One of my most recent purchases was a Sony SDR-S100CD. This was put on the market for a while by Sony about 10 years ago. I actually bought one last year for just £6 with the DAB radio not working, but having spent about £30 (mainly on postage) buying a new tuner module still couldn't get it to work - in fact it wouldn't work at all with the new module fitted. The Silicon Frontier tuner module I bought looked identical, but was actually for a Bose. I suspect that it would need Sony firmware loading to make it work, just as a PC needs the right Bios loading. A bit disappointed, but impressed by the functions that did work like the CD player, I kept a look out on Ebay and managed to get a second, fully working one for about £35. Finally, I picked up the matching remote control from another seller. So why do I say this Sony radio is Almost a Boombox ? It is portable with a handle on top and can run of batteries It is stereo It can play both Radio (FM or DAB) or pre-recorded music (CDs) If you are wondering where the CD goes it is a slot loading mechanism in the top of the case. Sound quality is what you would expect from a premium Sony Portable. However, it can't play cassettes (although you could plug a Walkman into the line in) and the styling is nothing like a Boombox. Regarding styling, one of the first DAB radios on the market was the Pure Evoke 1 which came in a Retro style wooden case. That seemed to start a trend and the majority of larger DAB radios sold seem to have retro cases. Personally I think it is about cost. For smaller quantities the set up costs of CNC milling some wood must be less than making a large mould for a plastic case. It probably helps the sound quality as well. After all most HiFi speakers have MDF cases to avoid resonances etc. It is a shame that Sony seem to have given up on this concept and no one else has picked up on it. Obvious improvements would be to add USB/SDCard playback and recording, two things that my equally old Pure Bug non portable radio can do but no modern units that I know of can. I wonder if in twenty years, once shops selling CDs there will be a CD revival like there has been with vinyl. In the meantime I will just enjoy playing my CDs, picking up CDs at charity shops for pennies, and listening to the radio in the bedroom using this one. DAB Now a bit about DAB for readers outside Europe I am not a fan of DAB (Digital/Dubious Audio Broadcasting Radio) for various reasons: The lack of error correction The use of the outdated MP2 Codec The decision to cram in as many stations as possible using the lowest bit rates (64KBs mono for some stations). No specified processing delay means two radios on the same station can be playing seconds apart from each other so you can't having radios in different rooms playing the same station - something I often do with FM radios Poor battery life on many early DAB radios. A colleague had a Bush that ran hot and got through a set of D Cells in about 3 hours ! However, DAB also seems to be the way things are going in Europe with Norway having switched off its FM broadcasts. This was also the plan for the UKs National Broadcasters but for the moment seems to have been put on hold (fingers crossed). Having said all that I do own five DAB radios and regularly listen to Smooth Radio in the car on DAB as I like the station and the choice is either MW or DAB !
I checked Amazon for our version of digital radio, I think it's called HD radio. I've never seen a portable radio or car with it. I think it mainly started out in cars but no one I know has it. It never really has taken off maybe since most people just get on one of the on-line services using their phone or smart TV, it would be nice to have a tuner to hook up to my system for some added variety.
From what I have read the idea of HD Radio is to give better quality than standard FM. Whatever the original intention of DAB was, in the UK it seems to have ended up as a way of cramming in more stations. It actually operates at around 210MHz away from the FM band I have just done a radio reset followed by a scan and am getting 53 stations here which seem try to cater for every taste including a Punjab station with people talking away in Punjabi ! The colleague who bought several DAB sets to try including the Bush was an early adopter mainly in order to listen to Planet Rock. I just checked it out and it is 80KBs mono so I think any kind of Hi-Fi would be wasted on the DAB signal Of course you could always listen to it on the internet, or digital satellite now https://www.planetrock.com/ but when DAB started to take off in about 2002 when the first £100 DAB radio was launched, most people were still on dial up internet here, and there were fewer stations, but using higher bit rates for greater quality.
Digital TV is similar, instead of broadcasting one analog signal, they can cram seven streams into the digital (as far as I know). I'm trying to find a unit to pick up digital audio but there really isn't much of a selection or they look like very low quality.
