Anyone got a car dab radio? Or bluetooth speaker?

chrishar

I am tired of fm am radio and dont use CDs.
My car has a standard single din opening and previously had a Sony stereo.
I would like to listen to 6music and other dab stations and also possibly but not essential talks and music from my phone via bluetooth.
Was wondering whether to buy a dab radio and aerial or just to buy a portable Bluetooth speaker and do everything from my phone. Such as the jam jar.
The speaker would be cheaper but would use more data and battery.
Any ideas what's best ? I only listen about an hour a day from work and back so don't want to go crazy plus I have an old car.

Tyler_Du

I used to use a Bluetooth speaker in the car, I never found the quality good enough and ended up getting a dedicated Bluetooth car stereo. I generally listen to podcasts in the car.

Nasqueron

Data use on a mobile is surprisingly high even for a radio, I was in another office to the one I work out of and had the radio on my phone for a few hours and realised looking at the data after it had used something like 200-300mb - and that of course relies on a good signal to stream it.

Edit - I found a forum that explained at 128kbps of streaming it's approx 57mb an hour - so 114mb a day for you, every day - getting on for 2.5gb a month - big allowance needed for that!

I have a friend who drives an old car (as in a "classic" not a banger) and she had someone fit an audio in jack to the stereo so you can link up your phone or MP3 player via the headphone socket and play it that way, worth a look

My car (new one) came without a DAB but the company have started doing them and offer a factory fit retro job that uses the car USB port and plays via the stereo, it's only about £250 which I think is worth it to avoid the inconvenience to me of having a third party one installed especially as it means you can use it via the car entertainment system.

One thing though, maybe it's just my car but the system won't stream music via bluetooth from the phone, you have to plug it into the USB port (there are 2)

chrishar

I want to keep things as simple as possible, not a fan of cables, usb sticks, etc. In my mind the straightforward route is music/podcasts on my phone streamed to bluetooth speaker.

Data only a problem for live radio, so I could download shows to my phone and play them offline?

For music I could use streaming services and save tracks offline? Or download mp3s from music stores, however I've never paid for digital music before.

exiled_red

Personally would go down the DAB route but first check that you can get DAB signals in the areas you want to use it. Assuming you can get the digital signals I would assume in terms of sound quality this would be your best option.

From a financial point of view I would work out what the data usage would be it you were to use your phone and how much this would cost and compare this to the price of a DAB radio.

AdrianC

Change the head unit - you might need a facia adaptor, you'll almost certainly need a wiring adaptor. Then go for a head unit with either bluetooth or DAB - there's plenty out there, from surprisingly cheap, especially if you're unbothered about having CD.

exiled_red

I should add, I got a DAB radio for about £80 4 years ago and that works well. I installed it myself as because the place I bought it from wanted and extra £50 for installation because of my car type (normally it was £20 or 30), but that only took me an hour or so. So I would suggest this route - one thing is that the signal drops out in remote areas which can be frustrating (but this is in regions where analog signals are weak anyway)

Norman_Castle

Pure Highway would do what you want. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0jWtxkhqIU

chrishar

No problems with head unit I have the connection ready, how easy is the dab aerial to fit and d you have to buy a decent aerial to get the best reception?

DragonQ

Bear in mind that DAB quality is utter crap compared to internet radio. I used to live near an FM blackspot so I used DAB for Absolute Radio but since I've moved I can use FM with no issues and it's far superior than even the version on the London mux, which is stereo. The national mux version is mono, like most DAB stations in the UK now.

exiled_red

chrishar wrote: »

No problems with head unit I have the connection ready, how easy is the dab aerial to fit and d you have to buy a decent aerial to get the best reception?

Is the head unit you have capable of DAB? - I would assume if it was you would already have DAB radio. You can't just upgrade any radio to DAB, you probably would need a new radio, but check the capabilities of your existing radio.

My DAB radio uses the cars existing aerial for analog radio and a seperate digital aerial which just sticks on the windscreen which came with the the new radio.