Goodmans GCE7007DAB - first impressions
 

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

Goodmans GCE7007DAB - first impressions
 

Thanks for the review Phil, I was considering getting one as a second unit
in my car, as I do like JazzFM , did you try the correct aerial adaptor on
the VW? it requires a 12v feed you see, that is prolly why the Goodmans
would not work with the OE.
I did see the GCE7007 at the ICC but ended up walking away with a Perstel
Bluenote, which works great in the car, just gotta get a cheap aux input
lead for a Kenwood, certainley glad you mentioned the activity when the unit
'loses' a multiplex, I would have hoped it would have searched for another,
but since it does not, I am am nearly as well off with my Bluenote, does the
stations suffer from dropouts or bubbling mud when on the move?
I sometimes take the bus to work and the Bluenote worked great for most of
the journey I ondered how the GCE7007 would perform on the move.
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

Goodmans GCE7007DAB - first impressions
 

On Thu, 31 Jul 2003 15:45:49 +0100, "DAB sounds worse than FM"
wrote:

Phil Striplin wrote:

I believe, the first set not to require a second dedicated antenna for
DAB.


How have they managed this, or is it as complex as just using the FM aerial
and hoping for the best?

I don't know, and neither did the technical help guy at Goodmans. The
roof aerial I am using is, as it happens, about a quarter-wave for the
top end of Band III, so maybe I'm lucky. However, it seems to work.




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.


This might sound dumb, but do all CD players recognise CD-R/RW in WAV
format?

Um...wouldn't have thought so. Doesn't an audio CD have some sort of
indexing, so a simple WAV file wouldn't be picked up?



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.


1 to 2 seconds to change stations! That is crap.

Given the size of some DAB local multiplexes, you've probably driven
through it and out the other side by the time you've got round to the
station you want...:)


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.


What a joke. I'm not sure they could get this worse than they've got it by
the sounds of it.

Plus the buttons are TINY. I'd like to see the correlation between
rear end incidents and people driving cars equipped with Goodmans DAB
near the borders of multiplex service areas ("which button do I
press..." WHAM)



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


Yet another joke.


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


You say below that you listen to a lot of speech stations. My experience of
listening to the speech stations is that the audio quality is tolerable, but
IMO the music stations' audio quality is intolerable, so could you enlarge
on what you think of the audio quality of the music stations?

You're right, in car I mostly listen to speech.

There is inevitably a high level of background noise when listening in
a car compared with the home. There are also lots of compromises with
speaker placement and general acoustics, which IMO mean that no in-car
listening can be described as "hi-fi".

Given all that, I don't think that the deficiencies of our current DAB
system materially degrade the sound any further (after engine noise,
road noise, wind noise etc have taken their toll). Or, if they do,
it's not noticeable to my ears in the same way that, say, a good DSat
transmission sounds different to DAB at home.


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

DAB really doesn't sound better than FM.


No surprise there then. No receiver ever made has been able to improve the
audio quality of a transmission damaged at source.


Or of course, for the £200 you'd get a far better audio quality model that
plays back CDs and mp3s I would imagine.

Absolutely - probably with a multi-changer thrown in, if you like
them. But that wouldn't do DAB.

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.


You can get the Blaupunkt Woodstock for not that much more than this
Goodmans if you're prepared to buy it from Germany.

Really? You wouldn't happen to have a source in mind? The web ones
I've seen (and yes, it's about £220) won't ship to the UK- and don't
seem to include the DAB aerial. The UK suppliers, I think, do.



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


And the bloody audio quality!

....and the coverage...

Phil

Goodmans GCE7007DAB - first impressions
 

Phil Striplin wrote:
On Thu, 31 Jul 2003 15:45:49 +0100, "DAB sounds worse than FM"
wrote:

Phil Striplin wrote:

I believe, the first set not to require a second dedicated antenna
for DAB.


How have they managed this, or is it as complex as just using the FM
aerial and hoping for the best?

I don't know, and neither did the technical help guy at Goodmans. The
roof aerial I am using is, as it happens, about a quarter-wave for the
top end of Band III, so maybe I'm lucky. However, it seems to work.


