From BBC R2 to Greatest Hits, and I like it & DAB is crap.

[Griffith4ever]

I work in my small fabrication workshop most days and radio is a good distraction. I've listened to R2 to catch Ken Bruce and pop master, then put up with Vine afterwards through convenience, lack of motivation to search elsewhere. I'm in my early 50s.

I've been losing interest in R2 since the unbearable childrens TV host that is Sara Cox took over "drive time", and now Scott Mills has arrived.

I decided , on news of Bruce's move , to try Greatest Hits Radio. What a breath of fresh air! No more "single of the week" where bands like Steps, or Kylie pay to be played every half hour. No more traffic news, or general news, every 30 mins. No more, "other brands are available" nonsense.

Sure, the ads are not great, but, I have now learnt to "tune out". The benefits far outweigh the ads. Good music. Happy music. Music that has done well on its merits, not someone paying to promote them.

I'd forgotten how good Mayo and Drive Time was, with his team. It's good to be back.

I thought, great, I can play GH in my car on DAB. Now, previously I'd been frustrated with Absolute 80's being mono, but GH, I assumed would be better. Nope. Mono, low bandwidth. I use my phone to stream it in the car instead. I also found out my 2017 car can't play a new format, "DAB+". WTF. My 1st car that plays DAB natively and its already out of date.

I googled "DAB is st", and immediately found a site that in summary , says, Europe embraced it for higher bandwidth streaming, but the UK just crammed more low bandwidth, mono streams in the same space, and when DAB+ was launched, did the same!

Mono radio. Who'd have thought, in the 21st century? I remember not long back when FM Stereo was the be all and end all of radio tech. Now we've taken a step back. Still, I guess what is coming out of the radio these days, auto tuned and over produced, is for an audience that doesn't give a toss what it actually sounds like?

Bah! grumble grumble!