I am thinking of getting a DAB Radio for the car but have read that sales are poor because they don't work well in cars.
Does anyone out there have one and are they worth the investment?
I am particularly interest in the Revo system. Any feedback welcome before I spend my hard earned cash
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Among several threads is this long and recent one:
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=40315&...f
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Thanks for the information. I still don't know how good they are though, and further comments would be welcome.
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I've tried aftermarket systems from Pioneer and Blaupunkt and Vauxhall's own. If you're in the signal area reception on all the radios was excellent, the only exception being between the tallest buildings in London where the signal can disappear. There's less interference than on FM and you don't notice the relatively poor DAB sound quality on most stations because the car's a fairly noisy environment.
The main problem with the aftermarket sets is that they're a standard size so probably highly nickable. The problem with the built-in Vauxhall system was poor station selection menus - you seemed to have to press lots of buttons to get between multiplexes, so changing from, say, Radio 1 to Classic FM or Virgin took ages.
Hope this helps
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I get great reception for DAB, by mounting an antenna that is 4' long and 3' wide on my chimney 20' off the ground, and directed directly at the Beckley (Oxford) antenna about 15 miles away. It won't however pick up the Reading/Basingstoke signal about 25 miles away. The trailing lead to the car is a problem though....
On that basis I'll be using RDS FM for a long time to come. DAB will just die on you if you go behind a tall steel-based structure perhaps, when FM will just fade, but still give mono reception.
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i have a blaupunkt woodstock and the reception i get is superb!!! the arial is also tucked under the top half of my dash board at the minute. I was planning on mounting it when the weather was better but becasue the signal is so good anyway i havent bothered!!! the quality of sound is also amazing
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DAB is laughably bad. DO NOT BOTHER.
It is bad enough in the home.
Even worse in a car.
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let me be the last to let you down....
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I have read all this stuff about the poor sound quality of DAB. Obviously, I'm a pig-ignorant imbecile with an untrained ear, because I think it sounds great. I have a DAB radio in my kitchen and it sounds terrific.
Most of the twaddle about sound quality comes from people who buy into the con peddled by Hi-Fi magazines. They will tell you that (for example) copper cables containing oxygen (or some such tripe) between components affects sound quality. I've also had people telling me they can tell the difference between different bit-rate MP3s. Perhaps the claims are true, but I can't hear them. Perhaps if my DAB radio was in a sound balanced listening room I might hear the utter awfulness of it. As it is, I seem bizarrely oblivious to the appallingly bad quality of it.
For the average person with a normal ear, DAB is fine in the home. It's been shown that after about five minutes of listening to any quality of sound, you get used to it. Ever watched a film on TV when you've got bad reception? You get used to it. That's what the human brain does. Perhaps that's my problem; my brain is too accepting.
Hopefully, this will give you a different perspective. Give it a try and tell us what you think. Plenty of people seem to think it's OK.
V
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Plus, of course, if you can get reception, you can get Test Match Special. If that's not enough reason for getting DAB, I don't know what is.
V
PS. As an aside, on the interests of research, I just looked at component interconnect cables from a specialist. They ranged from £30 to a rather eye-watering £470 on one site I looked at. Given that they are just cables carrying a current.... People who buy into that sort of con will tell you DAB is awful, no doubt.
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DAB isn't as good as a solid FM signal.
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You need a good aerial. We thought the one in our horsebox was rubbish until we fitted a new aerial (only cheap though). Drove from deepest darkest Dartmoor to the middle of London with no drop-outs at all.
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"We thought the one in our horsebox was rubbish until we fitted a new aerial (only cheap though). Drove from deepest darkest Dartmoor to the middle of London with no drop-outs at all."
You mean the horses were still in the horsebox when you got to London? That's somehow comforting....
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"Given that they are just cables carrying a current.... People who buy into that sort of con will tell you DAB is awful, no doubt."
I can certainly understand your sentiment as I once shared it too, but after being introduced to a hi-fi system owned by someone that can tell the difference between audio cables I have now changed my view. The person in question goes as far as making his own cables and can tell the difference between various brands of commercial cables and his own varieties if you changed them without him seeing, freakish, yes...a con, no.
