Sharp DR-450 DAB Radio Review

You may think radio is dead, you may only listen to the radio in your car but with the channels available via DAB, radio’s continue to be a popular source of music & content. Sharp have released a new radio to the market, the DR-450, which is a DAB radio, alarm and Bluetooth speaker combo.

Look & Feel

At 234 x 145 x 117mm and just over 1kg, the DR-450 is relatively compact and lightweight. It appears the speaker is constructed from a lightweight wood and wrapped with a wood effect finish, either white, brown, grey or black. There is a single 3w RMS speaker housed to the left hand side, with the buttons and LCD display the other side. The front of the speaker is stainless steel including a perforated section to the left for the speaker. To the rear of the unit is a bass port, power in and an extendable aerial.

The display looks circular in how it’s been constructed but i truth, its a square LCD white on black display (49mm x 36.8mm). The display shows everything you’d expect, including time, signal & mode, as well as select-able information such as station, song, genre, frequency, date etc.

The DR-450 includes DAB/DAB+ & FM frequencies with 60 station memory, Bluetooth 4.2 and it’s also an alarm clock, which will buzz or play the radio and includes sleep & snooze functions.

Performance

As a DAB radio, it will automatically scan for stations and adjust the time & date when you first turn it on. After that, there is very little set up you need to do, although there are a few menus you can browse through. Now when I see a rotary knob, I think that’s the way you select things. I would push the knob in and rotate, thinking Id scroll through the stations but that isn’t the case. Instead, you need to use the arrow buttons to browse through stations and options. The knob is used for volume control, EQ & snooze. The other buttons work well, their easy to use and well labelled. The screen is enough to display whats needed but isn’t overly bright in a daylight situation. There is a dimming option for the screen and I went into it thinking I needed to turn the brightness up and in fact, It was as bright as it could be. On the other hand, the dim light works well in a dark environment.

As for audio, it offers a decent sound but it wont blow you away. At just 3watts, the system is not very powerful, yet there is a quality driver being used so the sound produced is of a decent quality. Turn the volume up and you begin to lose the small amount of bass that is available but the sound remains good enough for day to day background music.

I do love trying out DAB radios, there is such a choice of content and it makes me realise what I’m missing out sometimes. I tried some jazz, some classical and it was such a welcome change from the norm.

Verdict

At less than £70, the Sharp DR-450 has alot to offer. If you are an avid radio listener, this is ideal for you and/or for anyone who needs waking up in the morning! Great for background music, not so great if you want to party. For more info, head over to the Sharp website.