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Old 7th Apr 2018, 11:49 am   #21
Andrew2
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Default Re: Audio Compression on Classic FM.

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Originally Posted by G6Tanuki View Post
I don't have any issues with the audio processing on Classic FM, with one exception[1].

Indeed, I prefer it to the radio3 experience where they seem to have an obsession with broadcasting unnecesarily long periods of silence [like for 20-30 seconds either side of playing a track] and often really-low deviation for some music - both of which often leave me wondering if there's been an unscheduled interruption to the feed!

[1] their speech feeds for some of their DJs are sometimes horribly clipped/compressed, it's almost like they're still using 64Kbit ISDN for an uplink from a 'home studio'. That might have been OK a couple of decades back for a live-from-the-frontline news report but it just doesn't meet expectations for current mainstream programming.

Indeed. Simon Bates' deep voice used to clip like crazy and caused me to inform CFM of their 'mic clipping' on more than one occasion. Never got an answer.
On a side note, I did once take Mr Bates to task for playing just one movement of a piece (maybe 'Mercury, the Winged Messenger') and telling us 'that was Holst's Planet Suite'. No it wasn't, it was a little bit FROM the Planet Suite
Sorry, rant ended.
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Old 7th Apr 2018, 11:55 am   #22
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Default Re: Audio Compression on Classic FM.

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Dave, you do know about the 'Full Works Concert', every weekday evening between 8 & 10PM (BST)?
No I didn't, thanks. I still prefer R3 when at home: the wide dynamic range and the long silences are part of the full music experience. And no adverts!
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Old 7th Apr 2018, 1:07 pm   #23
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Default Re: Audio Compression on Classic FM.

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Simon Bates' deep voice used to clip like crazy and caused me to inform CFM of their 'mic clipping' on more than one occasion. Never got an answer.
Their house presentation style is to use a close mic with lots of processing. This is very common in American broadcasting but rarely encountered here.
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Old 7th Apr 2018, 2:27 pm   #24
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Default Re: Audio Compression on Classic FM.

They know their market, and that's what they sell to their advertisers. They aren't going to change.

R3 gives you the chance to stumble across things you haven't heard before, though a lot of the time they're broadcasting things I wouldn't listen to.

A good collection of CDs gives you the chance to enjoy the proper dynamic range of the music, and you can listen to things which fall between the cracks of the BBC stations... not classical so not R3's thing, and tracks too long for the 3-minute song remit of the others.... you know the stuff.

I'm afraid that if you want good music then it's down to your own record collection or whatever is on at a concert hall in travelling range. Everything else is mutilated, unless you strike lucky on R3.

I need to keep an eye on the CD racks in the charity shops in town....

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Old 7th Apr 2018, 3:24 pm   #25
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Default Re: Audio Compression on Classic FM.

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I'm afraid that if you want good music then it's down to your own record collection or whatever is on at a concert hall in travelling range. Everything else is mutilated, unless you strike lucky on R3.
Give this half an hour and tell me what you think.

http://www.radioswissclassic.ch/en
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Old 7th Apr 2018, 3:58 pm   #26
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Default Re: Audio Compression on Classic FM.

I just got fed up when CFM started broadcasting film music, most of which really does not merit the term 'classical'. Lots of flowing strings that are pretty meaningless without the context given by the film itself.
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Old 8th Apr 2018, 10:53 am   #27
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Default Re: Audio Compression on Classic FM.

I am currently listening to 'Radio Swiss Classic' as I type this, and have been for the last hour or so - they have been playing a variety of music, including items by less well-known composers. The sound quality is good via Windows media Player and a pair of typical computer monitor speakers, so I may dip into that station's output again from time to time.
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Old 8th Apr 2018, 1:24 pm   #28
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Default Re: Audio Compression on Classic FM.

I also listen to Radio Swiss Classic from time to time and found it very good.
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Old 8th Apr 2018, 1:36 pm   #29
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Default Re: Audio Compression on Classic FM.

