Your proposal would be more acceptable. the more pressure brought to bear might change the whole scenario and a change of government might bring a reprieve. But what colour of government? That is the question. I doubt that their will be very much in it cometh the day. Overly strong majorities are never a heathy thing. It is a little while since I have looked into things.

Funnily enough, I was looking at buying a DAB set. I usually read around things that I am interested in to gain insight. I was more than alarmed when I did. I had not fixed my equipment because I just guess that it would become redundant and I also thought wrongly that DAB would be wonderful because that is how it is sold. I should have been a little weary because I remember the horror of CD when it was first introduced and how poor it was when compared to some of the very best in vinyl reproduction. I have a Linn Sondek LP12 which was at that time one of the very best record decks available. Analogue was of a high order in the more expensive ranges and CD just could not come anywhere near, no matter what the manufacturers claimed. Again the bit rate sampling was to low for good reproduction but if one was only used to having a radiogram or a Dancet then it was very impressive and bight. Today they have not improved on the number of bits but have cleaned them up with higher quality innards and power supplies.

Enjoy your Sondek LP12, such a melodic device. I have fond memories of ownership.

Your proposal would be more acceptable. the more pressure brought to bear might change the whole scenario and a change of government might bring a reprieve. But what colour of government? That is the question. I doubt that their will be very much in it cometh the day. Overly strong majorities are never a heathy thing. It is a little while since I have looked into things.

Funnily enough, I was looking at buying a DAB set. I usually read around things that I am interested in to gain insight. I was more than alarmed when I did. I had not fixed my equipment because I just guess that it would become redundant and I also thought wrongly that DAB would be wonderful because that is how it is sold. I should have been a little weary because I remember the horror of CD when it was first introduced and how poor it was when compared to some of the very best in vinyl reproduction. I have a Linn Sondek LP12 which was at that time one of the very best record decks available. Analogue was of a high order in the more expensive ranges and CD just could not come anywhere near, no matter what the manufacturers claimed. Again the bit rate sampling was to low for good reproduction but if one was only used to having a radiogram or a Dancet then it was very impressive and bight. Today they have not improved on the number of bits but have cleaned them up with higher quality innards and power supplies.

Bit rate is generally immaterial for in-car use, road noise etc. reduces any affordable in-car radio to far less than Hi-Fi. Advantage of DAB is clarity of spoken word, particularly for Radio 5 which is not available on FM, and the host of programs only transmitted on DAB. It just seems a very luddite approach by Skoda not to offer a DAB radio as an extra cost option, clearly the technology exists in the VW group so it is just contrary not to offer it. Reminds me of how long it took the car industry to accept the common usage of MP3 players and I still don't think they have "got it" that CD players are rapidly going the way of the 8 Track for in-car entertainment!

Well Jonathan,

For some sorts of bang bang make you deaf music this will not be a problem because it is rubbish anyway but for listeners of higher quality music such as classical, jazz, Jules Holland sort of stuff and so on, the low quality will be very noticeable. Even for listeners of the spoken word.

I think I have to take issue with you there Anthony. To refer to other people musical taste as ‘rubbish’ is rather patronising. I listen to Radio 3 a lot and have been lucky enough to be involved in many recordings for them over the last 27 years (18 years of which were spent as a staff Sound Engineer at the Beeb), but I also have recorded all night raves for Radio 1 and whilst this is not my cup of tea, it is some peoples. I recently helped on a Radio 3 recording at the Huddersfield Contemporary music festival and it would be just as easy to refer to this as ‘rubbish’, but many (well a few) people genuinely consider this as quality music. I used to take offence (as did most of my department) with the fact that Radio 3 referred to it’s self as Serious Music. I do personally think Jools Holland has many great bands on it, but you can not say he is better than some bang band music, only that you prefer it to the bang bang stuff. The less apparent subtleties of bang bang music may lead many to assume it is of technically low standard, but this would be unfair in most cases. Besides, Radio 3 music has some fairy dust sprinkled on it (reverb being a main culprit).

It should also be noted that many/most HiFi mags are more worthless than What Car magazine is to the petrol head. A certain well known blind reviewer once panned a live Radio 3 show I had worked on. He had a man to spot the mics that we used at the Free Trade Hall and wrote a review based on what he thought he heard at home on his audiophile system, coupled with what mics his spy informed him that we used. His review may well have been right if we had used the mics he claimed, but sadly the ‘spotter’ picked on the ‘house’ mics and missed out main and spaced pair that we actually used. The man is a charlatan in my (and my professional Sound Colleagues) opinion and yet revered in the HiFi magazine world. Goes to show, thems that can, do. Thems that can't, reveiw.

Edited 20 December, 200916 yr by Lady Elanore

I spoke to a guy from a government quango dealing with DAB. I asked him about radios in cars and lots of other questions. He told me that their was a reluctance from some manufacturers both auto and radio to go to far in development and fitting etc because their is no World wide standard of agreement for broadcasting DAB, in fact he said their was no EU standard and at that time the GB government had not really decided what it was going to do. It was very much in turmoil He said he had countless people ringing him asking questions for which he had no answers. That was a little while ago but it might be why manufacturers are not fitting them wholesale to all vehicles or it could just be meanness.