Worldspace Satellite radio

my digital library consists mainly of 128kbps stuff(70%).but this is the bare minimum quality which is acceptable. i am replacing my 128kbps stuff with atleast 192kbps. anythibg below 128kbps please stay away. and 16kbps!!! please stay away its not even worth dedicating electronics to decode 16 kbps stuff. the best digital quality as far i know is 320kbps which is close to cd quality.
obviously the highs were lacking. but it can sound better than the FM 91 stuff u get on your AM/FM receiver.
cd quality(wav format) are encoded with i think 1114kbps or around there.
Benks

hmmmm.... I also read about the BPL diva worldspace reciever and was thinking of buying the same for background casual listening....Does it have a headphone jack with a volume control ?

There was a sanyo made reciever I had heard many years ago which had good reception, wonder if its still available.

Manek.

The receiver is just OK for background casual listening if you are not picky sort - that seems to be its main purpose. However for anything Hi-fi, I would stay away from it. I would estimate an upper cutoff of about just 6-8KHz (Benks, that might correspond to a 16 or 32kbps stream!) - even the FM broadcast stuff is much better at 15KHz! Infact the demo system in Worldspace showroom was hooked up to an Onkyo amp, which I noticed, had the treble boost at +12dB!!

It does have a headphone output and a digital volume control (which also controls the line-out level!). Sounds decidedly better on the headphones than through the line-out.

I dont think there are Sanyo receivers around now for Worldspace (either that or BPL has consolidated them under its brand and manufactures locally).

Ravi/Benks,
Does that mean a audiophile grade AM/FM tuner,would outdo Worldspace receiver(CD quality,as per worldspace),when connected to a Hi end(nad320) system.Forget the number of channels and the content for this discussion.

hifinovice1, I would prefer my FM tuner over Worldspace anytime for the tonality alone. The purity in the rest of the band might be better with worldspace as it is digitally transmitted, but that is no consolation when your Jazz ends up sounding like an all-bass band! However I would recommend to check out other receivers brands if possible as I am not yet sure whether it is limited by the worldspace broadcast quality itself or is a problem with the specific receiver.

Hi All,

I use a panasonic receiver, 6 years old, and I listen to it a lot, via NAD320BEE/Lithos combo. You can clearly make out the source is not as good as a CD. Some channels are worse than the others. The western classical channel is impossible to tolerate for more than a few minutes.

Roshan.

Hi guys,

Well, my experience with Worldspace seems to be very different from yours. I listen to their broadcasts a lot, and they are excellent.

I bought the earlier Sanyo standalone receiver, and have no complaints about it at all. BPL have come out recently with a similar standalone receiver at half the price, about Rs.5000. People I know have bought it, and are happy with it.

Worldspace's broadcast quality varies with the type of music. Maestro, their western classical channel, and Riff, the jazz channel, and their country music channel, offer uncompressed sound. The rock music channels are compressed, in a snide comment to the compressed recordings of this music. In any case, way better than FM.

Do subscribe to Worldspace. Where else will you get so much music, with no commercial breaks!

Viren.

hey viren...thats the sanyo I was talking about.....that piece is good. I heard it. quite nice.

Have you heard the new BPL piece ?

manek.

I use the BPL model. Works fine with decent clarity.

viren, muks, what did you use for the RCA interconnect? I used the original cable that came with the BPL set..

Even I have used the original cables only.

They have released a new model which has a remote and a better display.

The Sanyo unit is good. Unfortunately, no longer available here.

Ah, the interconnect cables make a big difference. I use interconnect RCAs of my own design. The cables supplied with the unit give a thin, veiled sound.

Viren.

Hi All,

I did a minor upgrade in my speaker/Amp combination and the quality of the final output has gone up a few notches. Mastero sounds better too. But CD's still sound far better.

Like viren said the quality breadth of the whole package is unmatched, so a verry small compromise in the sound quality is fine with me.

Roshan.

But still the question is,whether the output quality of audio differs, from one receiver to other(e.g.BPL Diva v/s older SANYO/PANASONIC/JVC/Hitachi)?

Yeah hifinovice, the answer to that question would be interesting. In the showroom I did listen to the chinese Tongshi receiver over headphones - the sound quality of this was clearly worse than the BPL Diva through the same headphones (more distortion throughout the band), though it costs double.

viren says: Worldspace's broadcast quality varies with the type of music. Maestro, their western classical channel, and Riff, the jazz channel, and their country music channel, offer uncompressed sound. The rock music channels are compressed, in a snide comment to the compressed recordings of this music. In any case, way better than FM.

Viren, I wonder where you picked up that bit of tidbit - as far as I know, the broadcast system permits a maximum rate of only 128kbps for any channel - as benks pointed out, this is a big compression compared to CD quality of more than 1100kbps. Moreover, I did find most my 128kbps MP3 tracks and FM sound better than any of the worldspace channels. Only the telugu channel (Spandana) comes close to 128kbps MP3 quality though.

