Indeed, it's something I as a music tech student have both seen myself and have been told by tutors - and it makes sense. I remember putting up with dodgy projections in cinemas because the sound was alright, but the one time I was watching one of the Pirates films and the centre speaker started pumping out 20kHz digital distortion my head felt like it was going to explode.
What DAB radio do you have? I'm lucky enough to have a (still-operational!) Wavefinder, which is literally 100% digital signal path until the output stage - directly sends the raw MPEG stream to the PC which decodes it and plays it back which is going through my monitors (speakers, not screens ;) and I can _definitely_ tell the difference between FM and digital, even if I do nothing more than hook up my MP3 player to my line level input on my audio interface. I've heard digital artefacts on Radio 3 on DAB. If we're ever going to turn off analogue, that problem HAS to be fixed. Also, the issues of compressing already-compressed material, the way commercial stations just send their FM-processed signal to the digital encoder without changing it... Plus the technical limitations of MPEG Layer-2 to boot. I think half the problem is that the vast majority of people don't have a decent setup for listening to their radio - and the stations they listen to don't really value preserving the quality of the source audio above making it the LOUDEST on the dial and getting listener figures. The BBC is uniquely positioned to spearhead the charge against the loss of quality in radio broadcasting, including the preservation of quality in their broadcasts. The Beeb shouldn't be pushed into putting more and more services on their already strained multiplexes by commercial expectations, because they'll never achieve the kind of quality they had on launch if they carry on doing that. These little portable DAB radios are both great and awful for the industry, and for quality standards in general. People don't expect the quality, the quality will disappear. > -----Original Message----- > From: Andrew Bowden [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: 19 April 2007 10:34 > To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk > Subject: RE: [backstage] BBC Archive trial > > > I have a DAB radio and I confess I can't tell the difference between > (say) Radio 2 on FM and Radio 2 on DAB. I know some > audiophiles who look at me in disbelief when I say that. > > And anyway it's actually a slight lie. When I try to compare > them, the thing I notice most is the FM hiss. > > I'm far better on visual artifacts I must say. Interestingly > though a colleague of mine from BBC News told me that surveys > have shown people are far more likely to put up with a dodgy > video picture if the sound is clean and crisp. > > - > Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To > unsubscribe, please visit > http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. > Unofficial list archive: > http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
