DAB's sound quality slaughtered by The Guardian

9th October 2006

The Guardian newspaper has run an article that severely criticises DAB's sound quality, and it is therefore one of only two articles in national newspapers I've seen to date that have accurately reflected the sound quality of DAB in the UK – the other article that was very critical of the audio quality on DAB was in the Sunday Times Doors section.

In the print version of the paper, it was the featured article on the front page of the main paper, and the article was on the front page of the Media section of the paper.

Unfortunately, the Mediaguardian requires people to register to view the article, so for those of you that don't want to register, I've copied the article text below (ignore the usual nonsense spouted by the person from the DRDB, they're the marketing arm of DAB in the UK, so it's basically their job to spin everything in the most positive light possible):

DAB gets a poor reception

Millions have been spent on the digital radio revolution but listeners
still complain that the quality is poor. So what's wrong with the
technology, asks Bobbie Johnson

Monday October 9, 2006
The Guardian

When Radio 3 cut the quality of its digital radio broadcasts this
summer, it caused uproar among its usually staid listeners. "Some
instruments sounded distorted," complained one fan on the website
Friends of Radio 3, an informal pressure group. "Unlistenable unless
through a table radio," raged another. "Rubbish", "miserable" and
"dreadful" were some of the more polite assessments. Last month, after a
series of complaints, BBC director of radio and music Jenny Abramsky
reversed the move to permanently lop off nearly 20% of Radio 3's
bandwidth to make room for Radio 5 Live spin-off Sports Extra, which
broadcasts for just a few hours each week.

"Following further tests on the new encoding equipment, we have decided
to return to the previous arrangements which were in place for nearly
four years," she said.

The rise of digital radio over the past few years has been one of the
most powerful trends in the industry. More than half of the country
listens digitally at least some of the time, with 30% of the population
using DAB radios rather than TV or the internet. This in turn has driven
a huge rise in the number of stations. Millions of pounds have been
spent on the process, led by the BBC but supported also by the
commercial radio industry, which is desperate to improve its ailing
revenue base.

But for all of digital's positive press, critics are increasingly
questioning the underlying technology. The problem? Sound quality.

In the beginning, the champions of DAB boasted it would provide "CD
quality" sound. But with broadcasters clamouring for space on the
digital airwaves, the only way to pack more in is to reduce the
broadcast quality of others. While this has not proved a huge problem
for speech-based programming, which does not require such high
bandwidth, the apparent demand for new channels has led to significant
cutbacks for leading music stations. The digital versions of Radio 1 and
2, for example, now broadcast at significantly lower rates than when
they launched - and now stream at only slightly over 60% of what audio
engineers (including the authors of a BBC report first drawn up in 1994)
deem "CD quality". If you can get good FM reception, it often provides
better quality than DAB. This is one reason why countries including
Sweden, the Netherlands and Australia are choosing not to roll out their
own DAB networks - preferring to investigate newer technologies that may
prove better. It is also the reason why the British government has
postponed indefinitely any decision about whether to follow the digital
television lead and end analogue radio broadcasts completely.

Yet the supertanker ploughs on. Despite the doubts, last month the BBC
signed a new £1.8bn deal with transmission technology specialist Arqiva,
which will fund further rollout of Britain's digital TV network - and
the installation of a further 160 digital radio transmitters.
Enthusiasts argue that if DAB were as problematic as some claim, nobody
would ever pump so much money into the network. Not true, say
detractors: it is an old system with serious problems.

The problem is recognised by the UK's Digital Radio Development Board.
"Everybody has a view and an opinion," says Ian Dickins, the chief
executive of the DRDB. "But if you offer digital radio and all you get
when you turn it on are the same stations, that's not an attractive
proposition. It's an issue of the number of services versus the quality
of services."

Although the positive aspects of digital radio are legion, as anyone who
struggles to get decent FM or AM reception can testify, the discrepancy
between the common perception - that it provides better radio, and more
of it - and the reality has not gone unnoticed. The BBC has been
lobbying Ofcom to allocate more spectrum space for digital radio, which
could potentially be used to improve audio quality.

Even radio stations have been caught up by the hype. In one case the
Advertising Standards Authority judged that Jazz FM, which is owned by
the Guardian Media Group, had mistakenly claimed that its digital option
offered listeners CD-quality sound. "While we recognised that it is
possible to transmit services at bit rates sufficiently high for most
listeners to equate with CD quality," said the adjudication,
"broadcasters can choose to transmit at lower bit rates or in mono."

In fact, the ASA statement does not go far enough - not only can
broadcasters opt for lower quality, they actively choose to. Are there
better options? Possibly. Although British rollout is ahead of the rest
of the world, different digital radio systems can offer true CD-quality
programming. Some recent developments even include providing surround
sound over the air - a move that would be highly unlikely in the UK,
since any station choosing it would need five times the maximum space
that single channels are allocated on British radio.

Other options include Digital Radio Mondial, which fills the AM spectrum
and is very robust. At higher bandwidths, DRM can deliver CD-quality
sound, and although no manufacturer currently builds compatible radio
sets, it has already drawn some fans. Australian authorities are now
reserving space for DRM broadcasting, and Ofcom has been consulting on
whether it should follow suit.

South Korea, which often leads the way in technological terms, has been
quick to adopt a different standard called Digital Multimedia Broadcast,
which is related to DAB but also allows for video broadcasting. Its
makers say it insulates the medium against future developments, rather
than relying on heavy investment in several separate systems for audio
and video. "Consumers are very comfortable with the technology as it
stands," says Dickins. "That suggests the quality is perfectly
acceptable."

Ultimately, it may simply be that Britain is already too far along the
DAB track to consider other options without embarrassment. But even if
music fans are being railroaded into outmoded technologies, they want to
make sure the radio that we do have is good enough to listen to.

"Some people are bound to use DAB because they can't get analogue radio.
But lots of people who have a genuine choice are still opting for FM,"
says Sarah Spilsbury, the coordinator of Friends of Radio 3. "But we
listen, we hear, and we don't like."