I'm going to Hong Kong in October and will be buying a double din HU with DAB if the price is much cheaper.

Question is will the DAB work in the UK? if I do purchase one from Hong Kong.

 

Both the UK and HK operate DAB on the VHF band III. So in theory, it should be compatible. Depends what market the model you buy is destined for.

Personally, unless you specifically want a station that is only broadcast via DAB, I wouldn't bother. DAB in the UK is an utter con. You'd be much better investing in a decent FM aerial.

 

Can you explain why it's a con?

I've got a dab radio in my car & it pisses on anything on fm, it does very rarely get some interference if the weather is really bad ie really bad storm but on the whole it's brilliant imo

 

Bandwidth, CODECS and Bitrate.

There is a limited amount of bandwidth with which DAB can broadcast over. Therefore the more stations there are, the more that the bitrate must be reduced in order to accomodate them all.

DAB is broadcast using the MP2 codes (not MP3 that every uses today). MP2 is less efficient than MP3. So for example, 192kbps MP2 is the equivalent of 128kbps MP3. Would you rip music at only 128kbps MP3? That's a best case scenario. The Radio Authority in their wisdom, stipulated that 128kbps MP2 must be the minimum for stereo broadcasts. So that's 96kbps MP3 in reality. 98% of stations broadcast at this. This is fine for talk radio stations but really poor for music. If you are playing it on a radio in your kitchen or in a noisy car enviroment or just through a poor stereo, you may not notice. Play is through any decent though and it's very obvious.

Finally, MP2 has poor error-correction compared to MP3. This means that you get more interference all complete loss of reception. Couple that with how poor the coverage in the UK is.

DAB is a very good idea, very poorly executed in the UK. Certainly compared to how good it can be abroad.

However, if you have good experiences with it, then I'm not suggesting that you are wrong.

 

Interesting stuff!

Tbh to me it sounds miles better than fm, ok not a patch on the flac stuff I listen to in the car but it still has a good sound stage & images nicely which fm doesn't do.

I'm listening to it through a pretty decent head unit with soundstream amps & JL Audio speakers & it sounds ok to me

I get what you say about coverage but I only really listen to a couple or three stations & whenever I drive up to Sheffield from Hampshire I never get any reception issues.

 

Only reason off going to DAB was on the way to Cornwall we were listening to DAB in my mates Audi and it sounded awesome compared to FM.

But thank you for letting me know that DAB from HK will work in the UK.

 

have to agree, dab sounds better than fm on my oe vw dab unit signal is not quite as strong as fm though.

 

The DAB in the Golf R makes rural Mid Wales to London trips are a breeze for radio entertainment.
Better than FM and much better than AM for Radio Five Live and Radio 4.
The standard DAB setup has been one of the standout features of the car.