{"id":27304,"date":"2017-07-24T03:00:57","date_gmt":"2017-07-24T07:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/?p=27304"},"modified":"2017-07-23T07:20:59","modified_gmt":"2017-07-23T11:20:59","slug":"richards-initial-impressions-of-the-sony-xdr-s41d-fmdab-receiver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2017\/07\/richards-initial-impressions-of-the-sony-xdr-s41d-fmdab-receiver\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard’s initial impressions of the Sony XDR-S41D FM\/DAB receiver"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Many thanks to SWLing Post<\/em> contributor, Richard Langley, who recently attended a conference in Paris and picked up a\u00a0Sony XDR-S41D<\/strong>. Richard writes:<\/p>\n

The workshop closed around noon on Friday so I spent part of the afternoon walking around the nearby Darty consumer electronics and appliance store<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I wanted to buy a DAB\/DAB+ portable receiver just to see what Europe was doing with digital radio. I bought a recently introduced Sony XDR-S41D DAB\/DAB+\/FM(with RDS) receiver for 79\u20ac (about 11\u20ac off list price).<\/p>\n

I can use it in North America to listen to FM and take it with me when I visit Europe for DAB\/DAB+ as well as FM.<\/p>\n

It has reasonable sound from its 8-cm speaker and pretty good stereo sound on headphones. It has an automatic search mode on both DAB\/DAB+ and FM and creates a list of available stations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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In my hotel room in the 13th arrondisement, I could receive 46 DAB+ stations. One of the stations is World Radio Paris (WRP) and they provide English language programming 24 hours per day from BBC World Service, Public Radio International, Radio France International, and Radio Canada International, among others as well as their own programming.<\/p>\n

Another available station was Medi 1, which just dropped its shortwave transmissions<\/a>. I recorded some of the WRP programming:<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Audio Clip 1 (MP3)<\/a><\/p>\nhttp:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/ID1.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

Audio Clip 2 (MP3)<\/a><\/p>\nhttp:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/ID2.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

There is no line output from the receiver but I was able to use the earphone output and crank the volume to maximum to get an acceptable recording level without noticeable distortion.<\/p>\n

Happy with my purchase and can’t wait to go back to Europe again, say to England, to try out DAB+ there.<\/p>\n

I also spotted three receivers with SW capability on the shelves at the Darty store:<\/p>\n