Found this at Morley WA store, had plenty on the shelf, marked as $79, box had $49 but scanned at $29. Plenty on the shelf. Audio quality is great and looks good.
Makes a cheap bedside alarm clock that syncs with the time of the digital radio stations.
Appears to be sold out online.
Seriously? That is ridiculous.
DAB+ is AAC+ which is a part of MPEG-4, and a lot better than the MP2 you are thinking of.
I'm not thinking of mp2, but comparing to a 128kbps mp3 Pandora stream on the same device. Pandora sounds way better. DAB sounds awful and flat. AAC+ is good, but cannot compensate for such a bitrate difference.
DAB+ uses HE-AAC v2 though, which is designed for low bit rates, and doesn't sound too bad at all. Much better than old codecs at the same bit rate.
ABC is decent, with 80k for the music stations, less for talk stations such as RN. The commercial stations in Perth are 48k, which is a bare minimum for music.
At 48k, there is no proper bass nor treble, contrary to FM. It sounds like there is nothing below ~200Hz or above ~8000Hz.
Sounds better than FM to me, maybe its just my old speakers
More likely it's the difference in the devices you are playing it on.
Wow
I bought a DAB+ clock radio from Dick Smith around Christmas last year to replace my old analogue one.
I always wondered why the sound was so poor when it was meant to be in crystal clear high def digital.
I wondered if maybe it was the speakers in the new unit…
But I pretty much only list to 6PR.
I wonder if this is why it always sounds so muffled?
Yep, that's why. The detail is missing. Lack of treble also causes sound to be dull.
Maybe compare with one of the very few stations which broadcasts in 128kbps (see my link above). That will tell you.
Was given one of these. Definitely not bad at all and I currently use it as clock radio on my bedside table as per the description. The screen backlight dims right down when not active and although fine for me it does make my side of the bedroom glow… seriously not enough to bother most but it may just be enough to annoy some so be careful. Also, the alarm setup is very klunky so for those who need to continually alter the time or even just kill the alarm on weekends etc. this may not be ideal. Not sure why they decided to make it that difficult but still, for $29 it's a worthwhile investment as it's the type of handy Radio that could be used anywhere from the Bedroom to the Kitchen to the Garage etc.
These are good, except for lack of headphone or any other electrical output. So you can't feed it into the hifi.
Well it has headphone output but yeah. The kmart one was much better. And cheaper too.
Cool, must be a new model. Mine lacks it, but decent sound.
it does have a 3.5mm headphone socket on the back, so you can use it with a hifi. As to the quality I'm not sure.
Anyone know if it has any inputs? Or is it radio only
Radio only.
You can use an MP3 player with FM transmitter, like we used to have in our cars years ago :-)
Why would a tiny single speaker have an input?
Output can be jacked into any amplifier and then you can crank digital radio out loud as you like.
I prefer Triple M Classic Rock myself, where I can listen to the sweet ramblings of Alice Cooper.:)
SmoothFM digital for me :-), or MyPerthDigital (No adverts). And we think that when you hook up your DAB+ radio through a decent stereo, that we really notice an improvement in sound quality listening to 94.5 in Perth on FM, then switching to 94.5 in Digital. Worth the massive outlay of $29 (If you get digital service in your area of course)
for white noise while sleeping.
Does this provide the option to pause/delay the broadcast?
Looking for an option to run the rado whilst watching the footy - but need something so I can sync the timing to the images
I've got jack of the tv commentary
Just got one. No it doesn't delay.
I plan to use this with a timer so that when I am away it will turn on and off by the timer. But I found some radio does not play automatically upon resume of power. Can this one do so?
This one does, but it rescan channel everytime when start from no power.
Just tried here.
Unplugged for a few minutes.
Started back up playing on the station it was on when it 'lost power'
Plenty of stock at Target Broadway
Thanks OP!
Heaps of stock in Airport West VIC.
A good little radio for the price.
Plenty of Stock at Target Blacktown.
Great find Op, If you cannot find one of these at your local Target, then for $10 more you can buy what looks like an identical DAB+ radio from your local Kmart (But branded as Audiosonic, which is Kmarts brand name) http://www.kmart.com.au/product/dab-radio---wood/706969 . Even at $39 from Kmart (Which is the price Kmart have always sold that at), this looks like a good buy to use as an alarm clock radio, or to hook up to your stereo for decent Digital Radio sound (Using the headphone out to hook into a line in on your amp). $29 is worth driving a little distance to save if you can find a Target with stock.
Thanks bwad - excellent value! Got 3 in my local store this morning. Love the sound + design too. Thanks for the technical insights + KMart lead everyone else - great info for when I'm upgrading next time!
I used to be quite enthusiastic about DAB, until I found out that most stations broadcast at a horrible 64kbps, or even 48kbps, making the quality worse than FM.