DAB Radios now available at Argos (in store) for under £20, but be quick!

Flimber

skibster wrote: »

...I saw online that the Alba has a line in so you can connect it to a stereo system, but is that the same line that will let it act as the speakers for a computer?

Should be, yes. Might not sound any better than existing though. Is the Alba stereo too ? Prob would work fine if so.

steve_green_3

madfrenchgirl wrote: »

Plus as I have said before, Freeveiew doe snot have all the radio channels offered by DAB.

Yeah Dogcat, Planet Rock rules!!!

Given that some people here seem to work for an Hi-fi magazine, I suspect they are pushing us to buy hi-fi systems that are very expensive. Maybe they have forgotten the name of this website.

I was not pushing anybody to buy anything, and I only mentioned that I write for a hi-fi magazine because L.S.D was implying that he knows good sound when he hears it and I don't - I wouldn't have mentioned it otherwise.

But on the subject of buying things, saving money is not all about buying the cheapest of the cheap, because you get what you pay for in a lot of cases, and people that only look cheap things will, I'm afraid, end up buying poor quality items - this isn't just about hi-fi, this is in general. A good example of things that are low price but are sometimes not very good products is people's opinions on this thread of Goodmans/Bush/Alba products, which are all made by the Alba Group, but they've got a reputation for being poor quality.

quoia

codger wrote: »

..............

* In our experience, however, there is a way of obtaining superior sound quality from digital audio broadcasting: we're not audio engineers, so have no idea why it works, but. . .

1) Connect your Freeview TV to a little home hi-fi system (because the hi-fi speakers will be better than the telly's)

2) Use the Freeview radio stations.
..............

Sadly THE BEST station on DAB is NOT broadcast on Freeview !!!

Namely PLANET ROCK !

https://www.planetrock.com

I listen to it quite a lot and NEVER have "head in a bucket" or "bubbling mud" syndrome and it is broadcast in CLEAR & CRISP STEREO !
My bedside DAB "clock" radio will also record it (via timer / EPG) straight onto a SDcard via its slot, so I get direct mp3 recordings of anything I choose which I can obviously then transfer to an MP3 player if I wish.

At home in certain rooms I do listen to it "through the TV" but this is because it is broadcast on Sky 0110.

I've got a pocket DAB that is quite good too!
Just sorting out a proper DAB unit for the car aswell!

Oh, and my first DAB radio that I bought well over 3 years ago and is still in daily use, which is absolutely excellent in sound quality and reception, is an "unknown brand" that cost only £28 at that time.

madfrenchgirl

Steve Green... I won't even bother with you anymore.

Yeah Quoia!!! That is exactly what i keep on saying! PlanetRock rules! Are you a rocker too then?

mrssnowy_2

Great, lovely to hear all this talk about DAB radios!
I live in Mid-Wales,an area to go digital first,so of course we can't get ANYTHING on DAB radio now.
Rubbish reception on my kitchen radio,OK it was a cheapie FM.
Live in hope ,die in despair.

madfrenchgirl

Errm I dont realy get what youa re saying, is your radio an FM or a DAb? :-)

frmarcus

Tabletop radios

First and foremost our tabletop DAB radios sound good. Our expert panel listens to a range of tracks to test the radios capabilities with different types of music as well as speech.
Our Best Buys are also easy to use with clearly labelled buttons and controls and intuitive settings - not features buried deep within menus.
All DAB tabletop radios tune in automatically when you plug them in and all can be run off the mains, but not all can be battery powered.
Poor scoring radios did badly in our listening tests, and were difficult to set-up and use.
Pocket radios

Our Best Buy pocket radio offers decent sound quality and the maximum volume will not damage your hearing. It is easy to use and offers good battery life. Like all the pocket radios on test it is supplied with in ear headphones.
Our Test Scores

Our tests for tabletop digital radios have been based on sound quality (40%), ease of use (30%), features (15%) and battery life (15%). Pocket radios are based on sound quality (40%), ease of use (20%), battery life (20%), features (15%) and ear safety (5%).
Best Buys
Magicbox Lagio

• Price: £66
• Score: 74%
• Type: Tabletop

The Magicbox Lagio Best Buy looks like a mini hi-fi system and sounds good with lively and full sound and is easy to use too. But to get top notch sound quality you have to compromise on portability, this is the largest unit on test.
First and foremost the Magicbox sounds good. It offers a full sound with detail and nice bass quality. It has a lively, fuller and richer sound than other radios on test. It also has the loudest maximum volume.


