BBC Radio 3 Starts FLAC streaming trial

Perhaps you should look further down the page....

[@mention:39439408762366587] Thanks for this, It was news to me and took about 5m to start listening (AirPlay). I'm looking forward to some live concerts.

[@mention:4804681823084713] I read down. I suppose the only thing is to vote for it . Being very old indeed, I remember when the BBC first broadcast stereo - you needed two similar radio sets tuned to different MW stations. It was quite effective and did eventually become permanent.

david

[@mention:4804681823084713] Naim developed closer ties to the BBC as a result of the switch to DASH. Together with vTuner, Naim would be an ideal partner for the BBC to actively engage in the project. I would have thought it unlikely that browser based listeners would be enough to convince to go ahead wil a full rollout. 

I think HH meant look down the Streaming Audio page. You would have found this:

https://forums.naimaudio.com/to...running-a-flac-trail

Ahh. That makes more sense :-) 

Has anyone managed to get this working through a Naim product with a DAC, ie by digital connection from a PC to a digital input on a streamer or Naim DAC?

A friend tried it using Firefox 52 on his PC as instructed and used a USB to SP/DIF converter at the PC end connected to a digital input on his NDX, but he said it sounded "low res and clicky".

The simplest approach might be to use a Dragonfly Red USB DAC or similar and connect to the Naim unit using analogue.  Has anyone tried that?

best

David

[@mention:46478588067265635] For what it's worth, I'm listening via Firefox on iMac sent via AirPlay to a Mu-so (i.e. using the Mu-so DAC) and it sounds pretty good, definitely not "low-res and clicky". I'm hoping to do an AB vs the normal HD sound on a live concert before the trial ends in 15 days

I would like the BBC to at least broadcast this via the I-radio player and ideally internet radio. Seems a bit wasted via website only as I guess few have pic connected to hifi. Mind Radio 3 still sounds better through FM tuner...

DavidS posted:

[@mention:46478588067265635] For what it's worth, I'm listening via Firefox on iMac sent via AirPlay to a Mu-so (i.e. using the Mu-so DAC) and it sounds pretty good, definitely not "low-res and clicky". I'm hoping to do an AB vs the normal HD sound on a live concert before the trial ends in 15 days

Thanks for the info. Very interesting. AirPlay isn't going to work for me though as my SU pre-dates Bluetooth.

Best

David

Well there didn't seem to be a lot going on here with this FLAC trial and a friend and I have tried unsuccessfully to connect from a PC to a digital input on a Naim device.

I tried connecting the audio output of my Thinkpad to an analogue input of my SuperUniti and the sound was very clean and attractive, but lacked bass.  I suspect this is a consequence of an internal high pass filter designed to keep the bass away from the laptop's internal speakers.

So I tried my fallback idea which was to buy a Dragonfly Red USB DAC and connect the analogue audio from that to the SuperUniti analogue input.  I had to go into the sound setup of the PC to select the right sample rate (48 kHz). But other than that it is totally plug and play.

Anyway the result is that I am hearing incredibly clean, spacious and delightful sound.  To me it sounds altogether better than the BBC 3HD iRadio stream. And there is inky blackness in there too.  There's only eight days left of the trial. I hope they bring it back for the Proms.

Is there no-one else with a suitable DAC to give this a try? We should encourage the BBC to do these things.

best

David

I had a brief go at this, using a low-spec Dell laptop. I tried it into a Muso Qb listening to Radio 3, using Bluetooth to connect. I was pleasantly surprised by the sound quality, I'd say that even with the BT connection, it outperformed the Radio 3 IRadio stream, more depth to the strings and the voices sounded better (a bit of a lunchtime concert for the vocals, and a string piece).

I might try it into the NDX, again via BT, tonight.

I did play some of the FLAC trial from laptop via Bluetooth into NDX, I was happily impressed. I started listening just as the Beeb started a live performance of 3 of Handel's Chandos Anthems, I loved the music. I was just planning to listen for a few minutes to try the quality, but was gripped and listened to the whole concert. After that I did a bit of comparison between the IRadio stream and the FLAC, even using the non-ideal sorce and Bluetooth, I felt a significant improvement from the FLAC stream. Basically just better, less thin, more convinvcing sound quality, more PRaT.

Good news is that the site says there's a second phase of the trial due during the Proms, looking forward to that, since I left London 9 years ago I've found the Proms left a big gap in my music listening life.

Eoink posted:

... a live performance of 3 of Handel's Chandos Anthems, I loved the music. ..

Its even more fun to sing them. Really rewarding music.

That's good news about the Proms trial. As far as I remember, that is when Radio 3 HD 320K started and then became permanent.

Ardbeg10y posted:

Eoink posted:

... a live performance of 3 of Handel's Chandos Anthems, I loved the music. ..

Its even more fun to sing them. Really rewarding music.

Not if I'm doing the singing, that's more a health hazard for anyone near me.

Eoink posted:

Ardbeg10y posted:

Eoink posted:

... a live performance of 3 of Handel's Chandos Anthems, I loved the music. ..

Its even more fun to sing them. Really rewarding music.

Not if I'm doing the singing, that's more a health hazard for anyone near me.

Reminds me of a colleague of mine. He said that his musicteacher at high school told him that he only was allowed to sing in case of self-defense!

Running Radio3 FLAC from Squeezebox Touch into NDS as DAC. Sounds good. Looking forward to Proms. 

Just tried this through the digital output from my Mac Mini into SU. Sounded very good. I did no comparisons but find it difficult to believe that it's inferior to FM (as someone above suggested), given that any FM transmission involves multiple D to A and A to D conversions, and very limited dynamic range. But, chacun a son gout.

I think the FLAC stream decoded as I described before in this thread sounds better than the FM feed in my SuperUniti.

best

David

I'm in the Netherlands and I doubt if this can be listened to outside the UK, but I thought this might be of interest to the readers of this thread:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2...gh-quality-flac-dash

I think you can get it in the Netherlands in fact. But you need to get a shift on because the trial has only one day left to run.....

best

David