All posts by Peter Henderson
Below are all of Peter Henderson's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
No it isn't sharealem.
They were horrible in their heyday and they're horrible now, even with Dolby noise reduction, which compressed the sound so much they sounded better with it turned off, tape noise aside.
Add to the fact that one dirty tape would ruin your whole collection of tapes,I fail to understand the appeal.
Why mini disc didn't replace it is beyond me.
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Trevor: You can even hear the difference between DAB and FM on a portable mono radio. FM has much better sound quality.
DAB is superior to AM, even in mono, but there's no way it comes close to FM unless the bit rate is very high.
We should ask ourselves why the BBC have Radio 3 at 192 kbps.
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To be honest, I'd rather have fewer stations on DAB at higher bit rates and in stereo, than a whole pile at lower bit rates and in mono.
Music stations in mono at low bit rates totally defeats the purpose of DAB.
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KMJ: Yes, undoubtedly. On a Pure Move 400D FM sounds warmer and more mellow than DAB.
The difference is there and very obvious.
The same can be said for every DAB/FM portable that I've owned.
In the area that I live in FM reception is not marred by hiss, buzzing, or whining in the background.
I've never been to Derby KMJ, but in the many towns and cities I've visited in the UK I've never encountered any of these adverse effects on FM. .
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Re cassette tapes. I forgot to mention having to clean the tape heads and pinch roller with iso propyl alcohol and cotton buds from the local chemist, and having to demagnetize the heads periodically with a head demagnetizer.
HiFi it definitely wasn't.
It was a shame about mini disc, which was a great portable music medium.
I notice CD recorders and recordable music CDs have also gone, which is a shame too as all computers are in effect CD recorders. The results I've obtained using a computer as a CD recorder isn't that far off a dedicated CD recorder.
What most people don't realise is that MP3 quality is governed by the bit rate. CDs ripped using the lossless modes such as WMA, W.A.V. or Monkey's Audio are very good indeed, but they take up a lot of memory, unfortunately. I can live with MP3s at 320 kbps, just about.
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The general public haven't a clue about what sound quality means with regard to DAB Trevor.
Ask anyone what bitrates and compression mean and they'll look at you blankly.
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Trevor: What percentage of the general public do you think know what bitrates the various DAB stations broadcast at and whether or not they're in stereo ? Very few I would imagine, and I'm not trying to be insulting. That is the nature of things.
Heck, most DAB radios don't even display this information these days, so there's absolutely no way of knowing.
and how many are even aware that the rest of the world is using DAB+, and that if this is adopted by the UK their CD sound quality DAB radio will be obsolete ?
Come on Trevor. Personally, I think it's an insult to the intelligence of the general listening public that DAB only radios are still being sold in the UK. DAB+ is probably inevitable at some point, whether Ofcom like it or not.
For example, I cannot understand why Roberts have DAB+ on their European versions but not on their UK models (even via a software update).
At this moment in time, the general public should be made aware that a DAB radio will not work if the UK switch to DAB+.
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and you can pick up a DAB+ radio for £50 or less these days, so there's no excuse.
At this point no one in the UK should be buying a DAB only radio, whether it's a cheap model or not.
That most people are totally oblivious to this fact is a travesty.
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and why doesn't Ofcom and D Love promote this fact in their DAB advertising campaign ?
I dunno.
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Wednesday 18 September 2013 1:42AM
I gather analogue cassette tapes are also making a comeback.
Yuk.
They should've been put to bed years ago in favour of mini disc, which sadly appears to have died the death.
I find the resurgence of cassette tapes really, really strange. Mini disc was far better. Why it failed is beyond me.
MP3 I suppose.