Last Gasp For DAB?

I settled down with my copy of Resolution just as Rick Wakeman opened his show on Planet Rock. John Watkinson's piece on DAB Digital Radio had me cheering to the rafters I don’t have.

I have been a DAB user (make it sound like drug abuse for attention-seeking purposes) since the launch of BBC7. Go back to a music channel and I feel the need to keep turning it down. A shame as Uncle Rick will play some classic track that calls for air-keyboarding.

Take the stance, bang out those block chords in thin air and lean to whatever side the Fender Rhodes was mixed to. Sway with the pan-pots. You would if there was a stereo image to sway to...

Let's make up some jargon to impress the suits that market DAB now. I’ve come up with low-resolution event-based mono where if something is loud enough on one side, DAB turns that side up a bit to lift it out of the mush that is 'digital quality sound'.

We were promised more choice but the accountants chose to close the stations down. What I'm left with is the national stations and my choice extension is BBC7 and Planet Rock. The Rock played loud is a dreary experience with its layer of digital artefacts killing the music we loved so I tend to turn it down.

Listening to BBC7, there is a part of me that knows the programmes first heard on FM in the Sixties on Dad's radiogram sounded better than they do now on DAB. Where is the progress?

DAB can be saved with better codecs and more programme choice. What is annoying me is the industry telling me it's great when it is not as this listener goes back to FM whenever he can to reduce the assault on his hearing. I'm used to technology failing to deliver; I just don't like being lied to.

Anyway, you can ignore the above. Cloud has just come in rendering DAB reception so bubbly its switch-off time. Sorry, Rick. Thank you, John...

Previously On The Listener's Guide

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73 de Bob Ellis - G8YQL