Radio 3 listen again - iRadio

Posted by: mharttpalmer on 27 January 2014

Last Thursday, BBC Radio 3 broadcast an all Strauss concert live, of which I heard the first half.  We decided to listen to the entire concert through iRadio on Saturday afternoon, which was somewhat of a frustrating experience again.

 

Firstly, sound quality:  the 48k WMA stream sounded somewhat mushy, compared to the live broadcast.  It was as if some sort of over-compression or noise reduction was applied - you could hear this particularly during the audience clapping.

 

Secondly (and even more frustratingly) the stream lost connection totally towards the end of the Alpine Symphony, and from then on I could not get the connection back.  Radio 3 live itself was fine, and we weren't experiencing problems with our internet connection.

 

Obviously I'm not pointing the finger at Naim here, but it does go to show how fragile things can be, which ultimately spoils your enjoyment.

 

I'd be interested to hear any comments - whether it be on the quality of the stream if you listened to the concert, or on the Radio 3 listen again streams in general, since this was the first time that we'd used this feature on the Naim.

Posted on: 28 January 2014 by JSH

I've had a similar experience. Naim takes you to the BBC Podcasts site which are really for phones and good enough at that level, but not hifi.  Not their fault nor the BBC's; it's sufficient for what it's designed for, low bandwidth mobile use.

 

The R3 HiRes (320 site) is only available live and is on the Naim Choice menu.  I think the 320 and the 48 sites are separate feeds.  I've had experience where one is down and the other OK.

 

If you want Listen Again at hifi quality the way to go is through the wonderful BBC iPlayer via your computer, assuming of course that you have that inputting into your Naim.  Should be 192 quality thugh your sound card may affect quality compared with a "pure" radio feed, but nothing like the 48 issue does.

 

If you haven't inputted your computer to the Naim, then record from the computer and iPlayer and play the resulting recording through the USB (remember copyright of course, or bloody Rupert Murdoch will be moaning again about the BBC)

Posted on: 29 January 2014 by mharttpalmer

Thanks very much for the clarification, much appreciated.

Posted on: 31 January 2014 by Gavin B

JSH - what do you use to record from iPlayer?

Posted on: 31 January 2014 by mickytwo

For some years I have used a programme called Replay Music which is available as a download from the publisher's site. It can be used to record most music streaming services.