I'm just not into listening to music on my 'computer'. Yes I know, I can and I do hook it up to my hifi system for much improved sound, but as VW enthusiast, I just love the karma of 'tuning in', spinning that heavy weighted tuning knob whilst gazing upon this amazing thing called a radio, a tuner or a receiver that is plucking this beautiful sound out of the air. It's magic.
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Old 8th Apr 2018, 6:27 pm   #30
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Default Re: Audio Compression on Classic FM.

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I just got fed up when CFM started broadcasting film music, most of which really does not merit the term 'classical'. Lots of flowing strings that are pretty meaningless without the context given by the film itself.
I rather like the fact that CFM do movie-music - they also recently did a series of hour long programs called "High Score" and an associated live concert featuring music composed specifically for video-games and e-sports, which was a refreshing change from the common definition of 'classical' meaning that the composer is dead.

http://www.classicfm.com/discover-mu...es/video-game/
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Old 8th Apr 2018, 6:31 pm   #31
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Default Re: Audio Compression on Classic FM.

Radio Swiss Classic is now on the favourites bar of my browser...

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Old 8th Apr 2018, 11:04 pm   #32
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Default Re: Audio Compression on Classic FM.

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Originally Posted by stevehertz View Post
I'm just not into listening to music on my 'computer'. Yes I know, I can and I do hook it up to my hifi system for much improved sound, but as VW enthusiast, I just love the karma of 'tuning in', spinning that heavy weighted tuning knob whilst gazing upon this amazing thing called a radio, a tuner or a receiver that is plucking this beautiful sound out of the air. It's magic.
Listening to music on the computer is still one of life's unsolved problems for me. Yes I can sit at my office desk and feed the computer audio into my office stereo system, but the PC then typically insists on overlaying its own sound effects, for example whenever an email arrives. And anyway I don't want to retreat to my desk upstairs: I want the music to feed my main stereo in the living room.

Yes, I know I could rig up my phone to do the job, but that's very small and fiddly and smacks of a bit of a bodge, with the risk of the audio getting trammelled up with phone calls . Does anyone make a box the size of my tuner that will sit nicely into my audio 'stack' and simply feed internet stations into my main stereo?

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Old 8th Apr 2018, 11:27 pm   #33
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Default Re: Audio Compression on Classic FM.

I'd consider a cheap Android tablet. There seem to be plenty around for well under £100 (though I don't know what your budget is).
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Old 8th Apr 2018, 11:55 pm   #34
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Default Re: Audio Compression on Classic FM.

You can buy cheap boxes that run Android or Linux and will do all sorts of media streaming. The drawback is that you need some sort of screen to see what's happening unless you use a remote control app on a phone or tablet to control it. Just search eBay for 'media streamer' for lots of examples.

You can also homebrew your own with a Raspberry Pi - in fact, many of the commercial boxes have a Pi inside.
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Old 9th Apr 2018, 9:26 am   #35
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Default Re: Audio Compression on Classic FM.

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Does anyone make a box the size of my tuner that will sit nicely into my audio 'stack' and simply feed internet stations into my main stereo?
There are plenty of such 'things' - ranging in price from £50 or so to thousands.

Someone I know has a Sangean WFR-28 which works quite nicely: there are also things like the Logitech Squeezebox and Roku SoundBridge which are no longer available new but still work well. Alas a lot of them don't have digital-audio out [TOSlink]....
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Old 9th Apr 2018, 9:35 am   #36
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Default Re: Audio Compression on Classic FM.

I have had a couple of failures on TV remotes in the past. For some odd reason, it was the mute button which failed or went intermittent. I cannot imagine why!!
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Old 9th Apr 2018, 1:42 pm   #37
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Default Re: Audio Compression on Classic FM.

Perhaps my ears aren't as discerning as some but I have noticed little with Classic FM's audio to trouble me. It is my second choice of listening in the car which has an average aftermarket AM/FM radio from the early 2000s. I listen to Radio 3 a fair amount and have no issues with that in the car either.

