i currently have an ancient clock radio (but cannot get any decent stations on it). what are d.a.b radios like?
also can you recommend a good one (reasonably priced if possible/less than £60 😕 ta 🙂
p.s yes i know that i’m stuck in the dark ages 😉

No hassles tuning, rubbish as portables (heavy power consumption), not as good sound (only relevant in hi fi terms.)

I don’t know if there’s much to choose from in terms of sound quality at that price (my main criteron) but I’d imagine there’s a fair choice. I’d scout for deals.

I had a couple then went the wifi route to get my music too…apart from my alarm clock radio which is a wee Sony dab I got on ebay for £30, was £50 odd elsewhere at the time.

I have a Roberts ECO one so it doesnt suck too much juice. The sound is quite surprisingly good out of it.

there are only a few different manufacturers of the underlying tuning module. The cheapest one is used a by a number of smaller manufacturers (like matsui, roberts, and the ubiquitous and overprice Pure etc).

Im very happy with my Sony one that I got with some JL vouchers 6 years ago now. Listening to 6M in the kitchen right now. I would be lost without it for 6Music and Test Match Special.

As above, not really portable as it munches batteries in DAB mode, although it also has an FM tuner in it.

I picked up one of these locally for £45 ish the other day. And it lives in the shed so I can fettle to 6M or the cricket
http://www.robertsradio.co.uk/Products/DAB_radios/Gemini_45/index.htm
Not as good quality as the Sony but works fine. I only need a few pre-sets on mine anyway so the limit of 5 oor 6 isnt a problem.

@I also have one of these by the bed.

that one is branded grundig, but mine is branded matsui. It’s basically a really cheap generic. Again works fine as a radio fro R4 in the morning or evening, and the blue clock is OK to read at night, but there’s no alarm function and it’s no HiFi.

I was in the same boat a few weeks ago. Had a similar budget too but ended up with an ASDA special of all things. Less that half the price of the others i’d considered. Not that ugly, simple to use and surprisingly decent sound considering the price.

rubbish as portables (heavy power consumption)

ive got a great little phillips mp3/dab portable (got it for £23 due to a pricing error at argos should have been £54). Yes it eats batteries but i’ve got lots of good rechargeables so thats not an issue. It will get reception in parts of wales where other radios just hiss, particularly good if you want to listen to the football on saturday afternoon after riding nanty 🙂

Make sure you have digital signal where yiou are!!! We spent £100 on one only to find we have no signal here…. DOH!

also can you recommend a good one (reasonably priced if possible/less than £60 ta

I hear qwerty might be selling one…

Check signal before you part with your cash- my GF had one and couldn’t use it in either of the 2 places she lived in Birmingham.

We have 3 Pure versions all bought at different times from Tesco, always seems to be a good deal on one or another DAB radios in Tesco.
PSA I don’t work for or have any connection to Tesco 🙂
Matt.

DAB radio is quite good, but Internet radio is awesome, particularly if you have specialist music tastes. Lots more higher bitrate stations are coming onstream now too, ensuring higher quality. Not much more than your budget either, this looks good :

Roberts Stream 105

what they all say ..tbh I have had a Pure one a Roberts one and an aldi one and they all sound the same …probably for the reasons stoner states.

what they all say ..tbh I have had a Pure one a Roberts one and an aldi one and they all sound the same …probably for the reasons stoner states.

Well they’re unlikely to be far apart in manufacturing costs so there probably isn’t much scope for them to sound that different. Low transmission bitrates aren’t going to help either.

it’s more that the base modules all come from the same developer that there’s really not much to choose between them except a different looking box.
http://www.frontier-silicon.com/about/index.htm

it’s more that the base modules all come from the same developer that there’s really not much to choose between them except a different looking box.
http://www.frontier-silicon.com/about/index.htm

Those modules will output a line level signal. This signal then needs to be buffered, amplified and then connected to a drive unit (which has a compromised operation due to the nature of the cabinet). None of those things can be improved much if your total component budget is about £20. I’d think that having a different looking box might indeed be the easiest way of improving the sound 😉

The Grundig/Matsui one in Stoner’s picture above is also available from Aldi, amongst other places.

They are surprisingly good for the money.

We’ve a couple of Pure ones (kitchen and garage), they work well and you’ve loads of channels.

And best just to plug in.