DAB Radios
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Digital radio is here to stay. You may have seen lots of exciting looking radios in the shops. Our tests show that they won't do much for disabled or older people.
- Ricability was commissioned by the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) to test DAB radios.
- We looked across the range of DAB radios and picked for testing those which had features likely to be helpful to blind, partially sighted and dexterity impaired people.
- Of the 15 radios tested only one stood out as being easy to use for all three groups and produced good sound.
- Another was reasonably easy to use, with good sound, and three could suit dexterity impaired people, but produced less good sound.
- If you choose carefully you will be able to find a radio that you can use. However manufacturers have not considered the needs of disabled and older people enough. This is a missed opportunity since digital has great scope for designs that would make radios easier to use for everybody.
What's digital radio?
Radio is now broadcast in a variety of ways. Analogue is the system used since the 1920s, with a significant quality boost in the 1960s when FM radio was introduced. Digital Audio Broadcast, or DAB for short, was introduced in the 1990s. Digital broadcasting is much more efficient, taking up less space on the frequency band and so allowing many more stations to be broadcast. Also more recently there have been other ways to listen to digital stations go to Alternative ways to get digital radio.
Most of the traditional stations are broadcast in both analogue and digital, but there are lots of digital stations you can't get on analogue, and some local analogue stations that have not gone digital.
Our tests
More and more digital radios are appearing in the shops, with a very wide range of designs. We tested tabletop and hand-held models that had at least some features likely to be helpful to blind, partially sighted and dexterity impaired people. Our research included technical measurements and tests of sound quality but mainly focused on how easy the radios were to set up and use. For more explanation of exactly what we tested and our overall findings, see What to look for - Performance and What to look for - Features.How to use this guide
- For the radios that did best in our tests, see Recommendations.
- For details of each radio tested see Summary test reports and Detailed test reports. Each report has a summary of its main pros and cons and, for those who want it, more detailed information.
- To find out more about whether it is worth going digital, see Digital vs analogue.
- One important difference, particularly if you are blind, is the ways digital radios are tuned see Tuning for more on this.
- If you are looking at radios in the shops, see our What to look for guides. There's a Checklist to take to the shops too.
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