Sonus 1XT DAB radio with voice navigation.

Tue, 01 Mar 2005 02:25:04 GMT

Those of us not living in the U.K. are seriously behind when it comes to radio. Sure, we’ve got satellite radio in the U.S. But the Brits have DAB — digital audio broadcasts that are free over the air as long as you’ve got a DAB receiver (America’s answer to DAB, HD radio, has a long way to go before it even comes close to DAB in terms of reach). This has led to something of an explosion in DAB receivers, many with Tivo-like time-shifting features built-in. We particularly like the units from Pure, which have a sort of retro-Henry Kloss look to them, but still pack in a range of modern features. One that’s really intriguing is the Sonus 1XT, which includes voice navigation. As you scroll through stations on the dial, a gender-selectable voice prompt tells you what station you’ve reached. Sure, digital tuning and presets make this less useful than it might have been a few years ago, but we like the idea of being able to scroll and randomly find a station we might like, without having to wait for a station break to find out where we are. Of course, since we’re in the U.S., we can’t actually check this out, but we hope the upcoming crop of HD radios includes similar functions.

[Engadget]

EPimentl: Gadgets

Sonus 1XT DAB radio with voice navigation.