I live at the bottom of a hill with lots of trees, my FM radio has terrible reception even with a huge aerial and booster, so for the most part I play radio through the Internet, unfortunately the mp3 bit rate (quality) is rather low and sometimes it seems to lose connection every so often, not great.For some unknown reason my Mum has a DAB radio before I did, so I borrowed it to see if it would work, I was amazed to say that even though TV and Radio reception is poor in my area, the digital radio picked up channels fine, around 30 + channels if I recall (located in London). You won't get hiss with digital radio, but if reception is poor a sort of stuttering effect might occur, fortunately the sound came through fine.Knowing that Digital Radio works the next step was choosing which one. My first thought was to buy the cheapest about, and all would be fine, and that was were the shock came in, the radios are quite pricey. Even though the components are dead cheap there is profit to be made by the electrical companies in new technology and they are making the most of it. The cheapest DAB radio's cost about 40 pounds and review after review states problems with the cheapies and their reception, they cannot pick up that many stations and the sound quality is tinny, so for the while best to stay away.Because many of the radio stations are compressed, you need the radio to be able to help make the most of the sound, indeed most people agree a good FM radio with good reception beats a DAB radio everytime, however how many people have a really good tuned FM radio, DAB radio does have a lot more channels, and I was able to get great reception with its standard stretchable external aerial.Before I continue if you have digital TV or a Sky Box, the radio channels on there are actually received in most cases at a higher quality than DAB radio so if you can maybe connect these to your stereo.OK, if I haven't scared you off yet, I'll tell you what radio's people feel are the best.Many of these high quality radios have only one speaker, yes that is right they are mono, it would be funny, if it wasn't your hard earned money, it's just another way those electronic companies are making money again, you pay another 20 pounds for the stereo version, anyway lets get back to the highest rated radios are.Radios from Richards (good to great), (my Mum's was a Richards), BT good, Phillips are good, Intempo them cheapest that is good , Sony not so good, Elan good, the bug good/great, Tempus great, Evoke talking excellent, Evoke 2XT the best, be warned a lot other radios will give you problems, hopefully these ones won't but then hey you know what sods law is like.
Make sure to try them out before you buy as different radios will have different tones and different people will prefer different tastes. The more expensive, later models now come with pause buttons, to pause the radio for 10 minutes very flashy, I wonder if the button will ever get used.