DAB+

[Black Hole]

I'm not up for that kind of challenge.

Fair enough

And I can imagine my dad's response along the lines of "why do we need all those boxes, and how much power does all that consume?"

It would only be one box! The items I referred to are modules which are the modern equivalent of components – highly functional subsystems the constructor just has to link together in the desired configuration and provide with some simple programming.

 

[Owen Smith]

Is it not possible to store the wanted stations on both banks, A and B so it doesn't matter if shift is pressed first?

It is. But there are three banks A, B and C so I'd have to store all three. And the user interface for storing stations on this 1997 era Sony tuner is so baroque I cock things up more often than managing to store the station I want, even when following the (poorly written) instructions in the manual. Given I'm about to replace it with an Arcam T32 so my parents get DAB there's no point now.

 

[Owen Smith]

I've been listening to Scala on DAB+ at 40kbps AAC stereo this evening, I have plenty of signal strength on that mux. There's definitely some weirdness, foreground sounds are OK but concert hall ambience has weird clunks and thunks or funny tonal shifts that occur at all sorts of odd times. The longer I listen the more I realise there's something quite artificial about the sound, easiest to spot on recordings I know well (they played the Philip Glass violin concerto among others).

 

[Black Hole]

That does not bode well!

 

[Suzandii]

Going back to the original complaint that Classic FM are going DAB+ in January - Planet Rock have just gone DAB+ and this resulted in my Pure Evoke not being compatible. I had previously updated my Pure Mi firmware to make it DAB+ compatible and it worked fine without me having to do anything. The only difference is that the channel name has an "St" at the end as it is now in stereo. I was very disgruntled that my expensive stereo Pure Evoke could no longer receive Planet Rock (even though it was always broadcast in low bitrate mono). I didn't expect it to work but I went into the menu and did a retune anyway. It found two Planet Rock stations - one with the "St' on the end and one without. The one without is working fine (just as before in low bitrate mono). How long this will last I don't know, but it's been going ok for about a month now. Perhaps the same may happen for Classic FM? It all may be transmitter dependant I suppose - I'm in the Kidderminster area for what that's worth. Anyway, it's well worth doing a retune now and again - it's brought up a load of other new stations too. It did bring up a lot with a question mark in front which don't work (DAB+ or off air), but there's an option in the menu to remove all of these.

 

[EEPhil]

It found two Planet Rock stations - one with the "St' on the end and one without. The one without is working fine (just as before in low bitrate mono). How long this will last I don't know, but it's been going ok for about a month now. Perhaps the same may happen for Classic FM? It all may be transmitter dependant I suppose - I'm in the Kidderminster area for what that's worth.

In the Nottingham area I can only find one Planet Rock. With a Pure Evoke even that took some finding - a reset, autotune and manual tune didn't find it. A "trim stations" did.
On a DAB+ radio - only one Planet Rock.
I doubt that there will be two Classic FMs (one DAB+, one DAB). Rather defeats the object. Certainly Scala didn't go down this route.
Perhaps you are receiving Planet Rock from two different transmitters (or two multiplexes) and one hasn't been converted. (Unlikely!)

 

[Owen Smith]

That does not bode well!

Sometimes Scala sounds OK (I've been doing more listening), sometimes it doesn't. The more complex the music the worse it sounds, I'd hate to hear something like a Bach fugue with all the parts playing at once or the finale to A Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (which is a fugue).

 

[RobH1]

Update on post #42.

Family member purchased the Digitradio mentioned and has proved to be successful, most stations available with just the short internal aerial. As it is made in Germany is comes with a 2-pin European plug. No optical connection as prpr mentioned but connected to the amp using RCA leads.

 

[Owen Smith]

Looks like Classic FM have gone for 64kbps AAC (higher than any other DAB+ station I can find):

TV channels and Radio bitrates DAB+ DTT FIBER Satellite Cable OTT.

Bitrate measurements of TV channels and Radio DAB+ DTT FIBER Satellite Cable OTT.

www.digitalbitrate.com

That's almost certainly a downgrade in audio quality compared to 128kbps MP2 used previously. AAC is a good codec but it isn't magic. At least SBR (Spectral Band Replication) and PS (Parametric Stereo) are not being used, assuming the web site can be trusted.

EDIT: what isn't known is whether AAC-LC or HE-AACv1 is being used (v2 is largely turning on SBR and PS I believe).

 

[Owen Smith]

There's a thread for this on Digital Spy:

Classic FM - DAB+ - Page 10

For about 15 seconds, welle.io was claiming that it was 160k MP2 Stereo. I don't have full faith in my laptop to decode properly however.

forums.digitalspy.com

I'd like to post there too, for example to point out Classic FM was originally 192kps MP2 right at the start (they've said it wasn't). But my login appears to have expired and three attempts to recreate it have been blocked by the admins. There appears to be no way I can find to contact the admins directly without a login.

