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 ;-)


--
John Stumbles

The astronomer married a star

John Stumbles wrote:
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 ;-)


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 dog****. No idea if anyone in the
company knew that. :-)

--
Rod

Hypothyroidism is a seriously debilitating condition with an insidious
onset.
Although common it frequently goes undiagnosed.
www.thyromind.info www.thyroiduk.org www.altsupportthyroid.org

In article , John Stumbles
wrote:
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.

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

--
Change 'noise' to 'jcgl' if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

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

John Stumbles wrote:
SNIP
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?


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


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk

On Fri, 17 Apr 2009 20:05:22 GMT, The Medway Handyman wrote:

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

Digital processing.

--
Cheers
Dave.

In article ,
The Medway Handyman wrote:

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

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

In article ,
The Medway Handyman wrote:
John Stumbles wrote:
SNIP
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?


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

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. ;-)

--
*If your feet smell and your nose runs, you're built upside down.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Apr 17, 1:50 am, John Stumbles wrote:
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.

I too would like such a unit and the best I've found spec searching is
the Roberts RD41. At £120 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 £50 range
of ghetto blasters that have this capability.

Dave

On Sun, 19 Apr 2009 15:45:03 -0700, Dave Starling wrote:

I too would like such a unit and the best I've found spec searching is
the Roberts RD41. At £120 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).


Looks like there's an RD-55 at a bit under £90
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Roberts-Radi...82038&sr =8-4

(and the Gemini 55:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Roberts-Radi...2038&s r=8-14
- 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
55. 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)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Roberts-Stre...82038&sr =8-5
for listening at home.


--
John Stumbles

Blamestorming
Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed
or a project failed, and who was responsible.

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:

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 £50 range
of ghetto blasters that have this capability.

Plenty around already.

In article ,
Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:
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:

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 £50 range
of ghetto blasters that have this capability.

Plenty around already.

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

--
*Starfishes have no brains *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Thu, 23 Apr 2009 01:01:04 +0100, Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:

Plenty around already.

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

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

tia

--
John Stumbles

A: Because it messes up the order in which people read text.
Q: Why is top-posting a bad thing?

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:

Plenty around already.

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

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

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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

--
Jonathan Campbell www.jgcampbell.com BT48 UK

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

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. ;-)

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.