The Goodmans has been out for a few days now. It's an interesting
product in a number of ways: it brings in-car DAB into the merely
expensive category (rather than "stupidly expensive" and it is (I
believe, the first set not to require a second dedicated antenna for
DAB.

The spec is unremarkable: it has a three band AM/FM tuner with RDS and
the normal range of presets. You can set a number of rather annoying
equaliser profiles ("classical" "jazz" "pop" IIRC) but generally I
turned these off. There are a lot of LEDs that flash according to the
sound level. Totally useless, and there is no way to turn them off.

It plays CD's, although the access to the CD player is gained by
flipping down the front panel. The hinge feels rather flimsy, and I'm
not sure how long it will stand up to regular use. It doesn't
recognise MP3.

It sounds OK - better than the bog-standard VW tape player I was
replacing.

If the facilities stopped there, I'd think it should retail for
£80-£90. However, it does DAB as well, and that is presumably the
reason for having the thing.

At a basic level, the DAB works well. It is sensitive and in practice
receives signals some way outside the advertised coverage areas. As
DAB coverage is still very patchy, sensitivity is important.

As Goodmans claim, it does work perfectly satisfactorily on a normal
aerial (I used a roof mount one from Halfords). My unit did *not*
like working with an active (powered) aerial - I tried two, the
original VW one and a borrowed replacement. The sensitivity declined
to unacceptable levels, so if you are working with one of these, I
would seriously recommend replacing it.

I have two gripes with the DAB interface.

The set scans for DAB stations then places them in the order you have
selected (Alphabetical or Most Favoured (the ones you select most
often go to the top of the list)). This will usually result in a list
of between 20 and 40 stations. To select stations, you need to press
the up or down buttons. The set takes between 1 and 2 seconds to
react to the change. This is, to say the least, annoying.

The only partial work around I have found is to set the presets so
that they are spread out around the alphabet so no station is too far
from any preset, but this requires you to remember, say, that preset 4
is Oneword, and if I want Jazz FM that's 2 notches up from there...not
good. What the set needs is much faster switching between stations.

It is quite likely that when mobile you will drive out of a particular
station's coverage area (most DAB services are local, not national in
nature). The Goodmans' behaviour is strange when this happens and
it's probably easiest to show what I mean by an example.

Say I'm in Birmingham. The set recognises that BRMB is transmitted,
and adds it to the list, (in between BBC R4 and Classic FM, say).
Assume I'm listening to Radio 4, driving down the M5.

Somewhere, the BRMB signal will drop out, but BBC R4 continues. If
after that point I want to move from Radio 4 to Classic FM, I should
be able to press the "up" button to get there. What in fact happens
is that the receiver:

(a) tries to get BRMB and fails;
(b) reports "no sig"
(c) tries to get the other local Birmingham stations on the same
multiplex and fails (well, it would!)
(d) concludes that there is no DAB service (even though it is only the
one multiplex that has disappeared);
(e) retunes the set to the last FM or AM station I was listening to.
(f) if you then force it back to DAB, it will try to get BRMB. You
can force it onto a preset station, but that only works if you've got
an appropriate preset set up.

There seems to be no way of skipping past the "dud" BRMB listing. You
*can* clean up the list to eliminate unreceivable stations by pressing
a couple of buttons, but this seems a clumsy way of getting around the
problem.

The set does not have the capacity to recognise the corresponding FM
signal (as the Blaupunkt Woodstock does).

DAB sound quality is intrinsically not brilliant, but I found it quite
acceptable for incar listening.

Conclusion
=========
Is it worth buying?

DAB really doesn't sound better than FM. It's not available
everywhere (the BBC national network covers 65% of the population,
which translates to considerably less than 50% of the road network).
So if all you want to listen to is CD's, or the stations you've
already got on FM, don't bother with DAB, and don't bother with this
unit. Get something half the price.

But...there are some rather good things on DAB. For starters, if you
are a Virgin Radio, BBC 5 Live or TalkSport fan, the DAB transmission
does sound better than AM. So does Test Match Special. If you (like
me) are a World Service junkie, it's a godsend. I've also become very
attached to BBC7 and Oneword.

And that's the point. There is genuinely a lot more choice on DAB,
and some of the stations - particularly the BBC ones - are very good.
If you really want that extra choice, then the Goodmans is worthwhile.
Better sets will doubtless come along, but with the nearest rival
currently costing twice the price of the Goodmans, there's not a lot
of competition.

But could they please sort the damn station selection interface out!

Phil Striplin