Are these DABs any good?

I've seen this for £70 at riche rounds and I want to give DAB ago,if I sold my cassete deck I think this will replace the empty spcae nicely.

http://www.richersounds.co.uk/index.php?f=itemdetl.php&p=300379

 

I'd go for a tv digi box. One of them £100 free to air thingies! Get one with an audio out and you've got a taster of DAB. Am I correct in thinking this is possible?

 

MOre or less, MO. You don't get Planet Rock, Life, Virgin, Classic FM, TalkSport and thats just off the top of my head- listening to Magic and Kerrang (for the minute I could stand of that god awful racket) on Freeview sounded oh-so compressed like some poor quality FM tuner on a coat hanger aerial. And what a shame about Jazz FM on Freeview- at least in my Ipswich area (and I do have a good aerial etc) its such a shame such good music is spoilt by the constant hiss...
DAB all the way for me- much clearer sound and far less compression (although a bit is inevitable) there are some areas in Britain that you can get about 25 DAB stations.... www.ukdigitalradio.com

 

It looks like the BBC Digital Page allows you to see what is available by entering a postcode. As I'm not yet into DAB I am not too sure of the value of this information but it mat be a good place to start your digital search.

Auric

 

I'm pretty wary of this DAB stuff - I listen to a fair bit of radio (From radios 1 2 and 4 / classic FM / jazz FM ) on a variety of kit - A quad 33/303/FM3, a couple of Roberts portables and my car radio. I bought a "Pure" portable at £99 to investigate DAB and also listen via my "freeview" box.

Sadly my experiences of DAB/ FM show FM wins hands down ( imo ) - a £40 2nd hand roberts radio sounds much better than the Pure portable. I've tried the output from my freeview box to amp and the sound was good - hiss free and clear, but compressed. The FM3 is better by far.

This is perhaps the view of a "traditional" radio listener - but of someone who cares about sound. I wory about digital broadcasting in general, even prefering the picture on my analogue TV (decent arial/ Sony TV) to that which I get for terestrial stations on digital.

 

I use DAB and FM, and although my Technics STGT1000 (DIRT DIRT cheap!) sounds respectable on FM (not a patch on my £12 NAD 4225 - what a steal!), the DAB section is blooming AWFUL now, thanks to BBC's continual wittering away of bandwidth to cram in yet more and more stations.

Mind you, in Exeter the only BBC station I can get is BBC Radio Devon - a station so overwhelmingly interesting it'll have you reaching for the knife/gun/noose/pills to alleviate the boredom...

Planet Rock STILL uses compression even on DAB - it's all squashed in like Radio 1 on a bad day - good tunes though

 

In other words, DAB is crap and will remain crap until all stations are broadcast at a bit-rate of 192 kbps, and even that sounds pretty poor to my ears

If this is the future of radio then radio is dead :007:

Chris

 

Not kidding - where did you get that - jammy mite - it's not a bad little tuner that - especially at £12!!

I'd hold fire on DAB personally amazingtrade, unless you have an itching for those extra stations. Your money would be better spent on a nice s/h analogue tuner for better FM quality. That said, if you are unlikely to be able to put up a decentish aerial (loft/external) - there is an argument for getting DAB purely for a hiss free and moderate sound quality - rather than a frustrating and less enjoyable listening experience with an inadequately performing analogue FM unit.

 

Cookiemonster - I snagged it from Smack Generators in Reading - the guy was going to reprice it but I said "I'll buy that for a dollar" (or thereabouts!) - I nearly bit his arm off to get it. It even works with the cruddy T-piece indoor aerial I have to use - sorted!

Technobear (Chris) is soooooo right about DAB - it's only MPEG Level 2 I believe as well, so it can't even be directly compared with MP3 128kbit quality. It's OK on the commercial ensemble I get, but no great shakes. I'm afraid Chris is right - but then how many people care if the sound's crap so long as they can do their housework/bath/gardening/walking to work etc with fair sound?

This is the problem non-deaf brain toting people like us have to deal with... The majority aren't always right after all.

 

at present dab is more about choice than quality which is what the average guy on the street seems to want.. or at least that's the message that the bbc have taken away from the mp3 explosion.
i don't think you'll ever get 'pure' digital broadcasting due to copyright fears.
i quite like dab for the ease of use, programming more to my taste on stations like planet rock and the lack off hiss.
quality is a bit poo-er as has been said but it's not as bad as some make out.
cheers

julian

 

U know what..

'Choice' is my biggest frustration with Radio.

I listen to hour upon hour upon hour of radio in my road-based job... and what usually makes me turn it off is the cack choice of music!!

Wish we had great college stations like in the US. :'(

Id take brilliant material choice over sound quality any day...

but then radio for me is to wake up to, and listen in the car 3-4 hours a day or more.

Chris

 

Well just to be differant and put a good word in for DAB. I listen to R2, Virgin and Classic Gold, to name a few on my TAGmclaren DAB and I think it sounds very good.

Not all stations do I must admit. Galaxy is shite in all respects. Radio 1 shite. Are both good examples.

Didn't Sony make a DAB radio that got some very good results? Not £70 I know.

 

yeh the STS777ES... £550...that'd be the one i'd get if i were to get one too...