Roberts Sound38 CD/DAB/FM Stereo Clock Radio with CD Bookmark

While this radio / CD player could never be described as HiFi I was pleasantly surprised by the sound quality and volume it comfortably fills a small room, in our case conservatory.Setting up was easy, little more than plugging it into the mains and letting it tune in the available stations.The DAB and FM reception was good using the attached wire aerial, the only problem that would arise is if you are in a poor reception area there is no provision to connect an external aerial.This is targetted as a clock radio with alarms and it works well like this with a large clock display. When using as a DAB radio there are a number of display options, I like to leave it on the one where it displays what the station is playing. The display is quite small for this.The CD player works well and has played everything I have tried on it including home recorded MP3 CDs.The software in the radio is updatable by Ethernet should this ever need doing, I checked and mine had the latest update.The only improvement I could think of was with the presets as although they work they are a few moves away on the control, I would have preferred buttons to select the present stations.

This is a compact bedside radio which has both good and not so good features. It lacks the attention to detail of the Pure Chronos, but it is less expensive. Let's look at the plus points first: It's small and neat, has a good volume control and it plays MP3 files on its CD deck, which remembers where you stopped listening and carries on from there next time. The CD is better than the Pure, which has a noisy mechanism. Sound quality fine. Stations can be stored on the DAB radio.Minus points: The display is small, so when the radio is on the time does not show unless you select the time setting, but it does not remember this setting so you have to select it every morning in your half sleep! Whatever you were playing the night before is what you wake up to in the morning. It does not default to your chosen wake-up station. Also if you turn it on before the alarm goes the radio switches off when the alarm goes!! The Pure remembers your alarm station and volume and jumps to it automatically whatever you played the night before and whatever you are listening to at alarm time. The Pure also has a display which adapts brightness to the light conditions in the room. The Roberts has a level control switch. The Pure also wakes you up with a graduated volume which moves from low level to the level you have chosen, so no shock awakening! I don't find the Roberts' controls easy to master. An array of buttons is not what you want to negotiate in your waking moments. So in my opinion it's back to the drawing board for Roberts, and good morning Pure Chronos, unless you want to play MP3s.

Yes. A good radio with clear speech and music, but in my opinion, not well designed. Most of the buttons are below the display, and are the same colour as the front of the radio. They are almost flush, which makes them very difficult to operate in the dark. No light halos. There are 10 presets for FM and 10 for DAB. While this sounds good, do you really need 10? You have to cycle through them on up / down buttons, which as I have said, is difficult in the dark. You then need to press another button on the top edge, which is also difficult to operate at night. You will need to search for a setting that keeps the time displayed when the radio is on, and reset it each time you alter the radio. Much needed if you can't sleep at night. On timer, it can go off, or change back to a previous programme at the end of the hour. Switching on and off again seems to solve this one. Yes, I can overcome the problems, but I think it could have been better thought out. I'm an engineer, others may find it too complicated. One good point: the screen is clear, and has a dimmer. I find second to dimmest is enough. Despite everything I have said, it is a good radio if you can cope with the settings.

I bought the Roberts Sound 38 mainly for DAB reception, but it has also a good FM tuner and very good CD player. The sound quality is rather limited with the internal speakers (to be fair, the radio is a rather small package), so I purchased a small Lepy audio amp to drive a pair of external speakers. This has vastly improved the sound quality. The other thing to be aware of is that LED downlights in the room with the DAB radio, when turned on, may completely blank out the DAB reception. This is because the electronic transformers driving the LEDs generate considerable radio interference, which the radio does not seem to be able to reject. So its over to the FM radio to carry on listening. OFCOM needs to look at this problem of compatibility between lighting and radio reception.

I wanted a dab digital radio where I could just press a button and the stations would change, without having to turn the dial. I'm just getting lazy in my old age. (Almost 70 but I'm a dab hand with all sorts of gadgets.) Well I managed to select the stations and register them to their "slots". However accessing them proved more difficult, especially as there was no remote. I know, a remote was not part of the spec. Then the next problem was setting the alarms. I managed to set one alarm, but like to use different alarms, depending on what I'm doing on different days. This was eventually beyond my capabilities. You only have 10 seconds to perform this act. Then the system revertes back to the default. I tried numerous times. I followed the instructions to the letter. It didn't work for me. This is finally what caused me to return this replacement clock radio. I should add that aside from the above I was not impressed with the Orange light at night time even when it was turned low. Green or blue are much better colours for these items, especially for use in a bedroom setting. On the plus side, the sound was very good. I did not get to or bother to try the CD facility. I've gone back to my 14 year old analogue version of this radio. I just have to fiddle with the dial again. So I'm still looking for an updated replacement. Any suggestions out there?