Hi,

Probably going to buy the missus a DAB radio but she wants one she can connect the I-Phone too and an MP3 player (can you use an I-phone as an MP3 player?).

So as you can tell, I'm not very informed on the I-stuff, so any advice? Like the Bush stuff from Argos 'cause it won't break the bank!

What do you use and why?

Thanks,

Any radio, be it analogue or digital, with an line level auxillary (aux) in will allow you to play music stored on an i-Phone through the radio.

We have a Tivoli and it works great for this. You just need a 3.5mm to 3.5mm jack cable (anything from £5 to £25), which you then plug one end of into the headphone socket of the i-Phone and the other into the 3.5mm jack on the radio. There will be an input selector on the front of the radio that allows you to select the aux-in.

I like the Tivoli because it's robust and the speaker is of a half decent quality. There is some debate as to whether the analogue signal will indeed be turned off in the next few years. The government would like to do it because it allows them to then sell the airwaves to commercial users. But think of all the car radios that would suddenly become redundant over night.

Plus digital radio signals are less robust and of poorer quality as a result.

It could still happen though.

the ones with docks have the advantage you can charge the iphone & the dock can communicate with it so you can get verying levels of remote control (from volume/ffwd thru to full song selection). yes, the iphone is also an mp3 player.

digital radio signals are less robust and of poorer quality as a result

eh?

This is just how it was explained to me so any engineers feel free to correct (SFB that means you).

The digital signal obviously is still an analogue wave, but because it's just a series of zeros and ones the wavelength can be compressed massively (thus freeing up more of the spectrum for other uses).

Because the wavelength is so small, this makes it vulnerable to atmospheric conditions like wind or storms. It's the same mechanism that causes a digital TV signal to pixelate during stormy weather.

Now I'm writing this I suddenly feel really nervous that perhaps i've been fed a great wind up!

Or unintentially mis-informed. The truth is that digital *can be* less robust than analogue signals and still work but that doesn't necessarily mean they are.