recent it may already support DAB+ or just need a firmware update to do so.

Gazzas86

1,707 posts

170 months

Wednesday 10th February 2016
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I saw soundwaves pop up as new channels earlier in the week, clicked on it and listened to lovely sound of crashing waves. Thanks for the heads up

Russ35

Original Poster:

2,491 posts

238 months

Wednesday 10th February 2016
quotequote all
colin_p said:
Will we still be able to get Planet Rock on an old DAB radio ?

It is the only thing that matters.
You should do as it's staying DAB. So as long as you can receive the new frequency you should be Ok.

I tried a rescan in one of my cars last night and the Blaupunkt Woodstock picked up the test stations, although it didn't play anything from the Wave+ channel as the unit isn't DAB+ capable. Will try the other car later with its Pioneer AVH-X3600DAB. This is DAB+ so should have some success. Tried my Cambridge separate earlier and it didn't pick the frequency up, but it is running on the indoor aerial it came with.


Even though there is stuff in DAB+ I bet it will still be mono and low bitrate.


Gazzas86

1,707 posts

170 months

Wednesday 10th February 2016
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Anyone else find Kiss has the best sound quality?? overall Bass is really good, others just seem shallow

jimmyt1202

211 posts

182 months

Wednesday 10th February 2016
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Gazzas86 said:
Anyone else find Kiss has the best sound quality?? overall Bass is really good, others just seem shallow
For some reason every Audi I've driven with DAB Radio always has awful quality with Kiss and the bass rattles an awful lot

Gazzas86

1,707 posts

170 months

Wednesday 10th February 2016
quotequote all
jimmyt1202 said:
Gazzas86 said:
Anyone else find Kiss has the best sound quality?? overall Bass is really good, others just seem shallow
For some reason every Audi I've driven with DAB Radio always has awful quality with Kiss and the bass rattles an awful lot
How strange, I have Harmon Kardon in my 1 series and Kiss sounds the best for bass, I have 2 subs under the front seats which came with the optional extra upgrade, but it definitely sounds the best station.

Gren

1,947 posts

251 months

Wednesday 10th February 2016
quotequote all
jimmyt1202 said:
Gazzas86 said:
Anyone else find Kiss has the best sound quality?? overall Bass is really good, others just seem shallow
For some reason every Audi I've driven with DAB Radio always has awful quality with Kiss and the bass rattles an awful lot
Not a problem here. B&O system in a TTS.

Don't listen to too many stations (Kiss and LBC strangely!) but it sounds good to me

Russ35

Original Poster:

2,491 posts

238 months

Wednesday 10th February 2016
quotequote all
BBC R3 should be the bets as that is 196kbps Stereo, plus a few other BBC stations are 128kbps stereo.

Of the other national commercial stations I think only Classic is at 128 and Capital Extra at 112 both in Stereo with everything else being 80 in Mono.

I cannot get the local DAB (Central Lancashire) in the house so no idea what they are at.

We are supposed to be getting a new transmitter in Blackpool as part of the expansion, so that should hopefully improve coverage when it comes online supposedly before September 2016.

Beati Dogu

8,862 posts

138 months

Wednesday 10th February 2016
quotequote all
It looks like the new DAB+ channels will be 32kbps mono, although it uses more efficient encoding (HE-AAC v2) & better error correction than DAB for a more robust signal. Instead of getting the gargling noise on a poor signal, you'll get nothing.

Basically they've gone for quantity over quality and are still trading on the myth that just because it's "digital", it's automatically better.

BigBen

11,610 posts

229 months

Wednesday 10th February 2016
quotequote all
Beati Dogu said:
Basically they've gone for quantity over quality and are still trading on the myth that just because it's "digital", it's automatically better.
With great marketing phrases like 'digital quality'

Then again when DAB was launched all of the stations had super high bit rates and no one bought the radios it was only when the range of stations expanded that DAB took off.

Bungleaio

6,324 posts

201 months

Wednesday 10th February 2016
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I always find that absolute radio is noticeably poorer quality than absolute 80's. I've experienced this in a couple of different cars.

Hopefully if they are changing things around this will improve.

Russ35

Original Poster:

2,491 posts

238 months

Wednesday 10th February 2016
quotequote all
My first DAB receiver was a Psion Wavefinder



When it worked it was great, basically only the BBC stations plus a couple of commercial stations all at descent bitrates 256ish. The wave finder was always temperamental (driver issues), but died totally when XP sp2 was released. Think it then worked again under SP3.

Then got the Cambridge DAB500 when that was released in 2004ish. Was a bit of shock to open the box and find that they didn't come with a remote! had to contact Cambridge direct to get one when they actually released one. Still works fine and is used all the time.

Just wish it had stayed as quality over quantity and not the other way around, although I must admit that probably 80% of my listening is to BBC 5live and Talksport so they are a massive improvement over trying to listen to them on MW.





Beati Dogu

8,862 posts

138 months

Wednesday 10th February 2016
quotequote all
Russ35 said:
Just wish it had stayed as quality over quantity and not the other way around, although I must admit that probably 80% of my listening is to BBC 5live and Talksport so they are a massive improvement over trying to listen to them on MW.
Me too, with a bit of DAB-only Planet Rock thrown in. I've also had a Blaupunkt Woodstock 53 for many years, but I haven't fitted it in my current car yet. It would be a major PITA to do so due to the aerial.

FM is fine and with RDS it's great. Problem is I don't want Radio Local and 50 million instances of Radio 2. Both BBC 5live and Talksport are MW only (on a regular radio) and in a car with all the background noise it's just horrible. If a listener calls in with stty mobile phone quality, you can barely hear them all all.