better signal – No dab radio in most of Galloway, where you do manage to get a signal it is often punctuated by artifacts, far better sound quality – most dab stations are broadcast at just 64kbps mp2 codec which is practically a mono signal, the main/big radio stations broadcast at a maximum of 128kbps mp2 codec which considering we were promised CD quality broadcasts throughout the country when it was launched is abysmal.
More stations to listen to? – therin lies the problem, we have a limited bandwidth available for use by digital radio and the more stations that broadcast then the less bandwidth there is to allocate a suitable broadcastable bit rate. Even radio 3 which is normally a bastion of quality sound has an absolute maximum of 190kbps available and often broadcasts at far less, again using the vastly inferior mp2 codec.
I use a dedicated fm aerial and a high quality Tivoli/Henry kloss desktop radio and the fm sound quality is superb, however i agree that dab should and does have the ability to offer far more than it currently does, it is unfortunate that quantity of stations is unsurping quality of broadcasts when it comes to current dab output. Then again that’s no surprise as for many people radio is just treated as background noise.