Hi, I ran the phone jack of my digital radio through to a reasonable amp & speaker set. The sound is clean, but the dynamic range doesn't appear to be very high, and the tone controls need to be bathtubbed to get good highs and lows. I wonder if there's some significant compression being applied prior to transmission. Is there, and if so why?
Bit more investigation... turns out that there seems to be a pretty big range of 'quality' from station to station, as judged by my ears. ABC in particular seems to broadcast a more wishy washy sound, the country station has bass you can scarcely hear, while some of the commercials are reasonably punchy at the same settings. I also suspect from the sound that there could be some envelope compression on some stations.
All the web blurb says that digital radio quality is very high, however that's not what I'm finding universally. I guess there could be recording/redistribution issues involved.
Given the very low bit-rates most stations use, "very high quality" is a rather loose term, even compared to AM radio!
MrT.
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