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CD quality internet radio.

TLS

pfm Member
Hi,

The best quality you can find at the moment from internet radio stations is 320kbps AAC but online paid subscriptions like TIDAL or QOBUZ can provide flac streams at 16bit/44.1KHZ.

What hold internet radio stations to stream at CD quality resolution? That could be an interesting alternative to replace traditional FM.
 
The usual problem of money I guess - if they want to stream higher quality, that means higher bitrates, in turn means more servers and more powerful ones. So unless they're going to recoup that extra cost from somewhere there's no incentive.
 
The usual problem of money I guess - if they want to stream higher quality, that means higher bitrates, in turn means more servers and more powerful ones. So unless they're going to recoup that extra cost from somewhere there's no incentive.

Good point. We are accustomed to internet radio with no advertisement but I imagine this could change with real CD quality radio streaming.
 
Something has happened to the BBC feeds on the internet recently. I think that the quality has beed reduced. Can anyone explain?
 
The best quality you can find at the moment from internet radio stations is 320kbps AAC but online paid subscriptions like TIDAL or QOBUZ can provide flac streams at 16bit/44.1KHZ.

This hasn't been true for years - the only 'advantage' of the streaming services is a searchable database - just like the one on my domestic NAS, for which you must pay. If you want someone to put the CDs on for you, which is the main advantage of 'radio', there's a number of good free 16bit options out there.
 
Foobar tells me one of my CD rips has a data rate of 972 kb/s... that's around three times higher than the BBC's best at the moment, of 320 kb/s, which means that any radio listener will use up their broadband allowance (if they have one), at three times the speed they do at the moment. Much will depend on how long you listen, though.
 
Thank you, I have had a quick look at that, seems a bit confusing. Anyway, I can still get BBC on the internet, even if it is reduced in quality, no problem really as I only need good quality on BBC R3, and I don't miss that very much.

as said in another thread, the BBC have backtracked and you should now be getting 320 kbps again.

Try the 'audiophile stream network' for more 320 kbps music.
 


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