DAB's not become commonplace really, and likely never will. I don't personally own a single thing that can recieve it! It's an outdated standard anyway, barely any other country's gone with it.
I think FM and DAB will sit alongside each other for a long time to come. Most new radios sold now have DAB. Obviously the service you get depends where you are, it's going to be more popular in the bigger cities where there is more choice.
Many people however will stick to listening to the same station day in day out and if that's their local Heart clone on FM they're not going to be incentiveised to get a DAB radio, whereas I bought a radio about ten years ago for the office that happened to have DAB, and over time discovered the new stations. Now I'm a regular 6music listener, and if I want to listen to a different station that's also on FM I'll still listen on DAB because it's easier to tune to that way.
Unless we can get to a point where mobile data is unlimited as standard with the capability to do that, DAB is the only real alternative for me if I listen to radio. Years ago, I'd stick a personal radio by the window so I could listen to a medium wave station, now in London, I just stick a small DAB radio in my pocket and works perfectly fine.
There will always be some rural areas of the country where AM and LW will be the only viable alternative while outdoors, yet DAB and DAB+ despite the pitfalls offer more choice than the generic services on FM.
Indoors is another story, where I use the internet, Freeview or a 13 year old kitchen DAB radio.
Unless something drastic happens, radio and TV over the Internet is a no go in rural places like the Lakes (speaking as a regular visitor). BT can't even be bothered to get their payphones to work in places where there's no mobile signal.
DAB's not become commonplace really, and likely never will. I don't personally own a single thing that can recieve it! It's an outdated standard anyway, barely any other country's gone with it.
It's the most popular system for digital radio with 30 countries having adopted it. The US and Korea have different systems and as far as I can see the other countries haven't adopted a system yet.
It is outdated, though DAB+ has updated it,but the problem is with consumer formats like that is that you can't chop and change every few years because people have to go out and buy receivers.
DAB sets are far more common than you think. It accounts for 35% of radio listening (compared with 46% for FM/AM. They're included in all but the cheapest radio sets and increasingly in cars.
I think it's here to stay,at least until a convenient and cheap way of broadcasting radio via the internet is agreed and rolled out. It's inconceivable that radio will stay analogue forever, problem is if the UK suddenly decades to ditch DAB for something else it will annoy all those who have invested in DAB and 'digital radio' of whatever format will be finished in the publics eye
Last edited by Inspector Sands on 26 July 2016 10:11am
How many of those 30 countries are using DAB+ rather than DAB? The list on wikipedia seems to list countries that use DAB+ as well even though they aren't using the outdated MP2 system.
DAB's not become commonplace really, and likely never will. I don't personally own a single thing that can recieve it! It's an outdated standard anyway, barely any other country's gone with it.
Not sure I agree. My parents and my in-laws have DAB or DAB/IP radios, I have more than one (bathroom, kitchen, main bedroom). I own a couple of analogue only radios - but they are now relegated to spare room/garage duties.
Main listening is to the online 320k AAC streams in the living room via Kodi through the amp (probably the highest quality source available) - but DAB does everywhere else.
I just can't be bothered with 128k joint stereo MP2 (or indeed the several stations that are in mono), it's trash, vastly inferior to FM, don't see the point in taking about three step backwards in audio quality.
I'm sure it's fine for the people who watch 16:9 cropped to 4:3 then stretched to 16:9 again, but it's not for me.
I don't tend to think the sound quality of the BBC stations at 128k is that bad to my ears. The worst sound quality I've heard from DAB is when Absolute Radio was 112k joint stereo. It's now at 80k mono which is actually preferable.
Most people are listening to the radio through mono sets, or through stereo sets but not actually sitting in a place where they can hear the stereo image. So, for most situations, broadcasting in mono is fine if an annoyingly backwards step technology wise. The one place where this thinking fails of course is when listening in-car, where a stereo broadcast is noticeably better and lower bitrates can be discerned more easily.
For the average consumer, which isn't us lot, the simplicity of DAB is the winner, along with extra choice. No need to remember frequency, searching by station name is as difficult as it gets for most after an autotune.
The local DAB rollout has helped to improve reception. For example, BBC Surrey can be heard in the north west of the of county is a lot better than previously where the FM service broacasting from Guildford is patchy and prone to pirate radio interference from London.
Even in the capital, DAB reception is largely rock solid and not prone to interference. As for the supposed better sound quality on FM, there's over compression on commercial stations and hiss in the background.
For audio quality, the best is the 320kbps AAC+ BBC streams rather than FM.
Radio like television is multi-platform with DAB, FM, AM and online all playing a part in distribution.