He simply won't listen to music on car stereos as none of them are good enough to do the music justice...sad huh?
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Slightly off thread but along the lines of freakish and anorak - do any of you remember a man who appeared on TV and could identify the music on unlabelled vinyl LPs just by looking at the grooves and tracks? Useful if he had had a flood and lost the sleeves and labels I suppose! I am no audiophile, having had my hearing wrecked by prolonged exposure to jet engines and gunfire! The last time I had a hearing test in the RAF, the medical Centre sergeant asked me if I wanted to sell him my hi-fi!
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asked me if I wanted to sell him my hi-fi!
What did you reply "half past two" ?
My ears are pretty well knackered as well, using shotguns without ear defenders for 30 years....
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My dad can do that - it's got far more to do with knowing the music really well. Loud and soft portions of music have a completely different texture, so you can see ralative lengths etc. Apparently if you're sufficiently into music it's quite easy.
Apparently.
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>>PS. As an aside, on the interests of research, I just looked at component interconnect cables from a specialist. They ranged from £30 to a rather eye-watering £470 on one site I looked at. Given that they are just cables carrying a current.... People who buy into that sort of con will tell you DAB is awful, no doubt.
Sounds cheap; how about nearly 7 grand for a pair of speaker cables? snipurl.com/ri8p.
What a pity Ohm's law apllies just the same irrepsective of price...
To get back on topic, I fully understand the consequences of lossy compression, but DAB sounds OK to me. No matter how good an FM tuner is, I'm not going to pick up BBC6 or 7 on it, so i'd rather have DAB. Lower quality but more choice - within reason ;-)
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"how about nearly 7 grand for a pair of speaker cables?"
I'm clearly in the wrong business. Thinks...now what if I take a set of doorbell wire, add a couple of connectors, say it's deoxygenated depleted uranium and sell them for ten grand a pop. One fool - er, I mean customer - a year and I'll be happy.
Though I must say it appears that something similar has already been done.
V
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As others have said, loss of DAB signal can be frustrating. I was told recently that (later this year) antennae will be available to pick up signals from GPS satellites, which should be a big improvement.
Despite the occasional niggles, I think it's worth it to get Radios 5 6 & 7 (plus Test Match Special).
I like Revo, only 5 presets but that's enough.
If you're parking in a dodgy area it's easy & quick to take the unit off the cradle.
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As others have said, loss of DAB signal can be frustrating. I was told recently that (later this year) antennae will be available to pick up signals from GPS satellites, which should be a big improvement.
Are you saying that the US DoD are going to start transmitting DAB signals from the GPS satelites - Unlikely as the satellites would need new transmitters and bigger solar panels (or nuclear reactors) to generate the power.
I already have a receiver which picks up the signal from the GPS satellites - it is only of use for the GPS signal though.
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My parents saw that their friends had bought a portable DAB radio for their home. After having a demo my dad thought it was really good so went out and bought one. My parents had an old, but really good Sony analogue radio in the kitchen which they dumped in favour of the DAB radio.
I visited last week and just like the old Sony the DAB is tuned in to the local radio station and none of the other presets are set. The analogue manual radio was just as effective and my mum could find the two channels she listened to (local and Radio 4, but only for The Archers on a Sunday!) after my 5 year nephew had fiddled with it. She moved the tuning knob and lined up the yellow bar with the blob of nail varnish on the band indicator! I asked her what she would do when the five year old began messing with the DAB and she said she'd have to wait until my dad came home, or wait until the five year old was technology savvy!!!
Unless you are a real radiophile I can't see the point of DAB.
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Unless you are a real radiophile I can't see the point of DAB.
As I stated further up thread I think the point is more choice of stations, but at a potentially lower quality
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"I was told recently that (later this year) antennae will be available to pick up signals from GPS satellites, which should be a big improvement."
An ICE dealer told me this.
Ian's query led me to check this out, Revo say it is incorrect and only digital radio antennae will do.
On behalf of the ignorant dealer, apologies for duff info.
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