DAB radio under £15. DAB Alarm clock under £20

pulliptears

I bought the £15 Tesco one last night, solely for Planet Rock in the kitchen. Its a great little radio for the money, good sound etc and Im pleased with it!

jmorg

Got a DAB radio from Curry's sale (down from £24.99 to £14.99). It's excellent!
8 presets DAB, 8 presets FM. Good 3" speaker. Battery and Mains power options. Looks good too.
They may still have a couple left, although the sale is over. The model is MATDR-100 by Matsui. I have purchased Matsui products before, and they have never let me down.
jmorg

Toymangenie

I purchased the Tesco DAB 107, but as someone mentioned earlier, it has an annoying buzz even when the volume is set to zero. (noticeable mainly if using headphones or connecting to a hi fi)
This is not mains hum as the buzz changes in pitch and the FM doesn't buzz at all.
I returned the unit and tried 2 others - they are all the same.
I tried a different type of power pack - a regulated one - but still no joy.
So I decided to stick with freesat radio and a cheap alarm clock.

PrinceGaz

The main things to remember about DAB radios are

a) they are best suited for uses like a kitchen-radio where sound quality is secondary to ease of use, or listening to late-night phone-ins in a bedroom where sound quality is almost irrelevant

b) they should be run from the mains, or from NiMH rechargeable batteries otherwise they will eat up standard alkaline batteries quickly enough to make them an expensive purchase quite quickly

c) if sound-quality really matters, such as in the living-room where your hi-fi setup is, forget DAB as the quality in Britain is well below that of the 50+ years old VHF FM broadcasts. It doesn't matter if you spend £50 or £500 on a DAB capable tuner, the music will still sound bad because it was transmitted at too low a bitrate

Dustangle

PrinceGaz wrote: »

The main things to remember about DAB radios are...

That is what I meant. Completely off-the-topic of this thread.

Altarf

Altarf wrote:

As someone who lives out in the sticks, the problem with DAB is the lack of choice.

I can receive only 18 DAB stations, 11 of which belong to the BBC. Of the other 7, two (Planet Rock and the Jazz) are closing down shortly, two are available on FM or MW (Classic FM and Virgin), which leaves BFBS Radio, TalkSport and Capital Life.

So please keep the product in perspective.

L.S.D. wrote: »

Then go in the wi fi radio thread, as it's obvious you don't need or want a DAB radio.

You are right, I don't want a DAB radio, and returned the one I did buy.

However I thought that it worth mentioning that the big selling point of DAB, i.e. lots of choice, is not necessarily true, and that if you were not in a large urban area it would be worth checking coverage before buying one and being disappointed.

So it was a warning that I thought was entirely appropriate to this thread, even though it was obvious you and some others don't like any criticism of DAB.

photome

Dustangle wrote: »

This thread is nearly all a lot of boring chatter either about the technical failings of the DAB format, or about internet radios. Nothing to do with the topic, which is cheap DAB radios.

I just want to know about cheap DAB radios.

Does anyone have any ingformation about cheap DAB radios?

M&S is doing 20% off a range of DAB rados so the Pure One is £40 instead of £50. Are there any better deals in cheap DAB radios out there?

Maybe I'm being unreasonable, but I don't want to know about anything else, at least in this thread.

This is a chat forum and as in life it goes off in tangents,but all the posts do relate to DAB radios (and their failings) if you only want info on the cheap ones it is all in post 1. My advice is, if you live in a burrow you wont get any reception anyway.

L.S.D.

Altarf wrote: »

You are right, I don't want a DAB radio, and returned the one I did buy.


So it was a warning that I thought was entirely appropriate to this thread, even though it was obvious you and some others don't like any criticism of DAB.

I have no objection to Wi Fi radio at all, in fact I am going to buy one as well, but it's a different product & comes with it's own faults. I also have Freeview radio, FM radio & Satellite radio, each comes with it's own limitations. My gripe about the people who run down DAB is, some clearly have an agenda, some run it down for no good reason. The sound IS CRYSTAL CLEAR within it's own limitations as per FM etc ,etc, etc. This thread is about buying a DAB radio for a low price. If you have criticism of DAB, FM, Satellite, Freeview, wi fi etc radio open up a thread in the appropriate section.

peggydoodaa

One thing that I'm really annoyed with on my Bush DAB alarm clock radio, is that if i set the alarm to come on to radio, but for some reason the station hasn't picked up when the alarm goes off, it's doesn't default to the buzzer or any other station. Sits there and says 'select station', but i'm asleep and late for work damn it! lol

Altarf

L.S.D. wrote: »

I have no objection to Wi Fi radio at all, in fact I am going to buy one as well, but it's a different product & comes with it's own faults. I also have Freeview radio, FM radio & Satellite radio, each comes with it's own limitations.

Very nice, but I have not mentioned any product other than DAB radios.

L.S.D. wrote: »

My gripe about the people who run down DAB is, some clearly have an agenda, some run it down for no good reason.

I do have an agenda, and that is to warn people who do not live in large urban areas, that they may not receive the wide variety of channels from DAB that they may have expected.

L.S.D. wrote: »

The sound IS CRISTAL CLEAR within it's own limitations as per FM etc ,etc, etc.

I won't even go there, but you sound like someone trying to convince themselves...

L.S.D. wrote: »

This thread is about buying a DAB radio for a low price. If you have criticism of DAB, FM, Satellite, Freeview, wi fi etc radio open up a thread in the appropriate section.

I think that this is a perfectly valid thread to warn people who are about to purchase a DAB radio to check their coverage to ensure that it meets their requirements.