DAB delight: digital radios under £20, plus top big brand deals

pioneer31

Does anyone have a review for the cheapo DAB sets?

drezsa

pioneer31 wrote: »

DAB's days are already numbered.

http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/articles/DAB+-likely-to-launch-in-the-UK-in-the-next-3-years.php

And according to this

http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/articles/Digital-radio-systems-need-to-support-over-the-air-software--upgrades.php

DAB+ doesn't seem to have a certain future either.

alynns

I have just tried to buy one and although the top of page blurb says reduced to £29.99, the actual item when you click on to it is £39.99. Strangely though, I couldn't check out and tried about 5 times so have emailed them to ask what is going on. However, having read these reviews, don't think I'll bother to check out after all!

And yes, their Free Delivery is just a nightmare - the courier only comes Mon-Fri 8-6 (or something) and you can't request an a.m. or p.m. slot. They come twice and then return the item. Old way was much better so now I just pay and it seems to then come with Royal Mail.

barak

Money_Maker_Shaker wrote: »

Does anyone know if the Phillips can also be battery powered?

Thanks

MMS

Be careful if you want a battery powered DAB radio as they are much more power hungry than AM/FM radios, owing to the need to decode the digital signal before producing any audio. This also causes a delay, so that for instance the BBC's 'pips' are no longer accurate.

MiserlyMartin

AirCooledHeaven wrote: »

So tell me where do I find Planet Rock, XFM, Virgin Radio, BBC R5 etc etc on FM?

One mention of DAB and all the 'audiophiles' jump on their soapboxes slagging it off. DAB was never intended as a 'CD quality' source, it was intended to provide a wider choice of stations. For that it should be applauded.

Those stations are on satellite/cable at far better bitrates and they are on FM in the South East too. Its no good giving a few extra stations if the quality is terrible. The marketing blurb for DAB does promote it as being better than FM with no hiss and CD quality sound, but the reality is that it can't even near the quality of FM radio at current bitrates. Things may improve with DAB+ but I suspect that instead of using the better codec to improve the audio quality, they will drop the transmission bitrates further and cram in more stations - leaving the audio quality back to the state where it is currently. Current DAB radios will be useless when we go to DAB+ anyway.

MiserlyMartin

Gareth56 wrote: »

Just try listening Radio 5 Live after the sun has gone down, also try listening to BBC7 & Five Live Extra on FM.... oh you can't on stoneage analogue:-))

As for the "nasty" metallic sound I suggest that is due to the quality of the radio and not the broadcast. I have one [very] cheap DAB radio and one expensive one and the 'quality' is different. As you say to get a decent FM signal you have to be practically living underneath the FM transmitter!!!

I'd rather listen to medium wave for Five Live than DAB. By the way I've never actually bought a DAB set but I have listened to friends sets and also hear a lot of different models of them at work everyday and none of them sound anything like as good as FM - they all have that horrible metallic sound and that is purely down to the technically inferior MP2 low bitrate transmission that the DAB standard employs.

Have you tried plugging in an aerial for FM? You will need one! DAB doesn't work without it unless you are near the transmitter, neither does FM broadcast.

Mike-C_2

Does anyone else feel that Amazon and Argos are simply taking the !!!! out of MSE readers by offering short term loss leaders, and then whisking them away the moment they bite?

I find it quite difficult to believe that Amazon and Argos had both already planned to put up the price of their promoted DAB products before the MSE email went out.

Seems to me that there is promotional sleight of hand going on whereby the price is dropped to a super bargain level to drum up interest, but as soon as they have got their free publicity via MSE, and the orders start flooding in, they promptly put the price back up, even to those who had got their order in and managed to reserve their item at the lower price.

To me this is not playing the game.

Perhaps MSE would like to consider a months blackout on free publicity for any subsequent promotions by those two suppliers in order to discourage them from such sharp practice in future.

drezsa

Steady on its not quite that bad if I had an FM mast aerial I'm sure I could pick up DAB London stations which I can already occasionally do when the atmospheric conditions are right from the other side of town.

Surely most radios are a cost compromise between what's needed to decode the signal and what's needed to produce the sound.

Concordski42

There was a DAB radio on sale in Aldi a few weeks ago for £22.99. I thought I would get one for my mother. She is blind and loves cricket, so the commentary on Radio 5 Sports Extra is wonderful for her. Radio 4 on long wave is okay but most radios don't have long wave. I bought a DAB radio - a Roberts - a few years ago but after some months it started showing 'signal not available', which was something of a pain. That cost about £60. It was rubbish.

I didn't expect too much of the Aldi one, especially at £22.99, but it is terrific. The sound, for a small box, is really good. It is also quite easy to use for someone who cannot see. It took me about ten minutes to explain everything to my mum and to get her to use it. We are both extremely pleased with it. Highly recommended if it comes back in stock. I went to buy one for myself, having found how good it was, but they had sold out. Keep a look out for it though. Well worth it.

pjbltd

The Philips AE5900/05 any good? Sure it's (was) expensive but I cannot find any reviews for it on any tech sites (I always like to read a review first)