Issues with DAB tuner

Posted by: Jondhall on 23 July 2014

I had a unitiqute 2 on loan for a week before taking delivery of my own unit. I was listening to DAB day in and day out for the whole week with no issues at all. I was using a ruark audio ariel for the signal.

 

My own unit is very touchy with the DAB signal. Has NAIM changed the DAB unit at all. Also what is the quality of the FM tuner. I am thinking of putting an ariel up but don't want to find that its a wasted expense.

 

J

Posted on: 23 July 2014 by hungryhalibut

We use the FM tuner in our SuperUniti a lot, and it's very good, with a basic five element roof aerial. DAB, on the other hand, sounds very poor, and we've turned it off via the menu. Some of the Hidef iRadio streams sound very good though, and much nicer than DAB. 

Posted on: 23 July 2014 by Jondhall

Thanks for the quick reply. Can't say I am a fan of DAB just that the changes between the two units was a little alarming. Thanks for the update on the FM question not even my dealer could answer that one. 

Posted on: 23 July 2014 by dayjay

FM on my UQ2 is very good, I use it a lot.  Some of the internet radio stations are also very good but DAB, in my view, is unusable on any device when it comes to sound quality and I don't use it at all

Posted on: 23 July 2014 by hungryhalibut
Originally Posted by Jondhall:

Thanks for the quick reply. Can't say I am a fan of DAB just that the changes between the two units was a little alarming. Thanks for the update on the FM question not even my dealer could answer that one. 

Then your dealer is a bit of a dipstick.

Posted on: 23 July 2014 by Jondhall

I wouldn't call them a dipstick. They just don't have the facilities to test FM and everybody uses internet radio these days. So they just didn't know how good the FM tuner was.

Posted on: 23 July 2014 by ChrisSU
I think DAB radios are excellent, because they nearly always have FM receivers built in so you don't have to tolerate their poor sound quality or patchy reception. If a station isn't available on FM, I'd use internet radio.
Posted on: 23 July 2014 by Jondhall

As a bit of a straw poll. Which is ultimately of better quality. FM or internet?

Posted on: 23 July 2014 by George J
Originally Posted by Jondhall:

As a bit of a straw poll. Which is ultimately of better quality. FM or internet?

I'd go internet these days considering the quality of the hi-res Radio Three Stream, and many find the Radio Paradise rather wonderful as well.

 

FM is being subjected to increasing amounts of automated and not very good compression so that an operator does not have to sit there and manually adjust the dynamic to what the old style technology FM transmitters can handle, and more often than not the results are far less appealing than what used to be the gold standard of audio - VHF radio.

 

Sadly the glory days of FM are long past. However the splendid Radio Three Hi-res Stream is taken before the automatic dynamic compression is applied ...

 

Sure that it can be improved, but it is still better than most commercial recordings on live relays of concerts.

 

ATB from George

 

 

Posted on: 23 July 2014 by dayjay

FM for me, mainly because there aren't many/any hi quality internet stations for the music I like. PAradise sounds great but it doesn't really play what I like

Posted on: 23 July 2014 by Simon-in-Suffolk

For me FM is head and shoulders better than web radio for most stations. The only exception I would say is BBC Radio 3, and even there the FM signal sounds less processed, more dynamic , less hifi and more natural  to my ears , so FM is better there for me but the difference is closer.

 

The problem with current web radio is limited data bandwidth and its neccessary signal compression and processing. It is also session based, which means most web stations via the internet will be ultimately limited to the number of streams and will need to be extremely compressed and very lossy, or so have called 'hidef' (which are far from it) streams which are less compressed but still lossy.

 

A proper multicast implementation could use bandwidth far more efficiently and allow lossless multicast streams affordably for the broadcaster, but alas there appears no investment there at present that I am aware of.

 

The other issue is rights management.. Some sporting fixtures are not permitted via the web streams, and can only be broadcast by radio.

 

Simon