@sktn77a is right. All of BBC Radio 3 is digital until and unless it goes into an analogue transmitter and most of it is not live!
I agree, the seemingly apparent greed that is the broadcasting companies squeezing as many channels into a bandwidth is just spoiling the very thing that DAB was supposed to bring us - better quality sound. Lots of channels ‘thin’ sound and wavering reception, ever tried listening to a digital national station on a long journey, pathetic, just greed, once again the benefits are being taken away from us listeners, no wonder FM is being prolonged as a broadcasting medium!
Indeed, BBC FM radio has for many years been in a lossy digital format. From memory I think it’s 14 bit.
But, it doesn’t have to be like that. The BBC (and other UK radio services) have chosen to send out low bandwidth/quality streams on DAB and Internet Radio.
BBC radio broadcasts are also available on digital TV either on freeview or freesat. Does anyone use these? or does anyone know if the quality is better than DAB?
I recall reading that FreeSat was the highest quality of any of the digital sound formats of BBC Radio. I think it’s true that anything is better than DAB.
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I will have to try running an optical cable from the lounge TV to the digital input of the nacn272 to give radio over digital tv a try. If the quality is not better than digital radio on the 272, that will be a disappointment.
Before you spend the money, this is a comparison of bit rates that is recent enough to maybe uptodate.
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That is a very interesting page of information. On the same site, I found out more about the digital TV bit rates.
freeview HD digital bit rates
From a technical viewpoint, using bit rates alone, from worst to best the ranking order looks like
DAB < radio over digital TV < internet radio < FM transmission to me. Digital TV audio ranks about the same as radio over digital TV. I would let me ears decide on a normal day but my left ear is bunged up with wax at the minute.
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