However, at home for 'regular' terrestrial listening I have gone over almost entirely to DAB. Most listening is casual for company and done on 'kitchen' or bedside type sets. For years the radio in the kitchen was a Grundig Party Boy which seemed very sensitive on FM but in recent times something has happened between me and Sutton Coldfield to make reception very variable and I found that I was forever repositioning the telescopic aerial and sometimes the position of the set to a different part of the room. When I had thought I had found the ideal position something would change in the transmission path and it was back to square one. Annoying.

Although I already had a couple of early 2000s Pure DAB sets, last year I bought a Panasonic DAB+ that was heavily reduced in price in the local Sainsbury's having learned that JazzFM was now available again nationwide(ish) on DAB+. I had listened to JazzFM from its comeback on DAB in 2008. I wasn't bothered that it was intially in mono but in the early days the audio was sometimes poor (so perhaps it was very bad if I noticed it!), especially on the links (usually the ones that I suspect were voice-tracked), but the station was clearly operating on a shoe-string and technical glitches of all sorts were common. I was prepared to be forgiving as it offered the lifebelt of something different and promoted an underepresented music genre in what seemed a sea of pop stations.

I was pleased with the Panasonic but it looked like I'd bought the last set in the store and so was delighted to find a couple more at the same price reduction in another Sainsbury's. With the added bonus of a money-off voucher from Nectar I scooped up another pair! Having the same model means the sound is in sync when going from room to room. Classic FM sounds fine to me on DAB and on pieces I know well I am able to pick out the little details. Perhaps the processing is different for DAB output but I couldn't find issue on my FM sets.

I turn to Classic FM when Radio 3 gets too highbrow for me. In the evening it's either Radio 3 live concert or JazzFM. There is a traditional battery portable in the bathroom and as this is the quietest place for SMPS noise that set is tuned to Caroline on 648kHz. When I'm working on the computer I will often go to an online jazz station or Serenade Radio. I will certainly try the Swiss classical station.

Radio 3 regularly offers something surprising. This morning there was an early 'potting shed' composition by a youthful Elgar that I had not heard before. Classic FM is more playlist orientated but having garnered over 5 million listeners they have clearly tapped into a market. This is no mean feat given that classical music has traditionally had a minority following. When Classic FM first came on the air I didn't expect it to last but on my purely anecdotal evidence its growing success seems to be down the capture of the, for the want of a better word, 'older' audience that have found themselves increasingly marginalised on Radio 2. They may not be classical music buffs but probably find the style and presentation is more to their liking.
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Old 9th Apr 2018, 1:51 pm   #38
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Default Re: Audio Compression on Classic FM.

It's true that there is a huge range of sensitivity to both audio processing and digital compression artefacts among listeners. Lots of people genuinely can't hear anything amiss and can't see what all the fuss is about. The listening environment and reproduction system does make a difference as you'd expect, but some people don't notice a problem even listening with relatively high quality equipment in a quiet room.
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Old 9th Apr 2018, 2:18 pm   #39
G8HQP Dave
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Default Re: Audio Compression on Classic FM.

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I just got fed up when CFM started broadcasting film music, most of which really does not merit the term 'classical'.
Many years ago (long before CFM started) a friend, who had been a keen amateur musician, commented to me that much 20th century music sounds like film music anyway. Apart from the atonal stuff, which doesn't sound much like music at all!
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Old 9th Apr 2018, 2:55 pm   #40
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Default Re: Audio Compression on Classic FM.

It's more like the other way around! A lot of film music has its roots in early 20th Century classical music. Influences come particularly from Mahler. If Korngold and a few more hadn't had to flee Europe in the early 20th Century they would have probably become revered as 'serious' composers rather than considered slightly tarnished because of plying their trade in Hollywood.

On Radio 3 right now there is a concert of Haydn and Stravinsky. It is celebrating the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and is a recording is its first appearance at the Proms in 1971. I noticed the slightly different audio quality straight away on the kitchen Panasonic!
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