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There’s more than one way to listen to digital radio. Here’s how to tune in to radio reinvented
Ground control
DAB devices are available in many different shapes and sizes.
About £30 will buy you a basic portable set, such as the Alba TRDAB2830, which only features mono sound and a limited number of preset stations.
Higher up the budget spectrum, you’ll find DAB hi-fi separates such as the Denon TU-1800DAB (about £250), with full remote control, 100 DAB preset stations and digital audio output connections.
Spending £65-£150 will get you a very respectable portable radio, with features including stereo sound, a dual DAB/FM tuner or a screen for displaying station, artist and song title information. Many radio manufacturers are using the reinvention of radio to generate some nostalgia for the technology. Check out the cool retro designs of the Bush TR82DAB (£70) and the Roberts RD50 (£100, pictured below).
DAB fab
No matter what shape your analogue radio took, you’ll find a DAB equivalent.
There are DAB clock radios such as the Wayne Hemingway-designed Pure Digital Bug
Too (£100), DAB personal stereos such as the Philips DA1000 (£50), and DAB
in-car sound systems such as the Blaupunkt DAB54 Woodstock (from £300).
DAB has been with us since 2001 and continues to offer the listener more. Newer DAB devices, including the aforementioned Bug Too, feature a built-in recording system (saving recordings to memory cards in the case of the Bug).
Such features allow users to schedule recordings in advance by selecting the desired programme from a seven-day electronic programme guide (an onscreen guide to scheduled television programmes). The Bug also allows you to pause and rewind live audio broadcasts and can also play any mp3 music files you have stored on your memory card.
There’s even a DAB mobile phone now – the Virgin Lobster 700TV (price depends on contract) – which uses the DAB network to receive special digital TV broadcasts, as well as digital radio stations.
If you haven’t already started listening to digital radio, lower prices, better features and more choice mean it could well be time you tuned in.
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What price DAB
Could it be that DAB has come of age? Not necessarily. We are assured that environmental factors have little affect on reception. Not so in my opinion. Both TV and Radio digital reception appear prone to break-up / pixillation in bad weather. And the quality of aerial used is critical. When it works however, it is sublime and squeezing some many stations on to various multiplexes creates a quite astonishing choice of music - speech- based stations less so. Car manufacturers however, seem blissfully unaware of developments in DAB. There are notable exceptions such as Vauxhall Motors which tries hard to promote the cause. And for the after-fit market, the admirable Blaupunct Woodstock - as previously mentioned - is a prime example. Ask your Lexus dealer or Mercedes-Benz showroom if their highly-priced offerings are fitted with DAB and you're viewed as if you have recently landed from Mars! I am also unsure of the benefits of listening to DAB on TV. Sounds wasteful to me although as your correspondent points out, the sound is superb. I also worry about the long term effect of the static text engraving itself upon my posh plasma. I am aware that somewhere deep within the screen's menu lies a mobile graphic to address that very concern, but have you ever found it? I am still looking after more than a year! Whatever happened to the good old-fashioned brilliance control?
Posted by Dennis Collison, 17 Oct 2007