In article , Anthony
James writes
John wrote:

Why are most digital radios mono and in a retro style?

You could ask on alt.radio.digital but don't expect a reasonable answer
as the group is inhabited by a classic unemployeable newsgroup twerp by
the name of Steve who will just tell you that DAB sound quality is
terrible, that you're a fool for buying one and who will rapidly resort
to abuse if you dont "respect his author-a-tay". Very amusing to visit
but steve's noise-to-signal is such that it's next to useless for real
information.

Digital radios are in mono because this suits the broadcasters who don't
give a toss for quality any longer and to save on transmission costs.
The Eureka 1471 digital broadcast system was sold on among other things
improves sound and transmission quality. Since that time the
broadcasters have discovered that it is possible by reducing the
transmitted bitrate that they can reduce the audio quality in order to
save transmission costs and or to fir t more stations in.

Apart from that the original idea was poorly conceived in that the CODEC
that's the thing that encodes the digital audio and decodes it back to
audio is MP2 which now is quite old and has been surpassed.
Unfortunately this is set in stone a better system would have been to
enabled over the air upgrades as the tech progressed. Imagine having to
be stuck with say WIN 3.11 or WIN 95, much the same thing.

Yes Steve does sometimes sound off, but a lot of but his intentions are
far more honest than what the broadcasters and regulators have been.
You can read it all here..

http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/

I had a converasation about DAB radios with someone the other day on
this same point - why do they tend to look as if they've been made in
somebody's shed? It seems to be because it's only very small
manufacturers in the market at the moment. Sony and Technics made 19"
seperate DAB tuners in the early days (when bit-rates were higher and it
could be considered a hi-fi medium) which looked anything but retro.
When they re-enter the market (shortly if the rumours are correct) I
expect there will be a lot more choice.

AJ

Unfortunalty some early adopters paid handsome sums for their equipment
only to be let down as the quality decreased and its getting worse as
stations are crammed in often in Mono only:-((

It may be noted that other countries who have adopted this system don't
screw it anywhere near as bad as what the UK does:-((

--
Tony Sayer