No, they don't come with DAB these days: believe me, I would know! However, there are related considerations for those who have, or who are thinking of getting, a DAB radio which can record to a card (e.g. the Bug records to SD cards). Because: they generally record in MP2 format. Now, in general, this is not supported by most digital audio players, not like, say, MP3 (which everyone plays).
I have an iRiver H140 (it also comes in a 20 gig version, the H120, for those trying to shave a few squid off the price). It is ugly and (like all other players) its interface is not as intuitive as the iPod's. But: there is an alternative opensource firmware for it, Rockbox, and I (*) put Rockbox on my H140 and now it plays back MP2 files. It used to take me hours to re-encode shows to mp3 and now I just copy the buggers over via the PC, hurrah!
The H140/H120 just shows up as a removable hard drive on just about everything. No Creative-style drivers needed, no iTunes, just copy your music files over and off you go.
It has a line-out socket (indeed it has an optical line-out too: same socket but you change the settings). It comes with a mains adaptor (for charging) and has good battery life (no problem playing it all day at work). (It also comes with a jack-to-jack lead, an LCD remote, a small lapel mike, and a sturdy but fugly case, all as standard).
It also has a line-in socket and will record to mp3 or wav, which I have found useful for digitising vinyl (in fact right now I'm listening to an old Billie Holliday LP that I hoovered up this way).
So I would certainly recommend the iRiver H1xx series as one of the models you should consider. But in the end it's very much a personal thing.
(*)Note: I am a fairly timid person in some respects and did not do this until other people had been using Rockbox on their H1xx's for several months with no ill effects and had posted clear and detailed instructions on how to change over (not that it is that complicated actually!).
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A sore point
Date: 2005-09-01 01:10 pm (UTC)However, there are related considerations for those who have, or who are thinking of getting, a DAB radio which can record to a card (e.g. the Bug records to SD cards). Because: they generally record in MP2 format. Now, in general, this is not supported by most digital audio players, not like, say, MP3 (which everyone plays).
I have an iRiver H140 (it also comes in a 20 gig version, the H120, for those trying to shave a few squid off the price). It is ugly and (like all other players) its interface is not as intuitive as the iPod's. But: there is an alternative opensource firmware for it, Rockbox, and I (*) put Rockbox on my H140 and now it plays back MP2 files. It used to take me hours to re-encode shows to mp3 and now I just copy the buggers over via the PC, hurrah!
The H140/H120 just shows up as a removable hard drive on just about everything. No Creative-style drivers needed, no iTunes, just copy your music files over and off you go.
It has a line-out socket (indeed it has an optical line-out too: same socket but you change the settings). It comes with a mains adaptor (for charging) and has good battery life (no problem playing it all day at work). (It also comes with a jack-to-jack lead, an LCD remote, a small lapel mike, and a sturdy but fugly case, all as standard).
It also has a line-in socket and will record to mp3 or wav, which I have found useful for digitising vinyl (in fact right now I'm listening to an old Billie Holliday LP that I hoovered up this way).
So I would certainly recommend the iRiver H1xx series as one of the models you should consider. But in the end it's very much a personal thing.
(*)Note: I am a fairly timid person in some respects and did not do this until other people had been using Rockbox on their H1xx's for several months with no ill effects and had posted clear and detailed instructions on how to change over (not that it is that complicated actually!).