Roberts Gemini RD-46

• Price: £70
• Score: 69%
• Type: Tabletop

It might not be the prettiest radio we’ve ever tested but the Roberts RD46 is a quality model that produces a good sound for a reasonable price. Sound quality was good – particularly given its low price.
Our testers thought it might suit those who are partially sighted because the display is larger than most, and the controls are well placed and in memorable locations.


Dualit DAB Kitchen Radio

• Price: £179
• Score: 68%
• Type: Tabletop

Dualit is better known for producing toasters than radios but this stylish looking Dualit DAB Kitchen Radio table-top model is a huge success.
Our listening panel described sound quality as ‘clean’ and ‘involving’, which is high praise indeed from our tough testers. The speakers on this model are mono but don’t let this put you off because sound quality is excellent and there’s an external output that allows you to connect the set to stereo speakers if you’re really keen.


Pure Evoke-2

• Price: £119
• Score: 67%
• Type: Tabletop

The Best Buy Pure Evoke-2 is one of the best-sounding digital radios around; it plays all types of music and speech well, with good bass and clarity. It's easy to set up and use, too.
It can receive FM stations as well as DAB ones and has 12 presets (six DAB and six FM) — useful for storing your favourite stations.


Vita Audio R1

• Price: £159
• Score: 66%
• Type: Tabletop

The Vita Audio R1 is a beautifully designed model available in four finishes – high gloss red or grey, and a cherry or walnut veneer. It’s not all looks and no substance though, it has excellent sound quality and it’s not too difficult to use.
The instruction manual is cluttered and unnecessarily wordy, but the on/off switch is well located and easy to find and once you’ve worked out the basic functions, you’ll have little need to refer back to the manual.


Tivoli Audio Model DAB

• Price: £210
• Score: 64%
• Type: Tabletop

This Best Buy radio from Tivoli has high sound quality and is relatively easy to use, although tuning and some operational aspects could be simpler.
It can receive FM and MW radio in addition to DAB, with 5 DAB presets available – useful for storing your favourite channels. Manual FM tuning is controlled by Tivoli's signature large dial and does not appear in the digital display.


Pure One

• Price: £50
• Score: 62%
• Type: Tabletop

The Pure ONE gets our Exceptional Value Award, proving that cheap doesn’t have to mean nasty where DAB radios are concerned. Our listening panel thought that sound quality was good and described it as ‘detailed’ with ‘good clarity’.
It was a little tricky to use at first because there are lots of separate menus controlled by the central dial, which takes a while to get used to. The ONE has an interesting new feature – Intellitext – which uses a scrolling text feature to give you up-to-date scores and headlines.


Pure PocketDAB 2000

• Price: £130
• Score: 61%
• Type: Pocket

The Pure Pocket DAB 2000 Best Buy pocket radio offers decent sound and is easy to use. This feature laden model has MP3 player capacity but is heavy compared with other pocket radios.
This silver and black player sounds decent. None of the pocket DAB radios blew us away, but this was among the best sounding with satisfactory bass and dynamic energy but stereo sound could be better. It can also play MP3 files.


Pure Evoke-3

• Price: £200
• Score: 60%
• Type: Tabletop

Pure Evoke-3 If you love high tech gadgetry then the Pure Evoke 3 is the DAB radio for you.
Its jam packed with features including an EPG and the ability to pause and rewind live radio. You can set a timer, using the EPG, to record up to 15 hours of programs to an SD memory card and presets will remember a massive 99 different DAB stations.


Don't Buys

This table top/portable radio is a let down on all fronts. The sound is poor - scratchy, thin and lacking bass. Our panel of expert listeners strongly advise avoiding it.
30% Intempo PP-01 £90

Annoyingly the maximum volume is not very loud – certainly not adequate to fill a room. It is difficult to use, all buttons are small and recessed.
Battery life is dismal, with just 7 hours of listening per charge with the supplied rechargeable battery – the worst on test. It's also the most power hungry when connected to the mains, though not the worst in standby.

dimac1

OK so I shall keep this short.:T

Dab Plus is already available in a radio Pure's Siesta radio is a Dab radio they say capable of upgrading to Dab + so for a fraction under £50 you can cover you bases, or take the Amazon.co.uk credit card and use the £15-00 credit they give you to buy it for even less. As the credit card is interest free you can pay it off over a couple of months if you want so not stretching the budget too much.

