Intro
With well over 20
products,
PURE looks to offer a bigger spread of DAB radios than any other maker
- and a wider variety, too. As well as table-top models,
pocket-able and personal-stereo-style portables
and a CD/DAB
micro system, there's even a separates tuner to go
with hi-fi
systems. Prices start at under £50 and go up to over
£200. We're looking today at a
compact, mains-powered table model,
the Tempus-1XT, that sits in the middle of the
range and can be had for a bit under £100.
Some successful digital technologies grab you first time out.
Others grow on your slowly. DAB radio, from our experience of
showing it off to a number of people who'd never heard it or had
hands-on before, fits
firmly into the first category, the more so with those
having a keen ear for music.
You'll pay something of a premium for DAB over an analogue
FM/AM
equivalent - but less than you might assume - and the ranked masses of
DAB radios in store attest to the fact that the premium is widely
regarded as acceptable and that DAB is the superior option.
A DAB radio will win out every time in terms of its sheer ease
of
use and usually in sound quality as well - though not perhaps
if
compared with a good FM tuner being fed by a well-positioned FM roof
aerial. But, if the comparison is between table-top or
portable models then, typically, it's no contest.
The DAB sound
will be crystal clear in areas with decent DAB
reception,
though if reception's not so hot, there may be no sound at all
-
DAB being one of those all-or-nothing digital technologies.
Among the goodies you can expect DAB to deliver as
standard
is a wide selection of stations - all of the BBC's offerings
and
loads of commercial stations, too. Then there's auto tuning,
plus the ability, once the radio's found the stations in its
area (which it does automatically when first switched on),
to jump from one station to the next with a single click of
the
tuning knob.
Yes, turning the knob moves directly to the next station along.
That's a killer feature for newcomers to DAB because it's just
SO
much more convenient than the analogue way of turning the knob round
and round until you hit a station. And there's more.
You can changes the order in which stations appear as you scroll
through them using the tuning knob. Stations can be in alphanumeric
order, or with favourite stations followed by the rest in alphanumeric
order, or alphanumerically but grouped by multiplexes - sets
of
stations that are broadcast by different operators.
The retail pack makes the point
that DAB has loads of stations and that PURE
offers an optional speaker
In addition, the digital transmission can carry a whole bunch of useful
and worthwhile information that's shown on the radio's display. The
quality of reception can also be displayed. Broadcast
information can be about the station, the programme (and
whether it's mono or stereo) and even the
data-rate. The date and time are also transmitted and used by DAB
radios to set their internal clocks.
Broadcasters can let you know the name of the performer
and the
title of the song or provide numbers for phone-ins, text
options
for mobile-phone messaging or URLs for web sites. What's
transmitted is largely down to individual broadcasters and not
all
of them take full advantage of the possibilities - the BBC
typically leads the way and others bring up the
rear.
The bottom line with DAB is that no one who's enjoyed
decent reception is ever likely to be happy using analogue
radio
again.
That's DAB in generalities, so let's move on to the specifics of
the radio
we're
reviewing - the PURE Tempus-1
XT (why do
companies have to put model numbers
in superscript like that?) - a product that's said to offer
considerably more than its forerunner, the Tempus-1
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