Freesat audiophile quality? etc

[epiphysis]

Hi, new here, only existing sat kit is longstanding small dish, installed specifically to receive German TV on Astra. Not generally interested in TV though I recognise that to get any in future I have to go satellite for digital - terrestrial transmitter reception is abysmal here, small Devon valley, no chance of improvement (so much for my licence fee...). More important, I want to improve radio - the big loft aerial merely improves quality from abysmal to sort of 1950s radiogram level.
Along comes Freesat. Is this the answer? Will a dish aimed at this give me audiophile quality radio? And will the Freesat dish need to be aimed same direction (-ish) as my present Astra one? There are big neighbouring trees that really screw up my Astra reception, and in bad weather especially it is awful. Oh, and I'm inclined to go DIY - it can't be that difficult for someone who's averagely tech-minded..?
Grateful for any advice - thanks, Malcolm

 

[mhku]

I'm not sure about Freesat but most satellite radio is about 192 kbs so only MP3 quality.

Passing the signal though a DAC will help if you really want audiophile quality but you can't polish a t**d ;)

And Welcome to the forum

 

[epiphysis]

Thanks for your reply. That's worrying: I thought the whole point of HD sat etc was to work around the inherent problems associated with terrestrial transmitters? And doesn't this HDTV thingy have very high sound quality to accompany its much improved visuals - ?
Otherwise, you mean without a decent FM signal from my nearest Beeb transmitter (somewhere on Dartmoor?) I'm shafted - ? Would seem somewhat pitifully inadequate that living in the world's 4th largest economy, and one of the most expensive countries on the planet, paying (unlike most of the world) a hefty licence fee just to receive TV & radio, I have to accept mediocre radio broadcasts...
Surely this is not the case! Surely all these wondrous new satellites and beam-me-up-Scottie technologies will give me something better than my son's lousy MP3 iPod thing!
Just my uninformed-about-developments commonsense point of view, anyway. BTW I tried more than once to interest the Beeb tech types in my crap radio reception but basically they don't give a toss. Most people live in towns. I should move to a town.
Yours, Malcolm

 

[mhku]

HD Freesat will probably have a higher audio quality than SD but is there HD satellite radio?

I live in a city and get next to none terrestrial reception and only marginally better radio reception.

No mention of HD radio here:

_http://www.freesat.co.uk/index.php?page=hd.Sound

_http://www.freesat.co.uk/index.php?page=help.Question&id=70

 

[martinw01908]

This topic raises some very interesting and important points. I think the term freesat is more a marketing term -the actual method of delivery hasn't changed much from before, apart from there is a proper EPG.

We still have 128-192 kbps mp2 audio quality for radio which is very poor. It should follow that along with HD TV we have HD radio. But there was never any real reason for us to end up with low bitrate radio from now or even from the beginning of DVB apart from money saving by clients and high charges by satellite operators.

In the USA they have their version of DAB which they market as HD Radio! But like our DAB its very poor quality with low bitrates once again. There isn't much hope for proper audio in this climate. This is one area where analogue Sat and broadcast radio is/was superior to the thing thats supposed to be replacing it¬!!

The only form of digital broadcast audio that was any good or offered quality sound is NICAM to my knowledge. But that will be switched off with the analogue TV signals so again, a sad state of affairs!