That Digital Spy thread also says the only internet stream for Classic FM is 48kbps AAC. I guess the 128kbps MP3 stream I've been using on my AV amp must be a figment of my imagination...

 

[EEPhil]

There's a thread for this on Digital Spy:
... I'd like to post there too... But my login appears to have expired and three attempts to recreate it have been blocked by the admins. There appears to be no way I can find to contact the admins directly without a login.

It's not just you. It's exactly the problem I have. An expired account connected to a defunct email address. Attempts to recreate it or register a new login with a new email and new name fail. Well it stops the annoying "Hey there!" message for a short while. But the ruddy thing comes back and I can't login. If there are any admins they're ignorant so and sos!

 

[Rodders53]

Looks like Classic FM have gone for 64kbps AAC (higher than any other DAB+ station I can find):

That's almost certainly a downgrade in audio quality compared to 128kbps MP2 used previously.

Everything I have read suggests that early AAC at half the MP2 bitrate is "equivalent" quality.
So it'll be a relatively minor audio difference, if any?

My check on digitalbitrate just now suggests SBR is Yes and PS No, though, whatever difference that makes.

I'm too far out of touch with the tech standards since retirement

 

[Owen Smith]

It's not just you. It's exactly the problem I have. An expired account connected to a defunct email address. Attempts to recreate it or register a new login with a new email and new name fail. Well it stops the annoying "Hey there!" message for a short while. But the ruddy thing comes back and I can't login. If there are any admins they're ignorant so and sos!

In my case the email address is still current. I've tried the forgotten password option on Digital Spy as well and that gets me no password reset email. If creating an entirely new account as you've tried doesn't work either, presumably that means Digital Spy will gradually die since people naturally leave and they won't have any new accounts.

 

[Owen Smith]

Everything I have read suggests that early AAC at half the MP2 bitrate is "equivalent" quality.
So it'll be a relatively minor audio difference, if any?

I agree it's likely to be a minor audio difference if any. It will probably depend on the listener and equipment used, and personal preference may play a part. Certainly 64kbps AAC is better than I feared, but it could go down in future.

But Classic FM have been heavily advertising this as "turning up the broadcast quality" and there is no way that claim would stand up to proper scrutiny at this AAC bit rate.

My check on digitalbitrate just now suggests SBR is Yes and PS No, though, whatever difference that makes.

Spectral Band Replication means high frequencies are encoded exploiting harmonics of the lower frequencies. That means it's HE-AACv1, not surprising.

Parametric Stereo is the extra thing that would make it HE-AACv2 and is AAC's more sophisticated version of Joint Stereo. I'm pleased they're not (yet) using it.

 

[Owen Smith]

SBR on or off depends on which DAB transmitter you look at on digitalbitrate. Yorkshire says SBR On while Cambridge says Off, but then Cambridge also says both SBR and PS Off for Scala at 40kbps which I simply don't believe as it would sound dire at that bit rate without them. Also these are national muxes on SFNs, they can't be encoded differently on different transmitters. So either it varies with time since digitalbitrate takes snapshots, or those flags are not accurately recorded on the web site.

 

[Owen Smith]

Comparing the DAB+ broadcast with FM, using an Arcam T32 hifi FM/DAB+ tuner with a very strong FM signal from an external aerial, FM sounds better. But then it did compared to the previous 128kbps joint stereo MP2 and indeed the older 160kbps joint stereo MP2. The last time it wasn't clear which was better was when Classic FM on DAB was at 192kbps MP2 which was full stereo and a long time ago. And that's only because Classic FM's FM feed is a bit compressed and over modulated, Radio 3 always sounded better on FM even compared to 192kbps full stereo MP2. My DAB listening does not go back as far as the BBC's original 256kbps full stereo MP2 broadcasts so I can't comment on those.

 

[Black Hole]

I've put in a complaint.

 

[Owen Smith]

I've put in a complaint.

What specific complaint have you made? Personally I think there are two valid complaints:

1) They promised better sound quality with this change and it's far from clear there is any improvement.
2) Classic FM is no longer receivable on DAB (ie non DAB+) radios, which in some situations (eg a car) can be very awkward.

 

[Black Hole]

Yup, and the fraudulent advertising aspect. I'm not going to post my actual complaint text in case anyone else here wants to do the same – best there's not too much similarity.

I guess there's a possibility the copyright holders might not have been too happy with their material being broadcast at full CD quality!

 

[Owen Smith]

I guess there's a possibility the copyright holders might not have been too happy with their material being broadcast at full CD quality!

We were never going to get full CD quality with this change. The BBC radio UK internet streams at 320kbps AAC-LC are close to but not full CD quality.