After writing 2 paragraphs describing the audio quality on DAB, how come Internet radio only received this measly, rather sneering sentence?:
"Bit rates can be an issue, but the Avanti presented internet radio in perhaps the best quality we've yet heard from this type of unit."
I take it you're not aware that around 95 UK commercial radio stations (i.e. ones on DAB and/or FM), including most of the biggest commercial stations, are using 128 kbps WMA or MP3 for their Internet radio streams, and the BBC has recently launched 96 kbps WMA streams for its national stations that are specifically for Wi-Fi connected devices? Both 96 WMA and 128 kbps WMA or MP3 provide significantly (96k WMA) or far (128k) higher audio quality than 128 kbps DAB due to DAB's use of the 1980s-designed MP2 audio codec? There's also over 4,000 Internet radio stations on Shoutcast that use bit rates of 128 kbps or above with the MP3 or AAC+ audio codecs.
Also, in a previous review of a DAB radio that could also playback MP3 files via SD card, you claimed that DAB sounded better than MP3. Considering that MP3 is a far better audio codec than MP2, could you explain how DAB could sound better than MP3? If DAB really did sound better than MP3 files, your MP3 files must sound absolutely dire, in which case, I suggest you start encoding your MP3 files using the Lame MP3 encoder rather than whichever 1990s-vintage MP3 encoder you seem to be using at the moment, or use a bit rate higher than about 80 kbps, which is the MP3 bit rate that provides approx equivalent audio quality to 128 kbps MP2 used for DAB stations - i.e. at the bit rates that people typically use MP3 at (128 to 192 is typical, but a lot of people use higher than that today) to encode their own files, MP3 absolutely murders DAB in terms of audio quality.
Register
Internet radio vs DAB quality
After writing 2 paragraphs describing the audio quality on DAB, how come Internet radio only received this measly, rather sneering sentence?:
"Bit rates can be an issue, but the Avanti presented internet radio in perhaps the best quality we've yet heard from this type of unit."
I take it you're not aware that around 95 UK commercial radio stations (i.e. ones on DAB and/or FM), including most of the biggest commercial stations, are using 128 kbps WMA or MP3 for their Internet radio streams, and the BBC has recently launched 96 kbps WMA streams for its national stations that are specifically for Wi-Fi connected devices? Both 96 WMA and 128 kbps WMA or MP3 provide significantly (96k WMA) or far (128k) higher audio quality than 128 kbps DAB due to DAB's use of the 1980s-designed MP2 audio codec? There's also over 4,000 Internet radio stations on Shoutcast that use bit rates of 128 kbps or above with the MP3 or AAC+ audio codecs.
Also, in a previous review of a DAB radio that could also playback MP3 files via SD card, you claimed that DAB sounded better than MP3. Considering that MP3 is a far better audio codec than MP2, could you explain how DAB could sound better than MP3? If DAB really did sound better than MP3 files, your MP3 files must sound absolutely dire, in which case, I suggest you start encoding your MP3 files using the Lame MP3 encoder rather than whichever 1990s-vintage MP3 encoder you seem to be using at the moment, or use a bit rate higher than about 80 kbps, which is the MP3 bit rate that provides approx equivalent audio quality to 128 kbps MP2 used for DAB stations - i.e. at the bit rates that people typically use MP3 at (128 to 192 is typical, but a lot of people use higher than that today) to encode their own files, MP3 absolutely murders DAB in terms of audio quality.