sony xdrs-1 review

Have a picture of Sony XDRS-1 DAB Digital Radio?, please send it to us.
Picture courtesy of Benjamin Poynting.

Average Ratings

Sound Quality	8/10
Features	9/10
Ease of Use	7/10
Value for Money	8.5/10
Reviewer Rating	8.5/10
Overall Rating	4.5/10

100% Recommended2 out of 2 Reviews

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By ethan on 5th Oct 2005

ethan's Ratings

Time Digital Radio Owned	Less than a Week
Sound Quality	8/10
Features	9/10
Ease of Use	7/10
Value for money	10/10
Overall value	9/10
ethan's recommendation

Good Points

Good Sound on DAB
Line out connector present and gives good results
Remote control
L-Band
FM+MW+LW as well as DAB
Sound EQ function (albeit very basic)
Not styled like it was made in 1955
Line-IN function - you can use it to play and amplify an MP3 or CD player (etc.) through it
Good build quality
Lot of functions for added 'perceived value for money'

Bad Points

No external antenna option. At all.
Rotten sound on FM. Needs a better antenna. (See main Bad point)
2001 - A Space Odyssey styling
Takes ages to auto-tune
Auto-tune button duplicated on remote, and too easy to hit by mistake
After 5 minutes of being unplugged it forgets channels, time presets etc...
A few firmware bugs
In the event of a problem it's Sony you'll be dealing with
Not the greatest 'user-interface'
Batteries (2xAAA) not supplied for the remote - a bit stingy

General Comments

After a disastrous experience with an Acoustic Solutions Portal 2, which admittedly was probably faulty, I paid the extra to get the Sony XDRS-1 DAB digital radio from Sainsburys online. It arrived a few days later, and I ignored the box until I finished painting my hall - I was that disillusioned by DAB from my earlier experience.

I should have been more impatient! It's a good radio, and it seems to be working properly.

Initial impressions were this... it was quite odd-looking, but up to the usual Sony standard in terms of robustness. Seems to be quite solid.

After an eternity waiting for it to auto-tune, I finally got to hear it sing. It's not quite so easy to use as the Portal 2 as it doesn't sort ALL the stations found into alphabetic order like that does, organising them by 'multiplex' instead which is maybe less friendly, but perhaps more logical.

I needed to look through the manual a few times to figure how to do a few things, but I expect that they'll become second nature.

The critical thing however, is 'how does it sound?'.

If you bear in mind that the claims about DAB having 'CD-quality' are complete nonsense - more like 'low bit-rate MP3 quality radio' (at best), and effectively you are listening to MP3's which for speech may be 64kbps (which is pretty rotten) - you'll appreciate that you're not going to get anything like the performance of a high-end analogue FM tuner with a good antenna out of ANY DAB device. In other words, if it has a good aerial then analogue FM will walk all over DAB from a sound quality point of view. What you do get is less dependence upon a good aerial, and an awful lot more stations.... and no hiss - there are sonic distortions galore with DAB when the bit-rate is low or the signal strength is way too low (it'll burble), but no hiss.

This Sony was spoon-fed an excellent aerial by virtue of where I live, and it shone. Through its own speakers, the sound is as good as I can reasonably expect from a device of this size. The mega-bass function was a tad bass-heavy as this type of control invariably is, but it did add a bit more depth to the sound - I'll probably use it 95% of the time. A very listenable sound and not tiring on the ear, a little thin without the mega-bass switched on.

Through its line-out (a 3.5mm stereo socket as per a Walkman (although RCA phonos would have been nice)) going into a very high-end audiophile system, the sound again, was rather better than I expected given it only cost me £75 including delivery. Much better in fact. Given the limitations of sound quality that DAB faces as a medium, I doubt this unit will be replaced until it ultimately fails. I don't feel that there would be anything to gain from a value for money point of view from a very expensive DAB tuner.

The remote control was quite easy to use, although I question the wisdom of duplicating the auto-tune function (and in an easily accidentally-pressable location). Simple preset-up/down buttons would have been nice on the remote, rather than individual buttons for each of the 10 presets (10 per band) - probably cheaper to make too.

Additionally this radio includes a bandwidth that a good 85% of DAB devices for sale, in that they do not have L-Band. It's used a lot in Europe, but not in the UK yet. It will be a couple of years, but it's coming - at which point all those people with non L-band DAB capable radios won't be able to get it. The BBC don't seem to be very enthusiastic about L-Band, but that's probably because the bandwidth used for transmission doesn't carry the signal very far, so a lot more actual transmitters are required, but commercial radio stations are chomping at the bit to start their L-Band transmission, and only waiting for the 'OK' signal. Do bear this in mind when deciding upon a DAB radio.

My only regret is that I cannot afford another two at the moment. I'd like one for the kitchen and one for the bedroom.

A very good purchase, and I'm very pleased to have such a vast range of new stations available to me, on a radio with a sound I find very acceptable. It's not a perfect sound but it's perfectly listenable.

A couple of minuses... Everyone complains about the time it takes to auto-tune. Yes it does take too long, but unless you accidentally hit the auto-tune button (which is quite easy to do,) or you accidentally hit the auto-tune button which is duplicated on the remote (which is ridiculously easy to do, especially in a fairly dark room), or you move it (!) then you won't need to go though that very often.

The FM sound is pretty bad! This radio needs a better antenna for FM, and foolishly, Sony did not see fit to provide this unit with an external antenna option (you CAN'T just wrap a long piece of copper wire round the end of the existing aerial and trail it off - it won't work).

Love it or hate it styling? I like it, but it looks out of place in my living room. And it does look a bit like a bread bin.

Not the easiest of devices to operate if you're unfamiliar with the 'menus', but like a mobile phone, as you use it more, you soon become used to it - I expect.

It forgets everything... time, presets, channels, the whole lot needs to be set up from scratch again if it is unplugged from the mains for more than 5 minutes. In other words leave it on standby, and if moving it to another room, get it there and plug it in quickly, don't stop to answer the phone!

I would happily recommend this unit to anyone who doesn't expect miracles from a unit of this size, price, or from DAB itself. Nice overall sound and very good value for money.

Total Respect: +2