Cambridge Audio DAB300

Very good sound (for a DAB tuner anyway!) simple to use, great value. If Cambridge have fixed the above problem, then I would definitely recommend this product.. Stopped working after a couple of years - whichever station I tuned in, the display showed 'station unavailable'. I do well recommend Cambridge Audio DAB300.

The Cambridge Audio DAB300 is my 4th DAB tuner (!) since 2001, after a Videologic DRX601E and 2 Arcam DT81's, all of which failed. As I live near Crystal Palace, that could have something to do with it, but no problems with the Cambridge, even considering I use the wire aerial supplied indoors.

Set-up was simple and I like the way the Cambridge scans for stations when it's switched on.

Reception is amazing, particularly on live Radio 3 concerts, you almost feel like you are there in the audience and Radio 4 speech sounds fine, although annoying in mono, when my FM tuner with the same programme is in stereo.

In all am very pleased with it: will be buying more Cambridge Audio gear when my present Hi-Fi needs replacing.

Also I might add the excellent customer service from Richer Sounds, unlike Sevenoaks HiFi, where I had major problems getting a refund after the 2nd tuner (replacing a faulty 1st one) also developed the same fault and before returning my money, they made lots of lame excuses why they couldn't do a refund, (on that score I wonder if some of their staff used to work for another High Street electrical store?!)

The Arcam costs me £650 and the Cambridge DAB 300 (I paid £150) beats it hands down!

The only niggle is that there is no L-Band. The Arcam had L-Band, but it didn't work long enough for me to use it!

The Cambridge Audio DAB300 Tuner sounds fantastic, really good reception and heavy bass but I have one problem and I wondered if others suffered the same? My unit switches itself on and off of it's own accord quite frequently! This is my second unit and this one is even worse if anything, it switched off automatically in the first hour of listening. If any others have this problem I'd appreciate knowing. [email protected]

I have used DAB for a while on a 'portable' receiver, which gave a sufficiently creditable performance to use through a Hi Fi system and encouraged me to go for a full size receiver. The price of the cambridge audio DAB300, that too was worth a risk

I have experience of using Freeview (Panasonic) tuner and Sky (Sony and Grundig digiboxes) to listen to DAB. In comparison the cambridge audio DAB300 radio is in a different league of audio quality. Having used Harmon-Kardon , Yamaha and Technics and Aiwa high end FM receivers in the past, THE major difference is the silent background in stereo. Over thirty years of chasing stereo radio broadcasts and spending a small fortune on analogue receivers over the years looking for that 'silent' stereo decoder

Now here we have it! I've struggled for forty years to achieve what this receiver delivers! The cambridge audio Radio 3 reception is clean and clear, belying the MP3 format limitations. I have read other commentators say they hear MP3 high frequency artefacts. I have tried to seek them out with a little HF lift on the pre-amp (cambridge audio C500 driving P500s, bi-wired and bi-amped LINN TUKANS). I am pleased to say that I cannot hear any artefacts on R3 whether in silent periods or during music broadcasts, (obviously more likely with the latter, however much more difficult to detect). Other stations that use 128kbps or 160kbps, may be affected. It is very difficult to tell on rock music as the upper frequencies are rarely of great finesse

The major disappointing discovery is that Radio 4 where broadcasts are at low data rates even in stereo 128kbps is used for 'The Archers' - OK I admit it, I'm nuts addicted I'm afraid! Even at this rate speech via the cambridge is just fine.

A further discovery is the ability to manually select the Dynamic Range Compression on the receiver, I wonder what value this is, and unless this complements the broadcast expansion system (Is there one?) the only result can be compression distortion. Isn't radio compressed enough? An expansion system would make slightly more sense. Such a pity that the people at the BBC think we all listen predominantly in cars! Anyway, what is the point of this user control on a Hi Fi receiver?

The cambridge audio DAB300 is just incredibly good! The sound reminds me of analogue 19 ips Revox Dolby A tape recordings. (they were very good in their day, perhaps some of the Radio 3 was originally sourced on such equipment?

The only downside to the Cambridge DAB-300B (the software is completely stable on this model), that there will be another model in a matter of months with more facilities, such as recording (a radio version of TIVO?) favourites prediction, probably will detect your mood when you come home and switch on a programme with suitable content to either soothe you or to take you to a rock concert to play air guitar and blast the boss right off the face of the planet!

The sound quality seems limited more by MP3 than anything intrinsic to the radio.

Absolutely brilliant cambridge audio!

DAB (digital audio broadcasting) is fundamentally limited - most stations broadcast at a highly compressed 128kbps, similar to MP3 files. However, this little fact simply makes the DAB300 from Cambridge Audio all the more impressive.

The sound is superb, with real detail and depth in the bass and clean, unobtrusive treble that manages to avoid sounding compressed on most stations. The slim, silver hi-fi seperate has a clear display with genuinely useful features like a signal strength meter.

The optional remote control is simply the poorest quality remote I have ever used and I feel like throwing it at the unit sometimes. There is also a bug in the software that very occasionally makes one of the buttons on the unit do the function of another button, mains disconnection being needed to reset the software.

However, I still absolutely love it! The sound is simply superior to any radio except a carefully set up FM tuner with a roof antenna aimed directly at a transmitter (or maybe a Tag McLaren DAB tuner costing 10 times as much).

What this tuner does is generate a genuine hi-fi sound from a source (DAB) that uses 90% less data than a CD. Excellent product for the money, but DAB tuners are only going to keep getting cheaper!