So Dab + for under £35-00,:j sounds good to me even if pureists do complain about the sound quality of Dab, Dab + is supposed to be better.

wend33

Oobla wrote: »

Do check by borrowing a friends DAB radio and setting it up where your unit would go. They're very sensitive and the reception checker
http://www.bbc.co.uk/digitalradio/listen/postcode.shtml
isn't very accurate. Pure is definitely the best make with much better reception in week signal areas. Morgan Computers do one called The Bug for £50 and its' superb.

I've got 'The Bug' and its made by PURE:

http://www.thebug.com/index.asp

We bought it in Jan 2005 and have loved it ever since

bluebridge_2

Ahem!!! As Martin said, this is a thread about finding the cheapest DAB radio, not for debating on the uselessness of DAB.

If you have ever heard Martin on the radio (as I'm sure most of you will), you'll know he can get very passionate about the things he believes in - wow, didn't he lay into the banks over 'unfair' bank charges for instance!

The reason this thread has attracted so much comment about the quality of the DAB system (as implemented in the UK) is because, in his original comment, Martin defined DAB radios as 'digital radios receiving many more stations with arguably higher quality'. That 'arguably higher quality' tag was, to those of us who feel passionately about this subject, like a red rag to a bull. Why?
Because the unbiased blind listening tests have been done, and the results show that the perceived broadcast quality of DAB (as implemented in the UK) is UNarguably lower than FM, even for Radio 3.

I'm not against DAB - I own three DAB portable radios. As a replacement for AM it's great, and I'm also happy using one of our portables as our kitchen radio and another as our bedside radio. But as a replacement for FM in a Hi-Fi setup it is not acceptable. Yet only a few years ago now, it looked as though this is what we may have been faced with - namely, analogue radio switch-off hitching a ride (without anyone noticing) on the coat-tails of analogue TV switch-off.
Fortunately, with the increasing antagonism towards DAB becoming the new digital standard for UK radio (as more and more people got to hear DAB for themselves), the BBC were forced to state that they had no plans at present to turn off FM. However, my guess, for what it's worth, is that broadcasters will go down the DAB+ road gradually over the next few years. DAB+ enabled receivers (i.e. DAB receivers with firmware that will allow the codec to be updated via a computer USB connection) are now already available in the UK. When the penetration of these receivers into the market is sufficiently large, there is no doubt in my mind that the current mp2 transmissions will be switched off and all current, non DAB+ enabled, receivers will become obsolete. Now for a £20 DAB radio, this may not matter to you - after all, you'll probably get 5 or 6 years service from it. But you may well mind if you splash out over £100 right now on a set that will become useless in a few years time. (Many people, me included, have FM radios still in use that are over 30 years old!)

I've been grumbling about the quality of DAB now (to anyone who'd listen) since about the Christmas of 2003/4 when I bought my first receiver. But I really got angry during the BBC's 'Bach Christmas' in December 2005 when Radio 3 when into overdrive in promoting DAB, giving away DAB radios as prizes (for I forget what now). Ironically, this was just a couple of months after the Advertizing Standards Authority had banned the use of expressions such as 'crystal clear sound' etc. to describe DAB in adverts (they'd banned the use of 'near CD quality sound' a couple of years earlier). Yet the Radio 3 presenters used this or very similar phrases almost every night, even after I'd drawn the ASA's ruling to the attention of one of the presenters.
I started a thread on the, now defunct, old BBC Radio 3 message boards. Amazingly, I find it's still there. Feel free to read it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbradio3/F2989795?thread=1784619

Finally (I know, I know)....
As has already been stated in this thread, the quality of digital radio is better on satellite or freeview than it is on DAB. The BBC transmits (virtually) all its radio channels at 192 kbits/second there; on DAB it uses 192 kbits/s for Radio3, but 128 kbits/s for R1/2/4, and Radio7 is still in mono. Yet the mp2 codec was designed to be used at a minimum of 192 kbits/s (I can unfailingly tell the difference between DAB Radio3 and FM Radio3 when played back through my Hi-Fi, and that's not because DAB is better!). So why doesn't the BBC use 256 kbits/s for its radio channels on satellite, where there is room?
You think this is unreasonable? But wait a minute: the BBC transmits the soundtracks to all its TV channels at 256 kbits/s, using the same mp2 codec as for DAB. The BBC supports 4 symphony orchestras, a concert orchestra, a big band, and a professional chorus (the BBC Singers), who are all heard mainly through its radio channels. Am I really alone in thinking that it's a scandal that the BBC thinks it's more important to have better sound quality for 'Bob the Builder', 'Little Red Tractor' and Blue Peter on CBeebies and CBBC than for the concerts provided by its own orchestras/band/chorus?