NEWSTAR DR111 DRM RECEIVER

DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale) was suppose to be a major breakthrough in international broadcasting. While it’s true that DRM as a platform truly sounds amazing when it works. The problem is for the most part it doesn’t.

Recently a company in China called Newstar Electronics came out with the DR111 stand alone DRM receiver. This radio is a good example why DRM never has taken off. All the major receiver manufactures: Sangean, Tecsun, SONY, Panasonic, have all said there was no future in DRM in terms of sales. So either they stopped R&D onDRM like Sangean did, or they decided not to even consider it.

This is where Newstar Electronics has stepped in.  I’m wondering what happened for them to believe all the lies the DRM Consortium told Newstar to sucker them into making the DR111. But in all honestly the DR111 has got to be the worst shortwave or even non-shortwave radio I have ever used.

PCJ has bought 3 of them and the total amount of DRM time heard was less than 20mins. Text is received with no problem, but that’s where it ends. Audio is a major problem. Why? Well let’s take a look at regular shortwave reception on the radio. In one word bad. We took some of the strongest stations in our region and compared it with a Tecsun S2000, Tecsun PL-660 and Sangean ATS909X. The stations we used to check sensitivity were Radio Australia on 17750khz and 21725khz during day time, BBC World Service on 5875khz, 5975kkhz, 17760khz, and 17790khz, Voice Of America on 7575khz and 12150khz. What did we discover?

With other radios we can hear these stations only using the whip antenna. When we used an external dipole antenna they boomed in just as clear as any MV station. ON the DR111 using the whip antenna? No sound. With an external antenna? A little better but only noise and the DR111 could not lock onto any frequency. Very poor!

How is changing frequency? This is a real pain. You can not just type in the frequency and enter. You can push the volume control and tune to the frequency. While doing this it cuts out all sound on the speakers so even if you pass by a station you have no idea until you his the volume button again.

If the station is to week, there is no sound at all. There is another way to enter the frequency, but it takes even longer. I wonder if whoever designed this radio ever even used a shortwave radio.

How is the sound from the speakers? No treble, no base, no wide or narrow controls. The sound from the Tecsun R911 (retails for 10USD) is much better.

Poor quality speakers

How is construction of the radio? Humm! The radio cost 140$USD.  I have seen radio that cost 30$USD that are better built.

Finally if your looking for a shortwave radio buy a Tecsun, Sangean or Sony. If your looking to listen to DRM I would suggest you buy a radio with an IF 455khz out and use a converter and listen on your computer.

If your thinking of buying a Newstar DR111 DRM receiver. My warning is avoid avoid avoid. Don’t even consider this radio. Take your 140 dollars and by a decent receiver.

Poor construction

Final rating on a scale from 1 to 5:

• Price: 1 ½ (If it was worth 140USD I would have given it more.)
• Performance AM: 3
• Performance FM : 5
• Performance SW: 0
• Performance DRM: 0
• Design: 3
• Quality: 2
• Effort to build a receiver: 1
• Overall rating: 1 ½
• Suggestion: Don’t buy! 140USD is a total waste of money.