Blaupunkt Woodstock 53 DAB Radio Review

Overall Rating

Sound quality
mp3 player + tag reading
ease of use

mm card recording of limited use
no traffic reports whilst on cd changer

I bought the Blaupunkt Woodstock 53 to replace an ageing Pioneer CD/radio. Having got an Evoke 2 DAB set at home I was sure that I wanted digital radio and the mp3 ability to connect my Apple iPod as a CD changer (rather than use a naff cassette adapter).

As with any car radio the hardest bit is the installation. In this case it was the aerial. The DAB radio needs a special aerial. The Woodstock has aerial inputs for both the FM and the DAB (so that you can always fall back on the analogue FM if you need to). Mine came with a stick on aerial that had to be mounted at the top centre of the rear screen. No drilling was needed - it used an inductive/capacitive connection to a pad stuck on the inside. It did take some while to route the new cable from the back screen to the front fascia.

The Woodstock 53 has a CD/mp3 CD player/DAB/FM radio plus the capability for auxilliary and CD changer inputs. No cassette, but having an iPod has eliminated the need for cassettes (and carrying a CD collection in the car).

The sound quality is very good. On DAB it is noticeably better than FM with an absence of background noise and better bass.

Having been used to analogue tuning it is slightly confusing to use DAB in the car. DAB stations are grouped together to form an ensemble on a single frequency. There are several ensembles, each of which might have 4 to 8 stations. Some stations seem to appear in more than one ensemble. To tune you first select the ensemble, then navigate across the stations within it. I'm probably just getting the hang of it.

In the UK we don't appear to have DAB trafic, weather or news reports to interrupt the programme (the Woodstock allows you to decide whether you want these interrupts).

There is a good range of control on the loudness and various equalisation pre-sets and you can also create your own profile. I think that the factory set ones are good enough so I haven't bothered to do this.

The CD plays both conventional and .mp3 CDs. You can see that it takes the artist and track information from the file content rather than file name (a good thing).

In theory it will play .mp3 files on a multimedia card. To date I've not managed to make this work without encountering a read error. As a driver I don't think the ability to record on a multimedia is useful - I'd rather concentrate on the road.

To this end I've also bought the matching RC10 IR remote control that straps onto the steering wheel. Although not cheap it works very well. As ever the hardest part was finding an unobtrusive path for the thin cable between the IR receiver and the back of the Woodstock.

The only disappointment so far is that it seems to be impossible to receive traffic break-throughs whilst on the CD/cd-changer. It shouldn't be a technical limitation since the set can obviously still receive radio whilst playing something else (as the old Pioneer does).

All in all I'm very happy with it. The digital radio works a treat (it should do - DAB was originally designed for mobile reception in a car after all) and ability to operate it and the iPod hands free works well.

I've still some way to learn all the functions.

There is a very good simulation of the lesser Woodstock 52 on the Blaupunkt site - very true to life - so that you can see how to operate it before committing yourself.

Members' Comments onthewoodgnome's Review

• thewoodgnome on 28th Dec 2003

  Update: it is possible to get traffic updates whilst on the mp3 CD/CD changer.
  
  In addition there also seem to be functions that are not very well covered in the instructions. For example, it can automatically switch to the same station (if available) on FM if the DAB signal gets too weak. I think that it can also do the reverse i.e. pick the equivalent DAB station from FM.
  
  There are 20 presets available for DAB - 4 sets of 5. You first select a set by cycling through using the one button, then use the buttons numbered 1 to 5 you select or store a station.
  
  The DAB signal quality seems to be much better and more robust than the aerial fittings instructions would suggest. I've even been known to forget to screw the external aerial back on the rear windscreen and not noticed the effect (i.e. no aerial apart from the cable run inside the car). It's very much like digital TV - all or nothing.

• thewoodgnome on 16th Jan 2004

  Update 2
  
  Now a month into using the Woodstock....
  
  As a Mac user I was initially frustrated by the .mp3 card reading (playing) capability as it showed a read error. Being a simple FAT 16 format I found that it go confused when the Mac OS automatically added the .Trashes etc. invisible folders. The leading period is illegal under FAT 16. Making these visible and deleting them cured the problem. This would presumably also affect other Unix based users.
  
  The automatic transfer between DAB and FM works fine if the DAB signal fails. Unfortunately it is also annoying when tuning in FM and you select a station with a DAB equivalent, hesitate too long and the radio automatically switches into the DAB tuning.
  
  Having said this there seem to be so many DAB stations that it spends almost all it's life in DAB and not FM.
  
  I was also unsure whether I'd need to upgrade the speakers that came with the car (an old Saab 9000) as the bass had been insipid. The Woodstock has shown that this was caused by the old unit and the significantly enhanced bass response has meant that I've no need to upgrade the speakers. The bass response also seems to have a punch rather than a boomy quality so it is good to listen to at volume without making your head ring!

• a5var on 2nd Feb 2004

  As a prospective dab woodstock dab 53 purchaser, I found this info invaluable. Additional new info available at www.bluespot.co.uk suggests that a new upgraded internal screen mount aeriel similar to a tax disc holder is now available and higher rated by Blaupunkt than the older mag mount style inside outside style. @£59.

• wessexunderwater on 28th Apr 2005

  I have had two of these now and both have had a fault whereby they overheat after playing MP3's from a CD for 40 minutes or so. Does anyone else have this problem

• men8ifr on 24th Aug 2005

  I've got the ancient! dab 52. I was considering buying a remote for it - any comments
  
  As for the overheating yes this a big problem and BP know about it as I spoke to them. - Try the number in the manual - very helpful they had a list of cars known to overheat - i've just bought a £5 PC cooling fan (12v) and am about to put that in (my peugoet 205) should sort it. When playing off a disk the problem is the disk gets so hot it's unreadable, and the front metal panel must get upto a hundred dergees easy as well!
  
  BP also said the 52 was designed to be used with DAB news / traffic but the BBC (who control DAB) turned the signal off! If listening to a disk if you select FM first (and have turned off the auto DAB option) then hit traffic then select your disk it should work, as the traffic uses the last radio source. Mt unit beeps annoyingly when traffic is on (and playing a disk) and it receives a DAB traffic signal or something.

• wessexunderwater on 8th Oct 2005

  men8ifr,
  I would be very keen to know how the fan installation went.