I've tried an FM indoor aerial and a rooftop TV aerial with DAB and both
worked fine, so maybe they're just chancing their luck?


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.


This might sound dumb, but do all CD players recognise CD-R/RW in WAV
format?

Um...wouldn't have thought so. Doesn't an audio CD have some sort of
indexing, so a simple WAV file wouldn't be picked up?


My 3 CD players can all play WAV files off CD-Rs, but I thought that not all
CD players could do it, but I'm not sure.


1 to 2 seconds to change stations! That is crap.

Given the size of some DAB local multiplexes, you've probably driven
through it and out the other side by the time you've got round to the
station you want...:)


That is shockingly slow. The channelspotters/channelhoppers will get a bit
frustrated with this stereo. :)


What a joke. I'm not sure they could get this worse than they've got
it by the sounds of it.

Plus the buttons are TINY. I'd like to see the correlation between
rear end incidents and people driving cars equipped with Goodmans DAB
near the borders of multiplex service areas ("which button do I
press..." WHAM)


So, DAB not content with sounding attrocious actually causes road traffic
accidents! It's not got much going for it has it... :)


You say below that you listen to a lot of speech stations. My
experience of listening to the speech stations is that the audio
quality is tolerable, but IMO the music stations' audio quality is
intolerable, so could you enlarge on what you think of the audio
quality of the music stations?

You're right, in car I mostly listen to speech.

There is inevitably a high level of background noise when listening in
a car compared with the home. There are also lots of compromises with
speaker placement and general acoustics, which IMO mean that no in-car
listening can be described as "hi-fi".

Given all that, I don't think that the deficiencies of our current DAB
system materially degrade the sound any further (after engine noise,
road noise, wind noise etc have taken their toll). Or, if they do,
it's not noticeable to my ears in the same way that, say, a good DSat
transmission sounds different to DAB at home.


In the car I always have the volume up pretty high and road and engine noise
isn't a problem at all unless I've got the window open driving down the
motorway, and then I think it comes down to the same factors that apply for
DAB in the home where it's the quality of the playback system that
determines the audio quality. If you just use the factory-fitted speakers
then I doubt it would make hardly any difference to the sound, but if you're
going to replace a factory-fitted car stereo then you're pretty likely to
upgrade the speakers too so I do think that audio quality is still important
in a car.

Incidentally this is a similar reason why I think the audio quality matters
for personal stereos too because people tend to have the volume pretty high
on those too and the sound is right "in your head" so say a horribly encoded
electric guitar would sound absolutely attrocious on a DAB personal stereo.


Or of course, for the £200 you'd get a far better audio quality
model that plays back CDs and mp3s I would imagine.

Absolutely - probably with a multi-changer thrown in, if you like
them. But that wouldn't do DAB.


I was thinking about getting this Goodmans to test its performance and then
sell it on a few months later, but you've put me off it and I'm going to get
a standard CD FM stereo that plays mp3s instead for the same money.


You can get the Blaupunkt Woodstock for not that much more than this
Goodmans if you're prepared to buy it from Germany.

Really? You wouldn't happen to have a source in mind? The web ones
I've seen (and yes, it's about £220) won't ship to the UK- and don't
seem to include the DAB aerial. The UK suppliers, I think, do.


Nicolas Croiset posts links occasionally with the latest and cheapest price
but I don't know if they deliver to the UK or not.


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


And the bloody audio quality!

...and the coverage...


What's the coverage like for the national multiplexes? Does it correlate
well with the coverage maps?


--
DAB sounds worse than FM, Freeview, Digital Satellite and Cable --
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/

BBC DAB is a national disgrace
Subscribe for free to the Digital Radio Listeners' Group Newsletter

Goodmans GCE7007DAB - first impressions
 

"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote
in message ...

How have they managed this, or is it as complex as just using the FM
aerial
and hoping for the best?

Probably just using the standard VHF FM antenna for the reception of DAB.
Lets say the FM antenna is a 1/4 wave at, say 100MHz, then it must be a 1/2
wave at 200MHz, but that is still a few MHz out for DAB. Close though. Of
course that doesn't take into account impedance!

On the other hand, the unit may have a built-in antenna tuning unit, which
would be as simple as a couple of inductors and capacitors, which would
switch in when the DAB service was selected. Not rocket science.

