I’d like something that meets the following:

DAB and FM
Bluetooth to link to my phone (calls and streaming music)
Single DIN
Doesn’t look like it’s been designed to appeal to the readers of Max Power*

*this seems to be the trickiest part

Ideas?

I bought an alpine one for my focus, I think they all look a bit ‘max power’ in the shop as that’s the market the shops trying to sell to, but it’s not too bad in the car, helps that it’s blue lights on black plastic, and the car’s blue with black plastic, so it kinda fits. Guess it’s a mix of luck and judgement.

‘Pure’ do one which Halfords sell – looks ok and works well.

http://www.halfords.com/sat-nav-audio/car-audio/dab-radios-car-stereos?brand=Pure&initMin=0&initMax=375

I can’t link to it at the mo’, but look for the Kenwood DAB unit that’s around the £100-150 mark. I’ve got one, and it’s an excellent little unit, although I’m not entirely certain about the BT bit.
Anyway, Kenwood, JVC and Sony do some decent single DIN head units up to about £160-ish.

Blaupunkt are masters of the understated car stereo.

This one pretty much ticks all the boxes, and is cheap, to boot. Takes SD cards, memory sticks…
http://www.halfords.com/sat-nav-audio/car-audio/dab-radios-car-stereos/philips-ce153dr-iphone-bluetooth-usb-dab-car-audio-system
Personally, I’d much rather plug my phone in rather than stream music, just because it keeps it charged, and I have a screen mount for satnav duties, so it’s dead easy to just plug it in and slide it into the mount.
Nite-ize do a brilliant mount that uses a magnetic ring stuck to the back of the phone, so it just attaches to a steel sphere on a stand stuck to the dash, and can be rotated or angled very easily, and then pulled straight off and put in a pocket.
There are a bunch of units from Pioneer, Kenwood and Sony, many don’t have BT, though, so you have to decide if that feature is really important; it isn’t to me, because I just don’t use wireless streaming, and I never get phone calls in the car, or make them.

Blaupunkt have gone massively downhill in recent years. The one I bought 6 years ago (bt but not dab) had the worst UI of any device I’ve ever used.

Currently have a Kenwood DAB single DIN with add on BT module. Would fit your bill, they might even do one with both integrated now. Dab is rock solid, the BT is great when it works but is a lot flakier than the blaupunkt on this front and every few months needs a hard reset.

http://www.dabonwheels.co.uk/in-dash_dab_car_radios.html

Is worth a look. We have this aerial:
http://www.dabonwheels.co.uk/Kinetic_DEGA-4001_glass_mount_DAB_car_aerial.html which I can’t recommend highly enough. Rock solid reception and no need to drill the bodywork.

Don’t know about the Blaupunkt, but I had a supposedly whizzy Alpine unit, with iPhone compatibility, back when that wasn’t so common, it was an XO-1, or something like that, and its UI was abominable, even trying to change the time was an excercise in teeth-grinding frustration, and using the radio on the move downright dangerous.
My little Kenwood is vastly superior.
Actually, just noticed this Kenwood, which has BT auto-pairing, and is less than £100:
http://www.halfords.com/sat-nav-audio/car-audio/dab-radios-car-stereos/kenwood-kdc-bt34u-bluetooth-ipod-usb-car-stereo
Nice looking, quite understated unit.

Kenwood BT73DAB

I bought one for the Defender about 6 months ago and I think it’s great. Does all that stuff you need, integrates very well with an iPhone (can control phone and music from head unit) and has front and rear USB slots. My front slot (ooo-er) has a teeny 8GB drive permanantly plugged in. DAB radio anorl so I can listen to the cricket.

Winner for me was the ability to change the colour of the LED illumination to match the rest of your knobs and switches.

I love my Pure ( as above ? )

Pure

On the user interface I think it comes down to wanting buttons and a clear display. In the car you want something you don’t really have to look at so. You don’t want menus/submenus and the like.
– round knob volume control (not up down buttons)
– station presets on buttons
– play/pause/skip buttons.

that Kenwood BT73DAB looks great but it’s a bit short on the button front. The simpler model looks more like mine (KDC-BT34U – though I don’t think its’ a DAB set)

In the car you want something you don’t really have to look at so. You don’t want menus/submenus and the like.

I bought myself a cheap JVC a few years back and I hate the thing. You have to go into the menu to change the radio station. Like literally select the menu, select station, scroll through…

Completely agree about the buttons. You want something you just need to press once.

When I was looking, there was a company called Nakamichi doing some very understated headunits. Can’t remember why I never bought one, might have been a budget thing. A quick search reveals they might have jumped on the disco light bandwagon looking at some of the newer models though.

I have a Pure, hard to beat for the monies I reckon.

http://www.classiccarstereo.co.uk/

No dab yet but can always run it via phone Internet.

In the car you want something you don’t really have to look at so. You don’t want menus/submenus and the like.
I bought myself a cheap JVC a few years back and I hate the thing. You have to go into the menu to change the radio station. Like literally select the menu, select station, scroll through…

Yeah, that was like the Alpine, worse than using a phone and texting, same with up/down buttons, almost impossible to use without looking, there’s no substitute for a large rotary volume knob that can be easily found by touch.
I don’t have to worry about finding radio stations, I only listen to 6Music, so switching to DAB gets me my chosen station; simples! 🙂

Ive got the Pure too. £112.00 on offer from Halfrauds Bluetooth Dab etc Fantastic, fitted myself.

This looks the sweet spot in the Kenwood range – BT and DAB built in but still has physical buttons for most functions
http://www.kenwood-electronics.co.uk/products/car/cd_receivers/dab/KDC-BT48DAB/

Thread hi Jack

So DAB coverage is now good enough to allow long journeys with seemless coverage

With a decent aerial (like the one I’ve linked to above) absolutely. We installed just before a trip to Skye a few years back. From London SW2 it was rock solid to the other side of the border, then patchy around the lochs but came back on the run to Glasgow and well beyond.

Once you get into the hills in Wales or Cumbria it’s the same as FM – you will get fairly large areas without reception – but the FM has gone before the DAB in my experience. In the city FM gets badly affected by tall buildings, again I find DAB much more reliable.

Thanks

I’ve just got one of the little adhesive screen antenna for my DAB, but reception is fine over most of the places I regularly drive, and I have my phone plugged in just in case anyway. I’ve driven from Chippenham to Burnham-on-Sea, about 72 miles, and only lost the signal for a short distance along the M5 South of Avonmouth. East of Devizes, going towards Tidworth and Salisbury is completely dead, though, but a friend with a factory-installed DAB who lived over that way said she never lost reception anywhere she drives, which is most of the South-west.
A good antenna makes a world of difference; I just never got around to having one fitted, I don’t spend enough time in the car to really justify it.

I’ve got a Pure Highway 300Di, that doesn’t have BT, and plugs into the Aux In of my Mondy’s stereo.

Great at everything bar USB stick playback. At power-on, it always wants to re-read the filing off the stick, and takes forever to do so.

Are the Pure dash units any better?