NEWS: Ofcom wades into DAB vs FM debate

Glad to hear that someone has officially acknowledged the problem of falling bit-rates on DAB. About time.

i'm glad they've not given a date for FM switch off, and mentioned the poor quality sound. DAB is good for extra services, but FM delivers on quality.

my local mux (Liverpool) sounds awful, like i'm listening to an 80's chrome tape on normal, after it's been left on the back seat of a car in the sun - then entered into the deck, only to have it chewed up! in irritating listen

For the record, I did not criticise DAB sound quality. Nor did I say there was a problem with falling bit-rates. What I said was that while some people in the room may not agree with the findings, Ofcom's latest research clearly shows that the vast majority of DAB owners (81%) think DAB sound quality is either good or excellent. Only 3& rated it as poor or very poor. (The figures were similar for DAB hi-fi owners). 94% of DAB listeners think that DAB sound quality is at least as good as FM (77% think it is "better" or "much better") - again similar numbers were reported by DAB hi-fi owners. As far as FM switch-off is concerned, the reasons for not making any decisions yet are to do with DAB take-up and lack of availability in cars rather than anything to do with sound quality.

For the record, I did not criticise DAB sound quality. Nor did I say there was a problem with falling bit-rates. What I said was that while some people in the room may not agree with the findings, Ofcom's latest research clearly shows that the vast majority of DAB owners (81%) think DAB sound quality is either good or excellent. Only 3& rated it as poor or very poor. (The figures were similar for DAB hi-fi owners). 94% of DAB listeners think that DAB sound quality is at least as good as FM (77% think it is "better" or "much better") - again similar numbers were reported by DAB hi-fi owners. As far as FM switch-off is concerned, the reasons for not making any decisions yet are to do with DAB take-up and lack of availability in cars rather than anything to do with sound quality.

I certainly don't believe you. You said something you now regret saying and now you're covering your back.

Anyway, you didn't say what you actually think about the sound quality on DAB, so why don't you tell us? In fact, why don't you answer a few questions:

Do you think the lower audio quality on DAB is good enough compared to the higher audio quality on FM?

Has the general public ever said in a market research survey that it wants DAB to provide lower audio quality than FM?

Do you think it is honest to rely on market research that is designed to produce the results you want to justify the use of low audio quality on DAB?

How is providing low audio quality on DAB in the best interests of radio listeners when FM obviously sounds better?

As you were part of the "strategy" team at the BBC that made the fateful decision to stick with the to-be-scrapped DAB system in the late 1990s and decided to go with the low audio quality model, do you really think that you can act dispassionately with regards to the issue of DAB's sound quality, or do you think you're as biased as the rest of the DAB industry on this issue?

Same question regarding the introduction of DAB+.

Considering that DAB lasted all of 3.5 years from when the BBC launched its first digital station to when WorldDAB decided it had to design DAB+ because the rest of the world was refusing to use the DAB system because they said it was outdated and inefficient, can you think of a more incompetent decision ever being made in the history of UK broadcasting than the adoption of DAB? After all, we're talking about replacing the ubiquitously available FM system here that has around 120m - 150m receivers in the market.

Were you seriously not aware that the AAC audio codec had been standardised in 1997 and was therefore ready and waiting to be used on DAB to provide higher audio quality than the ridiculously inefficient MP2 codec?

The BBC R&D department was extremely impressed with AAC's performance in the listening tests it carried out in 1996 and 1998, so didn't you ask the experts for advice, or did you listen to their advice and then ignore them?

Do you think that the large number of music radio stations that Ofcom has allowed to broadcast in mono on DAB is a sufficiently high number of channels for a race of 2-eared people?

Is the reduction in the minimum bit rates for stereo stations from 128 kbps to 112 kbps under your leadership intended to improve the audio quality, or degrade it?

How do you explain that the audio streams for the BBC1, BBC2, BBC3 and BBC4 TV channels are all using 256 kbps with the same MP2 codec that DAB uses, and yet you're allowing the use of 112 kbps for radio stations?

Can I presume that you think that the 55 ARD German radio stations transmitting on digital satellite using a bit rate of 320 kbps could get away with reducing their bit rates a bit?

Do you believe that one day radio stations will be able to transmit at zero bits per second with CD-quality sound due to advances in MP2 encoder technology and we will all live in a world made of chocolate and candyfloss?

As this story is generating some comment - here and elsewhere - I feel it's time to add some further background on this.

Firstly, I'm adamant - because I was there in the room, and others who were there support me on this - that Peter did say DAB sound quality wasn't good enough, and certainly wasn't the 'CD quality' some manufacturer adverts had suggested.

I'm sure this is your personal opinion, Peter, rather than OFCOM policy, but my notes show you said it, as part of a discussion after the official presentation when many in the audience were expressing their unease at falling bit-rates. You probably just didn't realise there was a journalist in the audience taking notes.

Secondly, I want to stress that - obviously unlike Mr Green above - What Hi-fi? Sound and Vision isn't anti-DAB.

Like the millions of people who've bought DAB radios, we love the choice, ease of use and potential sound quality it offers, which is why our Radio product of the year is a DAB radio (albeit one that also offers FM) and we feature DAB products in the magazine every month.

However, the falling bit-rate issue does concern us, because sound-quality is obviously crucial to us and our readers. Even the best radio you can buy (like MP3 players) will struggle to sound good if the content it's playing is highly compressed. DAB could, would and should sound better.

OFCOM says it can't influence the bit-rates at which the BBC broadcasts, but it does impose minimum quality standards on commercial stations - it will be interesting to find out what those levels are, and whether any action is ever taken.

As for DAB+, we'll be testing the first radio able to be upgraded to that format - Pure's Siesta - very shortly.

Thanks for confirming this, Clare.

Just to clarify: I am not anti-DAB as such,. What I'm anti is the low audio quality being broadcast on DAB.

Being a DAB user I'm not too impressed by the BBCs decision to broadcast Radio3 at 192k, but  Radio1, 2,etc at 128k or less.