Goodmans GCE7007DAB - first impressions
 

"Phil Striplin" wrote in message
...
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.

Antenna? Fitted to the trunk of the automobile as you ride along the
freeway with your foot on the gas pedal :-)

Scott

Goodmans GCE7007DAB - first impressions
 

"CL10" wrote in message ...
"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote
in message ...

How have they managed this, or is it as complex as just using the FM
aerial
and hoping for the best?

Probably just using the standard VHF FM antenna for the reception of DAB.
Lets say the FM antenna is a 1/4 wave at, say 100MHz, then it must be a 1/2
wave at 200MHz, but that is still a few MHz out for DAB. Close though. Of
course that doesn't take into account impedance!

On the other hand, the unit may have a built-in antenna tuning unit, which
would be as simple as a couple of inductors and capacitors, which would
switch in when the DAB service was selected. Not rocket science.

That's what I suspected. However, there is no user adjustment
possible (no trimmer capacitor or similar) - could this be automatic
(or, more accurately, could it be automatic given Goodmans
design-to-budget brief)? Or are they just taking a slightly more
sophisticated version of DASWTFM's "it's close enough" idea, based on
the assumption that the normal car aerial is a band II quarter wave?

Whatever they've done, in my case it works rather well. Drove from
Worcester to Swindon today - which is out of the BBC's advertised
service area virtually the whole way - and had BBC national reception
for the entire journey apart from one dodgy bit right under the
Cotswolds (which is a couple of miles from the future tx site at
Churchdown Hill, so presumably a temporary problem).

Goodmans GCE7007DAB - first impressions
 

"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote in message ...
I've tried an FM indoor aerial and a rooftop TV aerial with DAB and both
worked fine, so maybe they're just chancing their luck?

If it works...

That is shockingly slow. The channelspotters/channelhoppers will get a bit
frustrated with this stereo. :)


So, DAB not content with sounding attrocious actually causes road traffic
accidents! It's not got much going for it has it... :)

Think of it as evolution in action...

snip section about audio quality in cars

What's the coverage like for the national multiplexes? Does it correlate
well with the coverage maps?

The maps are actually pretty good, IME. The BBC tends to be a *bit*
pessimistic.

The Goodmans set seems to pull in the national multiplexes very well -
in some cases well beyond the reception area on the map. However,
Band III doesn't go round hills as well as Band II, so if you get on
the wrong side of some local geography, you're going to lose the
signal unless there's another transmitter illuminating the far side.
There is no audible sign of moving from one to the other (as there is
with RDS for instance).

I haven't really tested the limits with Digital One, as I spend most
of my time well within their service area with a (reasonably) dense
network of transmitters. I've not seen it drop out at all, except in
places like tunnels and underground car parks.

The MXR maps(I think they've withdrawn them from their website, which
if true is a pity) for the Severn Estuary and West Midlands are
awesomely accurate, even down to little patches of outlying reception
on the side of hills.

NOW are pretty accurate as well. CE don't publish maps, but since
their transmission arrangements are deeply crap (at least they are in
Birmingham and Cardiff), it hardly matters.

Phil

Goodmans GCE7007DAB - first impressions
 

Phil Striplin wrote:
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.

snip

Phil, do you mind if I copy this review and send it in my newsletter?


--
DAB sounds worse than FM, Freeview, Digital Satellite and Cable --
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/

BBC DAB is a national disgrace
Subscribe for free to the Digital Radio Listeners' Group Newsletter

Goodmans GCE7007DAB - first impressions
 

Phil Striplin wrote:
On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 16:19:18 +0100, "DAB sounds worse than FM"
wrote:

Phil Striplin wrote:
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.

snip

Phil, do you mind if I copy this review and send it in my newsletter?

I don't mind at all. You might like to add that I tried a second
example, found the same problems, and took advantage of Argos's "money
back if not completely satisfied" offer.


Yes, I'll add that. Thanks.


--
DAB sounds worse than FM, Freeview, Digital Satellite and Cable --
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/

BBC DAB is a national disgrace
Subscribe for free to the Digital Radio Listeners' Group Newsletter