Teac SR-L50DAB review

Most DAB radios are light and non-offensive units designed to give passable sound in a kitchen or bedroom. Equipped with a CD player, a subwoofer and weighting in at 6kg, this oval-shaped model from Teac is none of the above.

Instead, this is at the top-end of the clock radio market. Clad in expensive-looking, soft-to-the-touch black plastic with burnt orange light spilling from the LED and controls, it won't be to everyone's taste.

It's not just the colour scheme that's guaranteed to wake you in the morning. A dimmer button allows the effects to be turned down to tolerable levels in darkness, and it's possible to programme the unit to wake you with FM, DAB radio or CD.

Its size, shape and weight combined with mains-only power means this is likely to fit not on a bedside table (which rather annuls the massive snooze button) but instead some way from a bed - maybe on a desk or shelf. Luckily, the nicely designed remote gives total control, although the buttons are too small.

Operating DAB radio is simple once favourite stations have been preset (five each for DAB and FM), with little or no delay between choosing a new station and tuning in. Scrolling through all available stations is simple and it tunes to stations hovered over for more three seconds.

All very easy, as is CD playback, which features options to repeat or programme up to 20 tracks. What is frustrating is switching between DAB, FM and CD modes. A function button covers all three, meaning that moving from a DAB radio station to CD playback means first moving to FM mode. After a long delay while the unit pointlessly tunes into an FM station, the CD player starts to read a disc - also a slow process.

Making up for that, though, is excellent stereo sound from all sources, easily better than any other model in this test. That's largely down to a rare thing in DAB radios - a subwoofer. Complete with bass adjust wheel, the SR-20 easily fills a large room with rich, bassy sound.

Connectivity, though, is limited to just a headphone jack, revealing that this is nothing more than a relatively well designed and fantastic sounding clock radio.