James H wrote:It's probably because 80kbps mono is not a million miles away, sound-wise, from 112kbps Stereo which is what they were using in London.
I don't know the exact ins-and-outs of MP2, but as a rough guide stereo needs about double the bandwidth, so although you'll lose the spatial experience that stereo provides, the actual quality of the broadcast shouldn't be too bad (maybe even on-par with 160kbps Stereo).
Doesn't make it OK to broadcast in mono though!
Edit: Sandy Beech has confirmed he's working on the jingles for the new show
MP2 is so old but the 192kbps+ bitrates are better and was designed for that. Unfortunately OFCOM wanted to offer choice and didn't understand the sound quality would suffer greatly (or didn't care listeners cared).
I'll be online only most of the time as I don't have DAB in my car and my radios at home are internet ones. I'm also going to setup a cloud computer that will record the CMS everyday and upload it somewhere for reference.
Listening to the UK stream now. Crazy to hear adverts already! I assume they have commitments from XFM era for ads. This is all pretty typical for pre-launch for a station. I'd imagine sound levels, processing, music and everything will be tinkered around with. Music selection is sounding good and not as "blokey" as reported.