DAB energy consumption

[honeybee]

I can't find much info about this but my other half read a feature in a hi-fi magazine that said Digital signal requires twice as much energy as analogue. Apparently no maker's user manual tells you how much energy your digital radio for example is using. We are all expected to switch to digital in the next few years however most of Europe are unhappy about this because they feel the quality is poor and they're not promoting digital as much as Briatin. Digital uses 128 kbps this is something like a 5th of what FM uses. As I said I can't find the exact details of this but was wondering how aware people were of this?

[lewisa]

It should be possible to find out the power drain of a DAB radio by looking at the manual to see what wattage the power supply is, or on a sticker on the back of the unit, Id imagine displaying that somewhere could be a requirement for a CE stamp.

My non-digital clock radio is 5 watts, which is feeble, for a comparison my quite powerful office PC drains 400+.

Interesting snippet on the problem at this page, where police are complaining that due to a larger power drain on digital radio's the batteries dont last a full 16 hour shift, only managing about half that.

[philbyuk]

well i dont know how much they use precisely but when i got mine i put a set of batteries in(4x'c') drained within a day..yuch never again

[speckled wood]

Originally Posted by philbyuk

well i dont know how much they use precisely but when i got mine i put a set of batteries in(4x'c') drained within a day..yuch never again

My experience was the same, used on the mains ever since.

[Rainbowmum]

Yes I too have heard this about the energy consumed by digital appliances. It doesn't make any sense in the day and age where we should be trying to use LESS energy not more. Personally they should have only made them as wind up and let the arms of the people that listen power them!!