Dixons to Stop Selling Analogue Radio
Written Aug. 16, 2006 by in HD Radio with 1 Comment
The Digital Radio Development Bureau reports that UK retailer Dixons is going to stop selling analogue radios in their stores. For those inclined to read this as another "sky is falling" post, please note the reason why: digital radios (now available for as little as 30 pounds) are outselling analogue radios by a ratio of 30:1. This is not a death knell for radio--it is a positive development for radio's future. The devil, as always, is in the details--but if HD can follow DAB's lead, let's hope that Best Buy reports the same news a few years from now.
Reader Comments
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So who's buying them? I know exactly one person who has one. I haven't bothered yet because my first encounter with it in 2001 was bad: the sound quality was aweful and I am not sure it is better today. Most stations sounded like they pumped their content to the multiplex in glorious 128Kb layer 3. (I know for a fact many did) And with everyone using Dalet, Master Control or the like the music was 256Kbit on disk to begin with. But wait, there is more! Many UK stations get their music from a service (Fast Trax, I believe) that itself is compressed. So you get quadruple compression, going from 256K MP2, to 256K MP2 again, then 128K MP3 and lastly the 128K MP2(!) of DAB. (they tend to call it MUSICAM, which is the same as MP2)
On top of that stations had wildly differing levels; some were - as they should - peaking at 0dB. But at the time Virgin had a heavily processed (like 2dB dynamic range) peaking at... -12dB!
At was appalling. FM with a good aerial sounds much better. Maybe things are better now, but I for one am reluctant to spend any money to find out. And the friend's DAB radio is a simple alarm clock model, not something I can judge sound quality on.
Even if the audio chain was cleaned up, Eureka 147 DAB is still based on yukkie MP2. It's design was too early and designed for european national broadcasters, not independent local stations. Because of burocracy, it was never updated in the late 90s or early 2K and it shows.
HD (on FM) has a much better chance with a better codec and local engineers that care can make it sing. We europeans have to suffer for being early adopters (well, designers anyway) and being stuck with a system that was litteraly over a decade old before anyone was actually using it.
But it seems to become succesful now because, as always, quantity sells over quality and you do have a lot bigger choice of stations. (something HD doesn't offer)