Digital Radio?? Can you get digital radio walkmans or the like? Is there allday dance channels and things? I know there's non-stop music channels in America where they play live sets and stuff, but can we get them, or have similar ones over here????
You can get personal DAB radios aye, Dixons sell them They are bricks like... Not sure about channels tho!
Digital radios are a disaster, they're almost very good, but a few things make them nowhere near as good as they should be.... First of all, here's the channels you can get in the north east - MXR Multiplex The Arrow Heart Galaxy DNN Capital Disney Century FM Smooth FM Choice FM Real Radio - EMAP Digital Multiplex Metro Radio Magic Kiss Xfm 3C Classic Gold Digital BBC Radio Newcastle Smash Hits Kerrang! Heat - BBC Multiplex Radio1 1Xtra Radio 2 Radio 3 Radio 4 Radio 5 Live 5 Live Sprots Extra 6 Music BBC 7 Asian Network World Service - Digital One Multiplex Classic FM Virgin Radio talkSPORT Core Life Oneword Planet Rock PrimeTime Radio That's a list of all the stations available in the north east, digital radio works in 'splodges' of bandwidth called a multiplexes. There are 4 multiplexes available in the north east, you will either get all the stations in a multiplex or none. This means at most you will get 38 stations, this is unlikely, you could get as little as 8, this is also unlikely, but the coverage in the north east is really poo. In fact the coverage of the whole country is poo, all the transmitters need increasing in power, simple as that, but because european DAB uses some of the same frequencies, the power ratings have to be internationally agreed. So that's not going to happen quickly or easily. OK, but we all know that the quality of DAB is far better than FM..... WRONG!!! DAB being good quality is quite simply lies! The quality of radio stations on your freeview box is at least equal to and more than often considerably better than DAB. Most MP3s are much better quality than DAB too, in fact good FM reception is better quality than DAB! I laugh at HiFi enthusiasts who buy £300+ DAB tuners, if they bought a £25 freeview box and used it only as a radio it would sound better. The reason for this is to do with the 'splodges' that I was on about before... Each multiplex has roughly a 900mbps data rate (it's not really as simple as that, but in reality it works roughly like that). The high quality that everyone talked about when DAB was new was 192kbps stations, Radio 1 - 3 was 192, and the speech stations were a bit lower. There's space for about 5 or 6 stations in one multiplex if some of them are speech or lower quality. However, the BBC currently have 10 stations and a few data services running on their multiplex, which means radio 1 and radio 2 are transmitted at a poor 128kbps. Radio 3 is the only station still broadcasting at 192 which is indeed good quality, but sometimes goes as low as 128kbps if 'extra' temporary stations are broadcast. You might notice that some of the earlier DAB adverts said "CD Quality sound" - at the time that was doubtful. Now the adverts use phrases that actually don't mean anything like "Crystal clear digital sound" - the words are good, but can interpreted as "you can hear the sound". The emap multiplex is just as bad, if not worse because it has more music stations which require more bandwidth than speech. If you listen to smash hits or heat radio, the quality is awful (as bad as AM, and imo more uncomfortable to listen too). The quality of DAB will remain bad and actually gets worse for every new station that is added. The only way it will get better is if more 'airspace' is opened up so that more multiplexes are possible, I can't see this happening anytime soon. The only real upsides to digital radio is that you don't get hissing and crackling like you do on FM if you're in a weak signal area or have interferance. It just dissapears totally or goes completely garbled, it's an all or nothing sort of thing. There is also the fact you have a lot more choice of stations, in the north east up to 38 as opposed to the 9 or 10 FM stations. There are even more stations available elsewhere in the country. The government is pushing digital radio, and many big companies have invested millions in it, so there's going to be a lot of advertisers who will try to say DAB is the greatest thing ever, don't believe the hype. Anyway I've probably bored you to death, you probably didn't want that much detail hehe, got sore figners from typing now, but the subject annoys me.
I get all of those channels you listed on mine and the quality is always really good, there's the odd occasion it goes a bit gargled but normal radio does anyway, and I won it so I can't really complain
The quality isn't really good, if it sounds ok to you that's good, you seem happy enough. I'm glad you like it. I'm just saying it's not good quality if you compare it to anything else! Except like AM radio and stuff.
Thanks for that mate, goos dtuff, or maybe not as the case maybe. Doesn't really sound worth it now, I thought you might be able to get something where you can listen to dance channels from around the world, etc, nevermind
chickenfizz u talk shit, iv had a digital radio for 3 years and the quality and extra channels is mint, TALKSPORT The quality is similar to CD, loads of people of the board got copys of matts first EMix of me which was recorded via digital radio>>coaxil digital cable>>CD recorder........... it sounds brilliant, as good as any CD. I paid a fortune for mine years ago but u can get just as good for about £99 these days..... its the best piece of kit iv bought since my ZX Spectrum
