 DAB technically provides low audio quality in the UK due to 98 % of stereo stations using a bit rate level of 128 kbit / s. with the <unk> audio codec , which provides poorer sound quality than FM @-@ quality ( assuming good reception on both DAB and FM ) . A bit rate of 256 kbit / s has been judged to provide a high quality stereo broadcast signal . Also , a large and growing number of music stations are only transmitting in mono . Indeed , the bit rates used by the radio stations on other digital platforms , such as cable , terrestrial and satellite are usually higher than on DAB , so the audio quality is also higher . For example , all of the BBC stations use higher bit rates on the digital TV platforms than on DAB apart from the BBC World Service on Freeview . On the other hand , an Ofcom survey , which was undertaken due to many consultation responses citing poor DAB quality , found that 94 % of DAB listeners thought DAB was at least as good as FM . 
