Car Radios

Knowing you, I would imagine you would be listening to Classic Rock Digital (formerly Triple M Classic Rock Digital) quite a lot while travelling around Brisbane, along with 4MMM & Rebel. :wink:

If I was up in Brisbane for a visit & had a car that has DAB+, I would be dividing my listening time between FM (mainly Rebel, Breeze & River) & DAB+. Meanwhile, in most other capital cities, I would be spending a bit more time on DAB+, as commercial FM stations within its metro markets (with the exception of Smooth in the case of Sydney & Melbourne), as well as from nearby fringe markets (with the exception of Star 104.5 from the Central Coast in the case of Sydney) are not as good IMO.

Congratulations on the Lancer with DAB. Itā€™s great they have them standard. I got a new Focus in January and Iā€™ve been really impressed with the (Sony) DAB. As you say, in terms of coverage itā€™s on par with the FMs. Maybe even slightly better heading north. Perfect reception until the Caloundra exit where it drops out completely. Sound quality generally great although it does vary station to station. Smooth and More sound on par with FM, but The 80s and The 90s do sound weaker and a bit trebley. Iā€™ve been slightly less impressed with the FM in terms of DX. Breeze and Rebel are a bit scratchy around Brisbane where they werenā€™t in my last car. But the DAB makes up for it - Iā€™m on that 90% of the time. I only go to FM for Rebel, Breeze, River and 99.7

Good to hear the Lancer DAB works well. I understand the new Civic has DAB in the upper models. Gradually itā€™s happening. Just need to get Hyundai or Mazda onboard and itā€™ll become standard.

Same goes for Subaru, in which my parents bought the new Forester almost a year ago, which of course doesnā€™t have DAB+, but at least has RDS on FM.

Yes, that may well be the case of the DAB+ sound quality.

It has been confirmed by Austereo, elsewhere (to others in the industry), that Triple M Classic Rock is broadcast using Parametric Stereo, when they were asked why some receivers show it as a single channel.

Parametric Stereo saves on transmitted bitrates, because the audio & stereo is faked, thus poor quality sound.

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Yeah thatā€™s not the radios fault, thatā€™s just whatā€™s transmitted. Low bitrate crap which is why manufacturers have been reluctant to put it in their cars.

FM sounds more bassy because of the processing which isnt the same on dab.

Yep, figured it was likely the audio source rather than the system.

That does get you thinking though. I know many here can vouch for the effort FM stations in particular put (or at least historically put) into making their audio sound good and loud, with all the processing and the like. Why is there such an acceptance of much poorer audio now in the age of digital? Is it just a low care factor in this digital day and age, or have the demands on number of stations simply forced their hands?

just want to give everyone a heads up. i brought a Kenwood KDC-BT39DAB tuner from JB HiFi to replace a JVC DAB head unit i had in my car due to some issues with the JVC.

It was a relatively simple install job, especially as i already had a DAB unit in the car so i didnā€™t even bother installing the antenna that came with it - i used the JVC one. The Mic for the inbuilt bluetooth was a bit more difficult, but not too bad. I used the universal wiring loom which made things easy as well.

i got it in and before i put the dash back together i thought iā€™d try it out. first USB - No issues, worked fine. next was FM - also no issues. AM - bad reception, static and muffled. could have been because i was in the garage. than DAB. 9A - fine. 9B - Fine. 9C - No Signal. this is an issue

after some trouble shooting i determined it was the head uint. this was done by swapping out the unit for the old JVC which got 9C fine. went back to JB who told me to call kenwood. they had never seen this issue.

JB swapped it over. i installed it in the carpark and had the same issue. i went home and pulled off the JVC antenna and put on the kenwood one. no change.

i put the JVC back in and called JB and gave a heads up i was coming in for a refund which was given.

my conclusion as that it is a single din trying to do too much and it is producing large amounts of RF noise drowining out AM and 9C

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Thatā€™s interesting.

I wonder if 9C would have been OK in the Kenwood out of the garage?

it wasnā€™t. whilst this was going on i went to the local KFC for lunch. whilst in the carpark i tried again and got nothing than as well.

when i got the second one i did the install in the carpark at JB which is an outdoor carpark and got nothing there as well

On dab radio reception, I found that usb cigarette lighters can interfere with dab radio in marginal areas. I found one from the old dicksmith that does not have any issues with impacting reception. Its difficult to test. You need to go for a drive to test it, its really trial and error.

