Should i buy dab radio

Sure, the 1. The latest version of the prestigious British DAB radio is better than ever, with a touch of Scandinavia in the stripped-back bookshelf design. It looks great and sounds fantastic, with more weight and authority than you might expect from a compact, bookshelf radio and impressive levels of space and detail. Read our full Ruark R1 Mk4 review. Sign up for our daily newsletter Newsletter. Stuart Andrews. How good is the sound?

See related. Best smart speaker The top smart speakers you can buy in the UK. Best Bluetooth speaker Portable, waterproof and rugged audio devices for every occasion. Read more Best Buys. The benefits? We test DAB radios the way you would use them at home. We look at how easy they are to set up and use, how intuitive it is to set alarms, switch off and snooze. We try them out to see how clear the sound quality is when playing a range of music genres and spoken word content and look at how easily you can access your favourite stations.

This roundup features top-performing models vetted by our testing experts we've tested 40 of the best DAB radios , along with the best-selling and top-rated options chosen by GH's expert editors. Our recommendations are:. You can listen to a lot more stations too. Digital radios can potentially pick up 60 or more stations, while some FM radios can only receive around For a futureproofed radio, get one that does both. Like with FM, these modern models use a wire or a telescopic aerial the typical metal aerial you imagine to pick up signals.

Wires are more discreet but tend to provide weaker signals than their telescopic counterparts. Some models have built-in wifi to access your favourite internet stations and music from your smartphone and streaming services. Most newer devices will have Bluetooth connectivity as well. Preset stations: You should be able to set a certain number of your favourite radio stations for quick and easy access.

Some have dedicated buttons for this. Alarms: Most radios will have a built-in alarm, either offering a selection of tones or letting you wake up to your favourite station. Phone charging: Some models have ports so you can connect a cable and charge your phone. One on our list has a built-in wireless charging pad too. Battery power: Most DAB radios are mains-powered and need to stay plugged in, but some have optional battery packs that make them portable. Wattage: Radio wattage can range from 1W to over 20W.

The higher the wattage, the louder the volume can be without suffering from distortion. Want your radio to double up as a wireless speaker?

The transmitter refers to the equipment that sends out the radio waves, and the receiver is the equipment that picks it up. The electromagnetic energy that gets transmitted moves around in waves, and these waves exist with a certain speed, length and frequency.

The radio waves get around through a certain up and down movement, which is characteristic to the program signals that govern it. A program gets transmitted once it is added onto a radio wave, and is then known as a carrier. The first way involves adding it in a manner such that the program signals cause an alteration in frequency of the carrier wave.

This first method is known as frequency modulation FM. The second method involves altering the size of the carrier wave. In physics, this size is referred to as amplitude, and as such, this method of changing the size of the carrier wave is referred to as amplitude modulation AM.

These two types of signals can both be picked up by an analogue radio. Digital radio is a form of radio that relies on digitally transmitted data, made up of ones and zeros. This binary data gets encoded and transmitted from a station, and gets picked up by a receiver, which then decodes the data and processes it into music that gets played through your speakers.

Think of it this way: in digital radio, the sound is turned into digits that represent different patterns, with each note bearing a different pattern of digits. To form a tune, a different series of individual notes is required, and the processing of these groups of notes into audible sound is done through a computer chip present within the digital radio.

It might sound confusing at first, but in a nutshell, this is essentially what digital audio broadcasting refers to. DAB and FM radio have both been in use for quite a long time, however, one of these formats is often looked to as the better alternative to the other. Digital audio broadcasting is seen by many as the next step in radio, simply because it solves the cardinal problem faced by FM radio transmission.

This is the fact that FM radio waves from different radio stations in the same area cannot easily coexist with each other within the same airwaves. This results in the distortion of frequencies, and therefore, distortion of sounds. DAB solves this problem by allowing for program signals to be encoded into digits, and sent over in fragments that can only be decoded by a digital radio receiver.

In addition, these fragments can be sent over a number of times so as to improve the chances of them being picked by a digital receiver. This works out better since the computer chip in the digital receiver is able to process the arriving fragments into sound, even if they were received in different instances, from different sources. This therefore allows for many different digital radio stations to exist within a specific area, and to not interfere with each other.

Listeners then have a larger variety of choice in regards to what to tune into. The digital radio signals are also capable of travelling over a larger area than analog signals, and this works out great for a listener who wants to remain tuned in to the same station despite being on the move. To further ensure that signal reception remains uninterrupted, DAB operates over a much larger span of radio frequencies, allowing for a larger volume of program signals to be encoded into one particular signal.

This also makes it possible for digital signals to carry information in the form of text, which might arrive on the digital receiver as details about the track being played. This might include the song year, album title, artist name and so on. To date, the argument between DAB and FM radio is still rife, with both formats each having a significant bit of history.

Its very first stint with DAB technology was in , when the station went on air on a signal that only covered the London area. First, the general public was not satisfied with the quality of sound being transmitted, as they had earlier been led to believe that it would achieve levels of CD-quality clarity. How we test 2.

Roberts Stream 94i 3. Geneva Touring S 4. FAQs 5. We also considered 6. Specs compared Share:. How we test How we test radios We play a lot of music, and we play it loud.

View deals. Cons Sound is slightly too treble-focused Battery add-on is a little clunky-looking. Pros Looks gorgeously retro Built-in radio Good battery life Removable rechargeable battery Relatively compact. Cons Thin sound Harsh at high volume. Trusted Score. Geneva Touring S Old-school radio meets Bluetooth speaker in this gorgeous little set.

FAQs Do radios support smart features?