BBC iPlayer repeats Radio 3

Posted by: Andrew Lea on 22 January 2015

What do people consider the highest quality source of listen-again iPlayer programmes from Radio 3 played through a Uniti 2? The Naim iRadio podcasts, even when available, are hopeless due to low bitrates of 48 kbps. I have tried an iPhone iPlayer app analogue output to the Naim front panel input jack (not USB) but it's hardly brilliant. I previously used a Sony Blu-Ray player as a feed source but the BBC have seen fit to remove all the radio feeds from the new TV iPlayer app. The BBC broadcast these repeats online in seemingly high quality and yet it seems hard to pipe them through a Naim system at the quality intended.  What do other people do?

 

Andrew

Posted on: 22 January 2015 by ChrisSU

Sometimes technology moves forwards, and sometimes it doesn't. In this case, unfortunately, it's the latter. I'd say a NAT01 and a decent cassette deck would be your best bet.

Posted on: 22 January 2015 by Dave***t
Do you have any other iPlayer capable devices? If so, do any if them have a digital out?

I use iPlayer on an Xbox, with an optical lead from the TV to my qute. I tend to listen to radio 4 programmes, so I'm not sure how music would sound, but worth a try if you have a suitable contraption lying around.
Posted on: 22 January 2015 by john-h

For best quality concerts etc. I play back the programme using iPlayer on my PC and record to disc.  Then save to a usb stick in flac or wav for playback on my Qute.

Posted on: 24 January 2015 by Andrew Lea

Thanks all for your observations. The route of playing the programme on the PC, recording it via 'Replay' and then downloading it to USB stick is actually what i currently do. But it requires several steps to set up and rather defeats the idea of 'play on demand'! Although it does provide a permanent copy for all time, which can be useful.

 

What I think is most annoying is that the Naim iRadio does usually offer the programmes of interest as so-called podcasts but the music quality is so poor that they are virtually unlistenable. Also, they are poorly managed and often do silly things like cut off before the end of the performance etc. It seems bizarre to me that a company like Naim whose whole USP is high end audio, and offers a much appreciated 320 kbs AAC live stream on Radio 3, can allow such poor quality in its streamed podcast 'listen again' offerings.

 

I wonder if this is something that Naim ever plan to address?

 

Andrew