DAB radios

[sleepincutie]

My dad has miraculously told my mum and i what he wants for christmas this year and it happens to be a digital radio......totally clueless so what are the best brands, things we need to know before we buy!!????

[anotheoldgit]

First of all find out what stations you can receive in your area. I have had a Pure Evoke-1 for about 3 years now, and find it excellent. It is mains only and only has one speaker, so to receive the stereo effect you need to use head phones.
Of course since i have had mine there are more different models on the market, some that work on batteries, some with a recording capability , and some that also have a FM tuner of course it would not be digital in this band.

[Buenchico]

As has been stated, the first thing to do is to check the DAB reception for the area. You can do that here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/digitalradio/

DAB radios 'eat' batteries at a rate far higher than conventional analogue radios so, unless there's a particular need for portability, I wouldn't bother ensuring that the radio works on batteries. (For most people, mains operation is the only sensible option).

You can find reviews of the sets currently available here:
http://www.reviewcentre.com/products3100.html
and here:
http://www.radio-now.co.uk/

This might also be of interest:
http://www.digitalradionow.com/home.php

Chris

[danroll]

to be perfectly honest, the last thing you want to be doing is buying a DAB radio just yet. within the next 18 months all DAB radio will have changed. at the minute they're using MPEG-level2 encoding and they're changing it to MPEG- level 4. it's higher quality (better than CD) and uses far less bandwidth. i'd tell your dad to hang on if i were you mate!