Best DAB Radio?

mleonard79

Hi Everyone,

I've been racking my brains trying to decide what to get my mum for christmas - she doesn't need perfume or any normal stuff but she has said a few times she'd like a DAB radio. Of course I've now left it too late to do it the proper MSE way and order online with cashback etc. I was just wondering if anyone could recommend a good model - something she can sit nicely in the kitchen. And also the cheapest shop to go buy it in?! Thanks.

Regards

Michelle

cwoodham

I've had a PURE Evoke 2 for over a year now and am very pleased with it. But here's a couple of threads which might help you decide on a model.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=306982

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=128478

emalyse

We just bought a dab-one from comet for £39 which is Dab, FM and can delay-record and play on SD cards as well as play MP3's. Better reception ,sound and LCD than our previous acoustic solutions model.There are several DAB only radios around at the sub £30 level but this seemed like a lot of features for the money.

mcivord

Michelle - 'What HiFi' magazine have a great write up this month on DAB radios - have a browse throught it (don't pay for the magazine of course!). Personally I would go for either a Pure or Roberts DAB radio ref general build quality.

I've got a Pure 'BUG' radio which I think is superb however the design may be a bit too way out for your mum. My advice is NOT to go for the more expensive Pure 'BUG TOO' model and go for the standard BUG. If you want Electronic Programming you can still download this feature onto the standard BUG.

Mine'sAPintPlease

If your mum is keen on one then by all means get one, but bear in mind that various stations aren't always available on DAB, and it depends what multiplex is in your area, as to what stations are available. Might be best to do a check first.

Your mum might not notice the sound quality either, but many of the radio groups have stuffed too many stations onto their multiplexs, and some stations have rather poor bit rates, some are even worse than traditional FM.

It's highly likely that once wifi is everywhere, which can only be a matter of a few years, that an internet radio will be a much better system to have, as you'd have the choice of any station anywhere in the world to listen to, and most likely at better bit rates than DAB.

Not wanting to knock DAB, but it's now relatively old technology, and to my mind is going to go the way of mini-discs...great idea at the time, but now somewhat redundant thanks to mp3 flash players.

Lemmy_Caution

I think the 'I don't know what to get him/her for Christmas' is a big driver for the DAB market. I would just like to add that DAB radios are very expensive in their use of electricity. A gadget expert was on T.V yesterday, and he said that they can use up to 10 times more power than a standard radio.

mleonard79

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for the replies.

Emalyse - which make was the one you bought in Comet?

Mcivored - I'll be sure to have a look through that tomorrow, thanks.

Mine'sAPintPlease - I live in Glasgow near the city centre and I have a DAB radio of my own that plays a great number of stations and the sound quality is very good so I think our multiplex or whatever it is is probably pretty good. Thanks for the info though. I take your point about wi-fi but my mum's nearly 60 and not that great with technology so she'd probably stick with the dab anyway.

Lemmy Caution - god, why do they use so much more then? That does seem very high usage.

Regards

Michelle

Lemmy_Caution

I don't know the actual technical reason why they use up so much power. Somebody mentioned something about decoding circuits using a lot of power. Now I am not really a 'techie' type person, maybe one of those will have the answer.

shop-to-drop

I subscribe to Digital One Digital radio newsletter. You should take a look as very informative.

Zahc

DAB radios do indeed use more power because it takes more electronic jiggery pokery to decode the digital signal. This is being addressed at the moment and the 2nd generation chipsets should be more power efficient.

Zahc

bob_a_builder

Saw this one £30 in store @ Tesco, looked quite nice, not as big as some of the DAB's out there + plus includes FM

From the control labelling and layout, it looked like it might use the same internals of one of the more expensive units units next to it ( sorry can't remember which one)

and he said that they can use up to 10 times more power than a standard radio.

Yes but 10x of very little is stll not very much (unless you intend to use battery), its all relative, ask my Dad

and this one is mains too so ideal for the kitchen ( actually you might need to double check that, sure it had a mains lead coming out of it but could have been security wire/rope thing)