DAB portable radio with SD record/play mp3 & batteries

[John Stumbles]

I'm looking for a portable radio with the ability to play back music from a memory card[1] when there's nothing good[2] on the radio. This seems to point in the direction of DAB + SD where the SD is intended for recording from the radio but can also play back mp3s. These sorts of things seem to have the ability to 'rewind' radio (presumably only off DAB, not FM) so I'd be choked if it couldn't record what it's rewound, e.g. if I suddenly find myself listening to something I'd like to record I can rewind back to the beginning and record from there.

Apart from that I'm after something fairly rugged I can take out when I'm working and might get a few knocks and some dust (another reason not to go CD) with decent sound for classical music as well as pop in a noisy environment, but not too big - more cerial-box size than ghetto-blaster.

And have any manufacturers caught up with the fact that AA NiMH cells, rather than C-size, are the sweet spot for capacity versus price?

The only model I know that does the SD-mp3-playback and rewind-recording is the Evoke 3, but it's very silly money ... and uses C-cells :-( - and what about the sound, aren't they a bit wimpy?

[1] because I CBA with burning silver dics and carting them around anyore when I can get more onto a postage-stamp-sized gizmo that costs as much as a bottle of gutrot wine [2] for values of 'good' defined by myself ;-)

[Rod]

Sounds a very reasonable spec. Hope you find one.

Recently I returned the NiMH 6XP Chargepak we got with an Evoke-2xt - wouldn't charge properly. Pure sent us a replacement - a 6XL which is Lithium. It works! Think the days of NiMH are gone. It is modelled on the same 6 * C-cell space. (This they did without question after a much longer period than the warranty.)

BTW, 'Pure' was what they used to call dogshit. No idea if anyone in the company knew that. :-)

[Jim Lesurf]

If you have a wifi network that covers the area where you'd use the radio, then a possible alternative might be a portable 'net radio'. That may also give you access to the BBC 'listen again' and sound files hosted by your computer. Thus giving more choice than what happens to be on live radio at the time.

Slainte,

Jim

[jkn]

I'm also looking for something like this and would be interested in anything you find. Philips used to do something towards this, but I suspect without the instant rewind stuff. I can't find reference to it now.

J^n

[Owain]

Another approach might be to get a radio with an analogue line-in input and use that in conjunction with a cheapy USB memory-stick-with-inbuilt-media-player.

Roberts Radio Terrain has such an input and was fairly highly rated on the Gadget Show. Analogue FM only though, no DAB.

Roberts Gemini 55 has line-in as well as USB, and has DAB.

If you want something more robust then you could put it in a waterproof electrical box with a couple of mylar speakers. CashPawnbrokers type shops often have DABs secondhand or Tesco own-brand customer returns.

Owain

[The Medway Handyman]

On that point, why do DAB radios eat batteries? What takes all that power?

[Dave Liquorice]

Digital processing.

[dmc]

Fair bit of digital processing in there - that uses power. Newer ones are a hell of a lot better than some of the first gen ones though (in terms of power use - I'll pass on the quality debate just now thankyouverymuch).

Darren

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Digits. Always more power hungry than analogue. Before they add all the bells and whistles one expects today.

I've got a truly ancient AM radio I built from a kit some 40 odd years ago. Not a pocket set but full sized portable with 7x4" speaker. Plenty loud enough to fill a room. PP9 battery lasts about 6 months of heavy use. Not that it gets that these days. ;-)

[Dave Starling]

I too would like such a unit and the best I've found spec searching is the Roberts RD41. At =A3120 this probably qualifies as silly money for a work radio but I suppose it depends how you value your entertainment. The only drawback I see is it uses a wallwart adaptor (which Im not a fan of).

My Intempo DAB took a serious fall but continues to work and I can just about cope when BBC radio has nothing with Chill/Classicfm/ absolute. That said it would be nice to have the ability to playback from SD. I guess in a couple of years time we will have the =A350 range of ghetto blasters that have this capability.

Dave

[John Stumbles]

Looks like there's an RD-55 at a bit under £90

(and the Gemini 55: - which seems to be the same box for an extra tenner!)

The 41 looks a bit nicer (on paper - haven't seen any of these in the flesh) and a bit chunkier than (and over twice as heavy as!) the

1. I don't know if the weight includes batteries: if it's extra loudspeaker that's worth having, but if it's batteries then I'd be running either on AA NiMH via adapters.

If I were serious about the 41 I'd think about going the extra for the Stream 202 (£135)

listening at home.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Dave Starling saying something like:

Plenty around already.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

My car radio can record/replay from SD too. Can't say I've ever used it in anger.

[John Stumbles]

What - £50 ghetto blaster with DAB and SD record/play?

Any makes/models you've come across / could recommend?

tia

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember John Stumbles saying something like:

Not the DAB, but the subject seemed to have veered to non-DAB.

[Jonathan Campbell]

A few general observations (which I should have linked to the original post, but my newsreader doesn't show it).

1. I have a Pure DMX-50 Micro 'Hifi system'; records onto SD card using a Sky-Plus / Freeview recorder menu-type system; degree in computer science not required. Records onto MP2 format.

1. It plays MP2 and MP3 format; however, while playing MP3s the timing seems corrupted, i.e. if I want to resume listening at mm:ss, it is hit and miss. In addition, it would be really nice if it had a 'resume from last stop' feature --- like my Freeview recorder has and like tape has.

2. It records only from DAB; that is understandable but a disappointment for I retired an old system with a tape and I miss being able to record from FM. I can record onto a computer, or an MP3 player (and hence MP3

-> SD card), but it's enough hassle to not get done most of the time.

1. The FM tuner seems adequate.

I'm well enough pleased with the DMX-50 (about £120 from MorganComputers); setting recordings is easy. I'd be interested to know if the Roberts portables are compatible with Pure with respect to SD recordings.

Here's something more relevant to the original question. I have a 'Red' portable DAB radio (Sainsbury's a few years back); hard on batteries, but I knew that; the big problem is the FM tuner --- fails to pick up a station a distance away that my other equipment does okay on; unfortunately, the station is in a part of Ireland that has not yet moved to DAB. This seems to be a problem also with recent small portable FM radios; I assume they use similar chips. You could run into similar problems in certain types of buildings. However, I guess you are in an area where everything can be received via DAB.

I'd buy another portable DAB radio, e.g. one of the Roberts, but I cannot properly test the sensitivity of the FM tuner in advance.

Best regards,

Jon C.

[Steve Firth]

I had one of the early Trevor Bayliss Freeplay radios. It would run for almost an hour on a wind at the sort of volume I listen. It could also bang out some loud noise if required, because apparently that was a plus point for the African market. Sadly someone loaned it to a friend who broke it by overwinding. Same friend never quite got around to replacing it and I don't like the current replacements.