Thanks to Mike Meaking, and Pure, for updating us on this one. A very full reply to match the comment posted from Pure. And thanks to everyone else who has pitched in with charging-related comments. A very interesting read, it all proves to be.In summary, Mike carried out an energy audit on his home appliances, originally, which alerted him to the power consumption of a then-one-year-old digital radio. Even when it was supposedly 'off', or 'sleeping', it was apparently consuming five and a bit Watts, for just being plugged into the mains...
Pure, in the form of Jason Voice, replied in a very detailed and measured way, explaining the advances made by digital radio, and explaining some confusion over quoted figures for the older, non-EcoPlus, versions of the radio in question.
Well, to bring things up to date, Pure generously sent Mike an Evoke-1S to evaluate, complete with its EcoPlus energy saving technology. The power of Made By Monkeys! Maybe.
You can read the figures he recorded for the new model. "This episode shows that some manufacturers are taking energy saving seriously and that with a bit of development effort products can be greatly improved," concludes Mike.
Indeed, credit where credit is due to Pure - both for tackling the issue itself, and responding to this blog.
Not that I am going to let digital radios, per se, off the hook. At the risk of dangerously mixing blogs, check out this entry from Electro-ramblings, and the mystery contributor 'Alice' - An Engineer in Wonderland: DAB nightmare
While explaining why and how DAB - in its current UK form - is not all it is cracked up to be, Alice concludes:
(Picture - Alexandra Palace mast by Redvers under Creative Commons Attribution Licence)
You can read the figures he recorded for the new model. "This episode shows that some manufacturers are taking energy saving seriously and that with a bit of development effort products can be greatly improved," concludes Mike.
Indeed, credit where credit is due to Pure - both for tackling the issue itself, and responding to this blog.
Not that I am going to let digital radios, per se, off the hook. At the risk of dangerously mixing blogs, check out this entry from Electro-ramblings, and the mystery contributor 'Alice' - An Engineer in Wonderland: DAB nightmare
While explaining why and how DAB - in its current UK form - is not all it is cracked up to be, Alice concludes:
If the switchover has to happen, a useful compromise would be to leave existing DAB stations with MP2 coding for a long time, and make the channels moving over from FM go direct to a more bandwidth-efficient scheme.Make sure you read the comments, too - another very interesting set of reader responses. Keep the comments and feedback coming!
(Picture - Alexandra Palace mast by Redvers under Creative Commons Attribution Licence)
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Comments (3)
There hasn't been much said about car and vehicle radios.
Most modern cars appear to have a specially designed radio system, integrated with the dashboard. When I inquired about upgrading mine to one that had a cassette player and facilities for multiple CDs in a player I was told that had to be specified when the car was ordered from the manufacturer.
This doesn't sound as if I'd be able to have a DAB radio even if I wanted one.
Perhaps it's yet another ploy to make you scrap your car when it's a few months old, like mobile phones.
Posted by Graeme Walker | August 26, 2009 6:51 PM
Graeme, you have to understand that car manufacturers are global, so they will have to think of sales (products/accessories) to that scale, as any business would like to reduce the number of product variants (the benefit of maintenance and support). While DAB is nowhere near global. There are however, a lot of aftermarket DAB radio products are available in the UK.
As DAB is beginning to be more widespread and gaining popularity, more innovative products will appear on the market for in-car DAB reception (both in reception quality and ease of install).
Posted by Yufei Ren | August 10, 2011 11:35 AM
Thank you for commenting Yefei. I suppose it is always likely to be a circular, chicken-and-egg situation - when the demand is there products will follow, but demand is dampened by the lack of accessories, such as in-car support...
Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com
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August 10, 2011 4:27 PM