Technology
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Internet radio: tune in to the world
Internet radio has come on in leaps and bounds. Jonathan Margolis tests the newest models
A year ago I discussed whether listening to radio via the internet works. My answer was a qualified yes: it's fiddly and faffy – and it's not totally reliable, but catching a Radio 4 play from your terrace by the Med – or listening live to a station in New Zealand while you're tidying the garden shed in Nether Wallop – is a strangely sublime and decidedly 21st-century pleasure.
The worst thing was that it tied you to your computer. In just a year, however, internet radio has really come on and is even beginning to threaten the omnipresent DAB digital radio, of which more shortly.
So let us just consider what you get with an internet radio. It’s a medium-sized box, often (amazingly) British made and with pleasingly retro styling. Most require mains power, although a couple (most notably the Revo Pico) have rechargeable batteries so can be used in the bathroom.
They tend to have two big, friendly controls for volume and 'tuning', though you don't really tune them as you did those old radios which had stations such as the Home Service, Hilversum and Luxembourg on their dials.
Instead, you're taken through tens of thousands of websites, each one carrying the broadcast currently being transmitted by a radio station somewhere in the world. All internet radios help you narrow down the ridiculous choice available online by sorting stations into countries and genres, although you’ll still find things bewildering in developed countries. Not unexpectedly, there are thousands of American stations on the internet, but at the time of writing, in the UK we have 1,130, Australia has 185, Canada, 434 and so on.
The sound is always mono rather than stereo and the quality varies a great deal – from mushy to acceptable to remarkable.
More often than not, you will be amazed that the clear sound you are listening to is coming from the other side of the world. Almost all stations, even from obscure Third World sources, sound better than BBC Radio 5 on medium wave, which admittedly may not be saying much.
So, internet radio is definitely the thing if you live abroad or come from overseas and like to keep up with news from home. The key question, however, is whether it will supplant normal FM/AM and DAB radio.
Let one thing be clear; nothing can beat regular FM radio for clarity. Nothing, equally, can beat old-fashioned medium wave AM for accessibility – which is why the BBC keeps Radio 5, the most popular network, on AM. You can get it everywhere, even if the quality is pretty awful.
The big debate at the moment is whether internet radio is in the process of leapfrogging DAB and leaving it obsolete before it's really taken hold. Although DAB radios are selling in their millions (you have to search quite hard for non-DAB radios) only a tenth of radio listening is currently done on DAB, compared with three quarters on FM/AM.
Listeners find DAB radios fiddly, slow to come on and the signal is often poor and intermittent. Though the station choice is huge, all but about a tenth of the output is, frankly, rubbish. These are among the reasons that a number of big DAB broadcasters have closed down. Another reason is that DAB radio has been overwhelmingly a British technology; it's no coincidence that so many DAB manufacturers are British.
The Americans, significantly, are just not interested in DAB; satellite radio is the big thing there. That's why big Far East manufacturers have been lukewarm on DAB, leaving the gap in the market to be plugged by niche British makers – some of whom must now be wondering whether this gap amounts to a viable market.
Don't panic. There's no need to throw out that smart new British DAB radio you've just bought – the might of the BBC alone is bound to ensure that DAB remains big in the UK for a good few years.
But watch out for internet radio overtaking DAB on the inside. And if you're about to buy a radio, do ask yourself whether an internet set might be more fun and more future-proof than a DAB.
Tangent Quattro, £180 to £200 from www.sennheiser.co.uk. A Danish-made mains set, left, that is especially user-friendly and sounds superb, as it should, coming from a hi-fi company.
Revo Pico, £150 from www.revo.co.uk. From a renowned Scottish DAB maker that is now selling more internet radios than DABs. This neat model uses mains or battery.
Logik IR100, £130 from Currys. One of the best-priced internet radios on the market. Good looking and sounds good. Mains only.
This article first appeared in the September 2008 edition of Saga Magazine. Read Jonathan Margolis' 'One Foot In The Future' technology column every month in Saga Magazine.
