3 replies to this topic

[GlenR]

Just read an article on the SMH site about digital radio. I was surprised by this statement:

Three years after launch, you'll find a digital radio in about one in 10 Australian homes. While that doesn't compare with how quickly we took to smartphones, it's a faster take-up rate than many previous technological advances, including VCRs, DVD players and digital television.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.a...l#ixzz1u85qGN9P

I don't know anyone who is actually using digital radio. Is it just me who is completely underwhelmed by it? Radio is the background noise in my life. Something you put on when you want the silence broken but don't want to actively listen. If I want to actually sit down and listen to music, I have my CD/MP3 collection. Aside from that there is on;y the news, and frankly I don't think I need digital high-quality to listen to the news bulletins, so I haven't put any time, effort or money into digital radio at all.

So, am I the only one thinking like this? Am I one of Australia's luddites? Have I missed something?

[skypilot]

I have a digital radio and love it! I listen to the ABC in Canberra and the thing I like most is that they do not have the sport on the local station - that has moved to the Grandstand channel during the sports time slots - wonderful!. (I hate with a passion, sport on the radio!)

The other thing I love with my digital radio (Grundig TRIO http://www.grundig.n...pid=1072&tid=12 ) is it has both WIFI and Ethernet connection. I can listen to the music on my media centre over the WIFI and I can listen to Internet radio (Barock radio - yes it is call Barock - classical music) with a sleep timer feature too. It also has two alarm clocks in it too. I love it, did I say that before?

I also have a digital radio / TV tuner usb stick (Kaiser Baas) on my media centre so I can have the radio (and extra TV tuner) on without having another device switched on - the MC is usually on for most of the time.

Edited by skypilot, 06 May 2012 - 04:39 PM.

[DDH]

I bought a digital radio alarm clock, really got sick of waking up to static.

Other than that, when things die through natural cuases I will certainly go looking for digital, crystal clear all the time.

[logifuse]

I've been in from the word go. For me it was for 2 reasons:

1 - 702 ABC Sydney. I've made tuned loop antennae for AM reception & had got AM to the absolute best it could be, but even low bit-rate digital radio blows it away.

2 - Sport. I went with a radio that has live pause (Pure One Classic) so that I could perfectly sync it to the TV. I had previously managed this with AM, analogue inputs & outputs on my sound card, & some software. Was troublesome & didn't sound great. Now it's simple & sounds excellent. The only downside is that the ABCs approach to digital radio shifted about 18 months after launch & instead of the promised 2 or 3 concurrent games available via digital, the sport department has been given the pineapple & is limited to 1 digital station. Most galling is that ABC Extra generally sits there unused.

There are a handful of digital only stations that the commercial networks put out that are worth a bit of a listen, but the ABC essentially has the power to decide where digital radio goes. They were on the right path with making their already existing live content (sports broadcasts) all available, but then shifted to niche original programming. Fair enough to keep the local radio digital stations sports free, but making more niche channels has killed off the ability of sport to drive uptake. Plus SBS got way too much bandwidth in the original carve up between them & the ABC.

If you're a relatively heavy AM radio listener, digital is well worth it. If you hate Rabs, Gus, Mr Special & Dennis, then a digital radio with live pause is a must to enable you to listen to radio while watching.

Justin