LBC launches on DAB outside of London

8th September 2006

London-based speech station LBC has expanded to cover much of England by launching on all of the MXR regional DAB multiplexes on 1st September. Unfortunately, LBC is transmitting at just 48 kbps, and its audio quality is terrible. Its using the 'LSF' (low sampling frequency) mode, which only allows audio frequencies up to approximately 11 kHz to be encoded. LSF mode has to be used when bit rates as low as 48 kbps are being used — 48 kbps is an incredibly low bit rate for the MP2 codec, which was designed to be used at high bit rate, and 48 kbps mono wouldn't be a problem with modern codecs, such as AAC+.

It's amusing to see a page on the LBC website trying to suggest that DAB compared to FM is analogous to modern mobile phones compared to the old mobiles the size of a brick. Although FM is obviously older technology than DAB, FM sounds miles better than DAB, and the DAB system was actually designed in the late 1980s, which was exactly when mobile phones were the size of a brick.