Discussion
As said, a lot of the reception problems are down to the manufacturers of the receivers, and i would almost say i have proof.
I have just swapped our fleet of VW caddy vans for Transit Connects.
Whenever i go out to one of my sites, i always travel the same 3 miles before reaching main roads.
In the Caddy, DAB reception worked perfectly, but in the Fords on the same local station, signal constantly drops in and out until i get nearer the town.
The Caddy had no visible aerial, as it was buried in the door mirror housing, and the Ford has an aerial on the roof.
I have just swapped our fleet of VW caddy vans for Transit Connects.
Whenever i go out to one of my sites, i always travel the same 3 miles before reaching main roads.
In the Caddy, DAB reception worked perfectly, but in the Fords on the same local station, signal constantly drops in and out until i get nearer the town.
The Caddy had no visible aerial, as it was buried in the door mirror housing, and the Ford has an aerial on the roof.
Game changer for me, very rarely have signal issues - I use it the length and breadth of the UK. It’s provided so much more choice and far better audio quality.
Surprised to read that so many people have problems, I guess it's poor hardware.
Surprised to read that so many people have problems, I guess it's poor hardware.
Edited by James-m5qjf on Tuesday 1st September 07:33
The wife had an Evoque, the DAB radio was piss poor and kept dropping out, my car generally gets a good signal.
The radio performed better in my 2016 Audi A5 than what it In my 2012 A5, when the DAB dropped out it switched to FM, there was a delay in the older car, the newer car was seamless.
The radio performed better in my 2016 Audi A5 than what it In my 2012 A5, when the DAB dropped out it switched to FM, there was a delay in the older car, the newer car was seamless.
Reception issues might be hardware- (or probably more exactly antenna-) related but DAB sound quality is a serious problem for me.
I grant it is entirely subjective, but I have a (very expensive) Naim DAB Tuner as part of my set up - it is rarely used as the sound sets my teeth on edge, especially on voice. The same is true of my cheap as chips Morrison's portable DAB radio, but at least that has FM for me to retune to whenever possible.
I grant it is entirely subjective, but I have a (very expensive) Naim DAB Tuner as part of my set up - it is rarely used as the sound sets my teeth on edge, especially on voice. The same is true of my cheap as chips Morrison's portable DAB radio, but at least that has FM for me to retune to whenever possible.
With regular DAB the lowest acceptable bitrate is 192kbps (and really that is 256kbps, down to 224kbps in some circumstances - the 192kbps figure is joint stereo with detectable imperfections!) rate and even Radio 3 only get 160kbps.
DAB is poor and DAB+ isnt much better - they use a superior codec and then lower the bitrate so it sounds as crap as it did before.
DAB is poor and DAB+ isnt much better - they use a superior codec and then lower the bitrate so it sounds as crap as it did before.
TheInternet said:
psi310398 said:
Naim DAB Tuner
The only way to get hi-fi radio at home is to stream it; the notion of a hi-fi DAB radio is an oxymoron.But DAB was originally sold on the premise of better sound quality than FM and more choice, and that simply never materialised (with perhaps the exception of Radio 4 which still wasn't that good). Sure, we do have more choice, but most of it is broadcast at abysmal bit rates and much of it even in mono.
It's become clear that it was never intended to provide improve sound quality.
The reality is that when DAB was being introduced, the tag line should really have been;
"We are promoting this radio service which will enable us to squeeze more channels than ever into even less of the radio spectrum. Sound quality is not guaranteed".
Because after all, this is the reality.
TheInternet said:
psi310398 said:
Naim DAB Tuner
The only way to get hi-fi radio at home is to stream it; the notion of a hi-fi DAB radio is an oxymoron.psi310398 said:
Reception issues might be hardware- (or probably more exactly antenna-) related but DAB sound quality is a serious problem for me.
I grant it is entirely subjective, but I have a (very expensive) Naim DAB Tuner as part of my set up - it is rarely used as the sound sets my teeth on edge, especially on voice. The same is true of my cheap as chips Morrison's portable DAB radio, but at least that has FM for me to retune to whenever possible.
Yes the aerial is key to good reception. The reason all car radios have aerials is because the car acts as a big Faraday cage. Some car makers do it better than others. I grant it is entirely subjective, but I have a (very expensive) Naim DAB Tuner as part of my set up - it is rarely used as the sound sets my teeth on edge, especially on voice. The same is true of my cheap as chips Morrison's portable DAB radio, but at least that has FM for me to retune to whenever possible.
Sadly the poor bit rates of DAB will never do your Naim system any justice. You may as well plug in an Alba £15 childs mp3 player for all the good it will do. GIGO, garbage in,garbage out.
TheInternet said:
The only way to get hi-fi radio at home is to stream it; the notion of a hi-fi DAB radio is an oxymoron.
You should spend a while reading up on the iPlayer and now BBC Sounds bitrates. 4 out of 5 available profiles are crap! Only profile #1 is anything like reasonable at 320kbps. The others are 128kbps, 96kbps and 48kbps!Alucidnation said:
As said, a lot of the reception problems are down to the manufacturers of the receivers, and i would almost say i have proof.
I have just swapped our fleet of VW caddy vans for Transit Connects.
Whenever i go out to one of my sites, i always travel the same 3 miles before reaching main roads.
In the Caddy, DAB reception worked perfectly, but in the Fords on the same local station, signal constantly drops in and out until i get nearer the town.
The Caddy had no visible aerial, as it was buried in the door mirror housing, and the Ford has an aerial on the roof.
Would agree with this.I have just swapped our fleet of VW caddy vans for Transit Connects.
Whenever i go out to one of my sites, i always travel the same 3 miles before reaching main roads.
In the Caddy, DAB reception worked perfectly, but in the Fords on the same local station, signal constantly drops in and out until i get nearer the town.
The Caddy had no visible aerial, as it was buried in the door mirror housing, and the Ford has an aerial on the roof.
However my last OEM DAB experience was with a Golf with the hidden aerial, useless for DAB absolutely rubbish.
My old shed with a amazon special DAB aerial drilled into the roof i don't think I had a single DAB drop out of any kind in 3 years with a boggo sony head unit. Was absolutely wonderful.
Don't know why manufacturers complicate things for the sake of losing the aerial.
GC8 said:
You should spend a while reading up on the iPlayer and now BBC Sounds bitrates. 4 out of 5 available profiles are crap! Only profile #1 is anything like reasonable at 320kbps. The others are 128kbps, 96kbps and 48kbps!
The BBC actually have a series of HLS streams which are actually quite high quality.https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/help/questions/suppor...
Edited by TonyRPH on Tuesday 1st September 09:48
TonyRPH said:
GC8 said:
You should spend a while reading up on the iPlayer and now BBC Sounds bitrates. 4 out of 5 available profiles are crap! Only profile #1 is anything like reasonable at 320kbps. The others are 128kbps, 96kbps and 48kbps!
The BBC actually have a series of HLS streams which are actually quite high quality.https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/help/questions/suppor...
Edited by TonyRPH on Tuesday 1st September 09:48
I was under the impression that it was the latter, but Im hoping to find confirmation that it is the former...
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