Pompeii
March 5th, 2006, 02:39 PM
For anyone who has splashed out on a strictly retro, bleeding edge digital radio, the experience of plugging it into a hi-fi and realising that the sound is actually worse than that top-of-the-line FM receiver you just sold on eBay will have a horrible familiarity. If so then do post in here and express your condolences for good friend, called Michael. Exactly like the times when you swapped vinly for CD, or CD for MP3, though maybe not VHS for DVD. It’s much more convenient, but in a subtle ways, actually worse.
For the nasty but until now rather well-hidden truth is that digital radio has a lower sound quality than the best FM signal. Do any of you extremely intelligent and educated RD’ers know why? Well do you? Is that a no? Exactly what I thought. Anyway I’ll tell you, digital radio is too popular. So many people want to listen to so many stations that broadcasters can’t deliver the signal. I told him (Michael) not to buy a digital radio but the moron disregarded what I had to say and went ahead and purchased a digital radio. Yesterday I had to endure his completely gay mourning and dislike for his new property. What made me smile were the words “You were right, I should have listened to you.”
Anyway In essence, the difference is like that between vinly and MP3s. FM radio can faithfully reproduce signals up to 15kHz, which is nearly as high as the human ear can perceive.
Digital radio broadcasting turns the audio into zeros and ones bits and sends those over the air squashed into a smaller frequency range than the analogue. It’s the Pot Noodle approach to sound, don’t you think? The less that is taken out to start with, the nicer the end result.
If digital radio was broadcasted at a bit rate of 190,000+ quality sound could be achieved but due to the fierce competition for a limited band of frequency I doubt that’s possible.
However digital does have one benefit and that is resilience. While analogue FM goes mad whenever an aeroplane passes nearby digital radio maintains its frequency. Anyway not like any of you give a fuck so lets hear it for digital radio eh?
For the nasty but until now rather well-hidden truth is that digital radio has a lower sound quality than the best FM signal. Do any of you extremely intelligent and educated RD’ers know why? Well do you? Is that a no? Exactly what I thought. Anyway I’ll tell you, digital radio is too popular. So many people want to listen to so many stations that broadcasters can’t deliver the signal. I told him (Michael) not to buy a digital radio but the moron disregarded what I had to say and went ahead and purchased a digital radio. Yesterday I had to endure his completely gay mourning and dislike for his new property. What made me smile were the words “You were right, I should have listened to you.”
Anyway In essence, the difference is like that between vinly and MP3s. FM radio can faithfully reproduce signals up to 15kHz, which is nearly as high as the human ear can perceive.
Digital radio broadcasting turns the audio into zeros and ones bits and sends those over the air squashed into a smaller frequency range than the analogue. It’s the Pot Noodle approach to sound, don’t you think? The less that is taken out to start with, the nicer the end result.
If digital radio was broadcasted at a bit rate of 190,000+ quality sound could be achieved but due to the fierce competition for a limited band of frequency I doubt that’s possible.
However digital does have one benefit and that is resilience. While analogue FM goes mad whenever an aeroplane passes nearby digital radio maintains its frequency. Anyway not like any of you give a fuck so lets hear it for digital radio eh?