I test drove 2 new cars today

Ford Focus Sport - very good sound for itā€™s price ($29,500 drive away).
FM Radio reception not bad, but not as good as my 2008 Calais sedan

Honda Civic VTi-L - only OK sound ($32,000 drive away) and only OK reception, not as good as the Focus.
The reception is probably down to the shark fin antenna, which in my opinion donā€™t perform as well as the horse whip antennas.

I also had a quick listen to the 10 speaker unit in the Civic RS - much better sound than VTi-L, better than the Focus as wellā€¦ But at $36k drive away, it would want to sound goodā€¦ didnā€™t really get to test reception, but I would think it would be the same as the lower spec VTi-L.

RDS detection in both cars seemed fine thoughā€¦ even on Central Coast stations.

No chance of testing out DAB though, not out here in the sticks in Newcastle :grinning:

I bought the Ford Focus Sport - absolutely flawless sound on DAB. Best Iā€™ve heard in a car. The FM isnā€™t quite as good on ā€œfringeā€ stations but otherwise a great Sony unit. And actually the car itself is fantastic to drive - very under-rated overall. The voice command sat nav is great too! Also you could talk them down a bit from $29,500 Iā€™m sure - I got mine for less than that :slight_smile:

Thanks for the reply!

Iā€™m sure I could get it for lessā€¦

I was reading up on the Sync 2 voice recognition for radio controls, and was intrigued to discover that you can tell it go to a specific frequency eg tap the ā€œVoiceā€ button on the steering wheel and say ā€œFM 90.5ā€ and in your case, it would go straight to REBEL. Hopefully the voice control works well for radio and music too.

The only thing that concerns me is the warranty. Ford has an average reputation. Though the focus sounds like a great car. It has a dab radio which is a big plus for me.

See article below. I think the transmission should no longer have an issue, just the companyā€™s reputation is my concern if I am unlucky.

http://www.motoring.com.au/ford-in-court-for-powershift-class-action-102932/

The Powershift issue hasnā€™t put me off ā€¦ The current LZ series model has a conventional auto, and has been on the market for close to 12 months, and in other motoring threads on other forums, there donā€™t seem to any significant issues reported as yet.

It gets a good review in Wheels and from others as well.

Iā€™ve just upgraded to a 2009 Toyota Yaris,it has one of those shark fin aerials on the back .The actual aerial has been unscrewed from the fitting so FM reception isnā€™t too good now.I canā€™t listen to The Breeze or 99.7 from Redcliffe without a proper aerial.Iā€™ll contact the dealer later on today ,they must have removed it and forgot to put it back on .

Yes the Sync works for everything - Sat Nav, changing radio stations by saying frequency. Itā€™s really quite remarkable.

The power shift auto is not an issue as the current model has a new conventional auto that works a treat. As for warranty, itā€™s 3 years but you can extend it with the dealer for a few hundred dollars.

As for reputation, all cars have issues. Toyota and Mitsubishi just had massive recalls. I drove the Corolla - no DAB radio and a very inferior driving experience IMHO.

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Thanks Brian and Radiohead. Happy to hear you had no issues. Just out interest did you test drive an i30 when you were looking?

No, just the Civic and Focus.

Only other car I think I would consider is the updated Mazda3, which is out next month.

Right now, I am leaning towards the Focus. Another question there is whether to get the current model with the Sync2 infotainment system, which BrianC seems to be very happy with, or wait for the MY16.75 update, also due out in August, which brings a faster system in Sync3 (Sync 2 can be tad laggy from what Iā€™ve seen/read, but this isnā€™t a big issue by any means).

Yes I drove the i30 too. Nice drive and almost as nice as the Focus and Mazda. A little cheaper and Iā€™m sure would give no problems. But no DAB or turbo engine like the Focus sealed it for me.
If I was buying now I might wait for Sync 3 but Iā€™ve had no complaints about Sync 2 either.
I was considering the Civic but it wasnā€™t out when I bought the Focus. Honda service intervals are shorter too, and more expensive.
I also doubt the new Mazda 3 will have DAB. They seem to be very slow in this regard. Also a bit of road noise in the Mazda and shorter service intervals.