Just did a random search today for the latest in radio hifi systems. I can now understand why DAB+ will be forever doomed at 32 kbps. I can’t believe my now 7 year old Panasonic is the only one left for hifi DAB+:
The only audio products you get from JB and GG are TV soundbars, bluetooth speakers, and leftover mini hifi systems. Top of the range (in terms of power as well as performance) audio is now either soundbars or bluetooth speakers. Neither of these do radio, although with mini hifi you have more choice with FM. Poor West Coast Radio on Mandurah DAB+ with CoastFM and The Wave running with 96 kbps, my SC-PMX92 Panasonic is the only radio that can tell the difference in quality. The future is definitely streaming for personal hifi music listening (did I forget to mention bluetooth headphones?) and radio for when you want background music or talk.
There’s still plenty of other options in dedicated Hi-Fi shops although they are few and far between. I was in Len Wallis audio in Lane Cove, Sydney the other week and believe it or not they were playing ABC Classical via DAB on a nice Ruark mini seperate system which bar some occasional reception drop outs sounded good I thought.
Don’t underestimate the popularity of Sonos multiroom audio speakers. They are almost ubiquitous these days.
Not necessarily. Bluetooth certification is very expensive and complicated. DAB doesn’t have any of that.
But Bluetooth gives consumers a lot more choice and functionality than DAB (plus Bluetooth will work everywhere - DAB is region dependant), so it’s a no brainer if you as a manufacturer have to choose between those two options.
Plus DAB really needs a screen for tuning, which Bluetooth doesn’t. Most soundbars I’ve seen don’t have a screen.
Sadly there isn’t one small enough for taking around that can do AM/FM/DAB and Bluetooth. This Blaupunkt one comes close, but no Bluetooth. I had one but it got lost or wrecked during a flood.
I am guess I am reminiscing of last century where you listen to stereo speakers coming from a high-end hifi system (with turntable, cassette desk and of course AM/FM radio). With portable bluebooth speakers you lose any stereo, and ditto with cars where you are right one side or the other (not between L and R speakers). This is to be contrasted with home theatre which goes out of its way to produce a more “immersive” sound, albeit more so virtually (powered by AI) than physically (3 front and 2 rear speakers). The irony is technology is much advanced, modern amps and speakers are smaller and more powerful than ever before.
There’s still a range of HiFi DAB+ tuners from Denon, Yamaha and Panasonic though they are quite expensive. There’s probably more options if you shop around.
Bizarre to me that a place like that would choose to demonstrate their equipment with a signal more compressed than the worst mp3 you could find off Napster in 2002, and on a means of transmission so unreliable it’s dropping out even on high end gear
ABC Classic has a decent bitrate on DAB (120kbit LC-AAC). Actually, short of their television broadcasts (256kbit MP2) you’d be hard pressed to find a nicer digital transmission of ABC Classic.
And considering digital reception was marginal, FM probably wouldn’t have sounded any better.
It’s possible a customer prior to my arrival asked to see a unit with DAB+ reception. Mind you at $3,599 you’d need deep pockets. It did also have a range of other streaming options available.
.
