To stem the tide of pure melt that has already flown in this comment thread, may I provide an actual opinion...
DAB has absolutely no chance of ever catching on in the UK whilst it remains in the state it is right now:
- Lower quality audio than analogue radio - Lower quality audio than digital radio received via satellite TV or Freeview TV - Bulky equipment - Expensive equipment - Unlike DTV, no noticeable reasons for the switchover (to the public)
But above all else, it has no chance because barely anyone has heard about it. And even those who do, rarely care.
DAB in the UK is old technology (MPEG2), terrible quality and only fit for tiny radios that sound bad anyway. They have opted for many stations at low bit rates, rather then a fewer good quality ones. I sold my DAB tuner last year as it sounded a lot worse than my 20 year old FM tuner. Plus they cost several times the price of a FM or AM radio for that poorer quality.
People have bought DAB radios for more stations, but quite a few stations has since closed down,including some very popular ones.
But the killer for me is that almost no cars are fitted with DAB, so they plan to switch off FM and disable most car radios by 2012 - way to go!
I totally agree, all experiences i have had with DAB are totally appalling. Very low quality, very poor reception. I have only ever encountered small base units, i can only imagine how well DAB performs in a car. FM Forever!
In theory DAB is a great idea, but it's been hijacked to squeeze as many stations in as possible. I remember the early adverts promising "CD quality", then "digital quality" and now that phrase has become a joke, they simply promote choice.
Most people who buy a radio do so because they're replacing an existing radio, and since FM radios generally work for ever, inevitably it's a slow process.
We have a kitchen radio for DAB, and to be honest, that's where it belongs, or in the car is fine too due to car noise.
If we want hifi sound, we use satellite broadcasts as these have sufficient bandwidth for decent sound!
There have been some nice portable DAB units, but they're not cheap - we also have some nice Pure PocketDAB2000's (dual band, record off DAB, play mp2 and mp3 files) which are pretty good; bought off ebay as remaindered items, the full price was outrageous! I note that portable media players with DAB radio are still an unusual/rare item.
We listen mainly to ClassicFM which is broadcast in sufficient quality to be useable, or Radio4 which is speach and thus doesn't matter. Other music stations sound awful and we don't bother.
May I add to the comments here - I am in agreement with all of the above. What the DAB group don't seem to realise (despite everyone moaning for years) is that DAB in the UK is terrible, and that is why nobody buys into it. My main gripes:
1. It's too expensive 2. The quality is worse than both satellite and FM broadcasts 3 - and this is a long one but a real show-stopper for me: Digital codecs mean that different equipment decodes at different speeds. The whole point of radio for me is to wander round the house, sometimes with two or three radios on playing the same station. With DAB they just clash! And if I have another radio which is not digital (and let's face it, who can afford several digital radios) then they clash TERRIBLY.
Maybe they should think long and hard at why they're not doing very well before they rush headlong into switching off analogue.
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To stem the tide of pure melt that has already flown in this comment thread, may I provide an actual opinion...
DAB has absolutely no chance of ever catching on in the UK whilst it remains in the state it is right now:
- Lower quality audio than analogue radio
- Lower quality audio than digital radio received via satellite TV or Freeview TV
- Bulky equipment
- Expensive equipment
- Unlike DTV, no noticeable reasons for the switchover (to the public)
But above all else, it has no chance because barely anyone has heard about it. And even those who do, rarely care.
DAB in the UK is old technology (MPEG2), terrible quality and only fit for tiny radios that sound bad anyway. They have opted for many stations at low bit rates, rather then a fewer good quality ones. I sold my DAB tuner last year as it sounded a lot worse than my 20 year old FM tuner. Plus they cost several times the price of a FM or AM radio for that poorer quality.
People have bought DAB radios for more stations, but quite a few stations has since closed down,including some very popular ones.
But the killer for me is that almost no cars are fitted with DAB, so they plan to switch off FM and disable most car radios by 2012 - way to go!
I totally agree, all experiences i have had with DAB are totally appalling. Very low quality, very poor reception. I have only ever encountered small base units, i can only imagine how well DAB performs in a car. FM Forever!
In theory DAB is a great idea, but it's been hijacked to squeeze as many stations in as possible. I remember the early adverts promising "CD quality", then "digital quality" and now that phrase has become a joke, they simply promote choice.
Most people who buy a radio do so because they're replacing an existing radio, and since FM radios generally work for ever, inevitably it's a slow process.
We have a kitchen radio for DAB, and to be honest, that's where it belongs, or in the car is fine too due to car noise.
If we want hifi sound, we use satellite broadcasts as these have sufficient bandwidth for decent sound!
There have been some nice portable DAB units, but they're not cheap - we also have some nice Pure PocketDAB2000's (dual band, record off DAB, play mp2 and mp3 files) which are pretty good; bought off ebay as remaindered items, the full price was outrageous! I note that portable media players with DAB radio are still an unusual/rare item.
We listen mainly to ClassicFM which is broadcast in sufficient quality to be useable, or Radio4 which is speach and thus doesn't matter. Other music stations sound awful and we don't bother.
May I add to the comments here - I am in agreement with all of the above. What the DAB group don't seem to realise (despite everyone moaning for years) is that DAB in the UK is terrible, and that is why nobody buys into it. My main gripes:
1. It's too expensive
2. The quality is worse than both satellite and FM broadcasts
3 - and this is a long one but a real show-stopper for me: Digital codecs mean that different equipment decodes at different speeds. The whole point of radio for me is to wander round the house, sometimes with two or three radios on playing the same station. With DAB they just clash! And if I have another radio which is not digital (and let's face it, who can afford several digital radios) then they clash TERRIBLY.
Maybe they should think long and hard at why they're not doing very well before they rush headlong into switching off analogue.