rommi said:
digitalradiotec, Neil's suggestion was to meet the OP's requirements by spending a little more to meet the quality requirement.
The middle of the OP's price range was £150, yet the Denon DM35 with speakers costs double that.
It was a fair suggestion.
I disagree.
Your suggestion was to drop DAB,
Yes, because he wrote this:
"(FM and a good CD sound are my priorities!)"
Therefore, DAB is a lower priority, and as I've already said, having DAB results in a big jump in price, and as his priority is good quality then he'd be better off saving the money he would have to spend to get DAB and buy a better-sounding system for the money he's got.
We're talking sub-£200 micro systems here, so if you want good quality you don't want to waste a largish percentage of that money on something that's not a priority.
or add Freeview which does not meet the OP's requirement as he said he wanted to try DAB. (Even if you think Freeview is a good idea)
I did not say add Freeview, I said this:
"if you've already got a Freeview box in your room"
I realise it's scandalous to advise someone to use something that they've already got that would cost them no money to use which can already receive 27 digital radio stations and provides higher audio quality than on DAB on all of the BBC stations. It won't happen again.
I've considered Freeview, but I don't want "another" box switched on just to record radio. In fact the electricity may end up costing more than just getting a DAB capable box in the first place.
The power consumption of DAB radios is high, if you're not aware, and Freeview receivers only usually consume a few Watts anyway, and the last time I looked (admittedly quite a few years ago) electricity was 6p/kWh, which means that it costs 6p to have something that consumes 1000W on for 1 hour.
Say you had a Freeview box on 24/7 for a year, and say it consumes 10W, it would cost:
(10/1000) x 24 x 365 x 6 = £5.26 per year in electricity
Then there's the power consumption of DAB to take off that bank-breaking figure of £5.26 per year.
Anyway, you can receive TV on Freeview boxes, but you can't receive TV on DAB. And the audio quality of all the BBC stations are higher on Freeview than on DAB.
Conclusion: get Freeview and with the money you save by not buying DAB go to the pub and drown your sorrows for not experiencing the superb digital quality sound on DAB.