Re: DAB 2 FM

Zach Liang wrote:
WHich has better audio quality?

This is a subject that tends to lead to many argument in this NG. Perceived sound quality can be a bit of a personal thing. Some people actually seem to be convinced that DAB sounds good and some don't want to accept anybody saying that it does not sound good.

There is also the issue of whether you are talking about speech or music. Speech is not such a problem on DAB as music. However since we are comparing DAB to FM, I'd say that most of the speech stations on DAB do sound a bit distorted which would not be the case if these stations were on FM.

Going back to considering music on DAB. Personally when I first tried DAB I thought music sounded OK. Not as good as it ought to be but OK. The trouble is that after listening for several months the faults in the sound of DAB seemed to become more and more obvious, until now I simply don't want to listen to it at all. I could go into a discussion about why this is so, but I have already had discussions about that here, and I don't want to have to keep repeating things that I have already said.

Personally I find the audio quality on FM to be much better than DAB.

OK DAB does have better dynamic range, and does not suffer from potential background noise (except when you get a bad signal and get the dreaded bubbling mud sound). However I think the problems of DAB audio far outweigh the advantages.

The worst problem, as far as I'm concerned, is the use of intensity stereo, which now has to be used on all stereo stations. Radio 3 was the exception, but now their bit rate has been reduced they will have to use it too. Intensity stereo provides a very poor stereo image. It does seem to place most sounds in the correct position between Left and Right, but it looses all the phase differences between the channels, making the stereo image sound very flat. I personally find that effect very irritating.

There is also the issue of compression artifacts. To be honest I personally don't seem to notice many artifacts these days. Probably since they improved the encoders. However other people seem to find them very irritating.

With FM there are no compression artifacts, and the stereo image sounds like proper stereo, not some annoying imitation of stereo. OK FM can suffer from some interference, mostly if you are in an area of marginal reception, but personally I don't find these anywhere near as annoying as the problems with DAB. Besides FM in marginal areas is actually better than DAB in marginal areas, as DAB fails in a far less graceful manner than FM.

Richard E.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Undecided
    ... interested to see the split in opinion on sound quality. ... I have a cheap DAB radio in the kitchen, and to be honest think the quality ...
    (alt.radio.digital)
  • Re: AM stereo
    ... I still find it difficult to understand how it can sound better than the ... >>> Also you get better stereo seperation with AM over FM. ... >>> months with DRM and DAB. ...
    (alt.radio.digital)
  • Re: AM stereo
    ... >>> Why does it sound better than the superb FM system? ... >> Also you get better stereo seperation with AM over FM. ... >> months with DRM and DAB. ...
    (alt.radio.digital)
  • Re: OT - DAB
    ... problems that show up on FM as well as DAB or DTTV. ... Not the engineering design of DAB or the choice of codec. ... come to regard it as being the way the music should sound. ... stations as it is so gross. ...
    (uk.tech.digital-tv)
  • Re: OT - DAB
    ... problems that show up on FM as well as DAB or DTTV. ... Not the engineering design of DAB or the choice of codec. ... I also ended up preferring the sound on R3 DAB or DTTV to FM as it ... I can listen to a lot of digital European stations ...
    (uk.tech.digital-tv)