Arcam DT81 DAB Review

Good Points
Looks great. L-band reception.

Bad Points
Poor quality. Unreliable.

General Comments
I owned 2 DT81's bought in Sevenoaks HiFi: don't waste your time, with the shop or Arcam's DAB tuners.



The 1st one bought in Jan 2003 developed a fault (it would keep coming up with 'service not found' on the display, even though the portable DAB unit I own worked fine)) soon after purchase and was sent off to Arcam 'for repair'. That was assuming Arcam ever saw it!



Unfortunately 3 months after it was 'repaired' the same fault occurred again and I took it back to the shop, rather fed up and not happy to accept another 'repair' for a 5 month old tuner.



The shop 'phoned' Arcam to ask if they could give a refund on it, as it was faulty and supposedly Arcam said no. They could have rang the speaking clock and said the same thing.



I insisted on my money back and they kept stalling saying they would send it back to Arcam (again!), would lend me another one (funny they didn't loan me a replacement for the 8 weeks it took for it to be 'repaired' the 1st time!).



I was annoyed that they were supposed to have rang Arcam before that and it was clear that when I turned up 2 hours after the shop opened, they weren't bothered enough to have rang them by then.



Eventually, after half an hour, they relented and refunded my credit card.



I bought a Cambridge Audio DAB 300 for a quarter of what the Arcam cost me (£650), it performs the socks off the Arcam, despite being a simple design and less buttons on it.