That conclusively means audio quality varies from receiver to receiver and the broadcasting itself is limited to 128 kbps,which is definitely not anywhere near to CD.
So worldspace is recommended, only on content front and not on CD quality audio channels front.

With Rs.1200 as subscription you can't have all, as hifi novice has written it is the content you have to be contended with.

Hi,

See the following link for some information on satellite radio:

http://illumin.usc.edu/article.php?articleID=32

Viren.

More update on this - I tried various configurations on my setup with the same result, no improvement. Even went to the extent of removing some capacitors from the audio output stages of the BPL set to eliminate any bandlimiting elements, but no noticeable difference (btw, it seemed to use an electrolytic capacitor in signal path with a zero bias - a recipe for audio disaster.. plan to mod it sometime later). So on the whole looks like it is the programming or broadcast station setup that is to blame for not even reaching MP3 quality levels. In addition, the maximum quality that can ever be obtained on Worldpspace is only 128kbps MP3 which in itself is a big limitation - the official MP3 spec does state that a 128kbps mp3 compressed audio is closely equivalent to CD quality, but ofcourse we know for a fact thats not true (depends on how close is "close").

Well for now I have dropped my expectations and live with the consolation of the content rather than quality. Blame Worldspace marketing for blatantly raising the expectations.

Ravi,

It can't be that bad. What is the configuration of your system, besides the BPL receiver.

Roshan

well roshan, it aint all that bad, but guess the issue is I started out expecting "near-CD" quality as promised. but yeah, some of the channels (including RIFF, SYSTEM) are worse than FM quality or MP3 quality (thru the same setup, so the rest of the setup must be fine) and there are one or two channels that come thru at about MP3 quality, so the setup should be ok. Its a denon 1404 in stereo mode and KEF cresta 30 speakers - with tone defeat enabled the treble is pretty low - a minimum treble boost of +10dB is required to make it just about acceptable.

Ravi,

I am listening to Orbit Rock right now, on tone defeat and at a low volume and the treble is just fine. Even switching to better connecting cable might help. If you are in and around Bombay you are welcome to hear my set up. It's Panasonic/NAD/Lithos so it's not any better than yours.

Roshan.

let me check out and compare Orbit rock today evening. roshan, I guess you are using a panasonic receiver? btw, I am put up in bangalore... so cannot checkout your sound unless you crank up the volume realllyy high

OK, checked out Orbit rock too.. almost the same as Riff... the treble is not very detailed or airy, like in a CD or FM, but stifled and closed. The telugu channel still remains the best of the lot... and yeah one of the sahara channels is sometimes decent too.. other than that, all the western channels seem to have a chronic problem!

Hi,

I wanna buy a receiver, my budget is about 5000. I was told that I could choose between the G-Hanz receiver and the BPL Diva receiver. But the guys at the retail unit, even their so called "techies", seemed terribly ignorant about their own products. So I really can't make an informed decision as to which of the 2 receivers to opt for. Please advice.

Does G-Hanz,launched world space reciver?Price?
Any links?
Thanks.

The G-Hanz receiver costs exactly the same as the Diva receiver - Rs. 4990. There is surprisingly very little info anywhere about the G-Hanz receiver. If you search the web you'll get a coupla links to news articles announcing the release of the product, but no techspecs or reviews at all.

Hi All,

Worlspace has reset the password on all subscriptions and now claims to have upgraded the service.

I have notices an appreciable improvemtn in the quality of the feed.Among others, Mastero has improved.

Anybody else notice the change or am I imagining it?

Roshan.

roshan,

based on what was said on this thread, i called a friend of mine who listens to worldspace very often(jazz and classical channels mostly) and he did not seem to notice that the audio quality was bad. Secondly, I just called him up and he hasn't noticed better quality in the broadcasts also.

Just thought I'd give you a feedback from a user.

Manek.

Hey Manek,

Did your friend have to reset his password today??

Roshan

did not ask him that.....

I reset the password for my receiver today, and did notice a change in the quality.

OK, I too reset the password today, but no change in sound before and after. However it did start sounding just a little bit better for the last couple of days.... hope there are no break-in fundas for satellite receivers

Check this out too -
http://www.worldspac...file=viewtopic&t=194

hey guys,
i haven't taken part in this discussion till now cause i have'nt heard any of the wordspace receivers. but , my dad told me yesterday that he has booked a BPl Diva and asked me to speak to the WS guys.
they have agreed to arrange a listening session at my house(he said he'll call and let me know when). i told my dad that if the quality is not up tot the mark we are better off spending that cash on something else.they have agreed to bring the BPL diva and the G-Hanz models to my place. apparently they are both the same price except theBLP comes with a remote and the G-hanz does not.
will keep u posted on how it turns out. meanwhile, appreciate if u guys can let me know as to what stations to listen to to judge audio quality.
Cheers,
Ben

benks, looking forward to some real comparision from you!
Try out RIFF, SYSTEM, UPOP - all of them are bad. You can also check Spandana for reference, as this is one of the better channels (make sure they are playing some new songs when you compare!)