Hi

Sometimes I listen to radio stations on BM5 sending in 96 or 128 kBit, some stations use MP3, other WMA.

However, from time to time I dont think that the sound is as crisp (or clean/perfect) when I compare to a FM signal (delivered via Cable net).

Can the quality of the "old" FM radio be compared to the netradio?

Hope some of you can clarify.

96 kbps is rather little for an MP3 audio stream and 128 kbps still isn't quite enough, and I'm sure both of them will be inferior to good FM reception. You may get a wider frequency range (FM won't go over 15 kHz) but the coding artefacts will be audible.

Quality of WMA can be better depending on the codec, but generally it will still struggle a little at 128 kbps.

128 kbps can be quite good with AAC/AAC+, which makes better use of the bandwidth. I don't know if BM5 supports that, but if you have a computer connected to good speakers, try out the different streams offered at Radio Paradise. The 128 kbps AAC stream is great as they say - MP3 will need 192k or more for similar quality.

Of course the quality will also depend on the station itself - some manage to destroy the sound already when transmitting, be it over the air or over the internet. Different encoding software will also create a different result, even if the final bitrates were the same.

I absolutely agree with you - unfortunately only few stations broadcast audiostreams better than 128 kbps.
Being one of the few exceptiones e.g. "AVRO Baroque ..." uses 256 kbps MP3 for their classical programs. 

Thanks a lot for the great info, and I agree, most of the radio channels (that I listen to) only send in 128 or 96 kbps, which made me a little bit disappointed with the radio of the BM5. I actually sold my old BM6500, and now I wan't it back again .
It's not B&O fault, but I could imagine that someone gets sad when they listen to 96 kbps radio on their BS5, especially if it is connected to i.e. BL5 speakers.
Over time we must hope that the quality gets much better.

The problem is that a popular netradio station needs a lot of outgoing bandwidth, and it costs real money. Bandwidth gets cheaper with time, but unfortunately the number of listeners grows accordingly.

However, I believe that a choice of 96 kbps (or worse) for network distribution might be a relic from older times. If you have some definite favourite stations, try sending them feedback on the sound quality issue, it might have some weight the next time they need to allocate resources.

I have just scanned thru all radio channels in Denmark (about 50), the best quality is 128 kbps WMA.
There is room for improvement here.

you can't blame B&O on this... it depends on the stations on the internet.

And we all know that internetradio is just a nice gimmick on the Beosound 5 - you don't need a high end audio system for Internetradio or MP3