On the road with Pure's Highway 300Di in-car DAB radio
Andy Clough Sun, Nov 27 2011, 11:13AM
We've had the Pure team down to whathifi.com's HQ fitting out First Test Editor Andy Madden's Vauxhall Astra with the firm's new £180 Highway 300Di in-car DAB radio.
Andy will be reviewing the unit for a future issue of What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision, but in the meantime we thought you might like to see some snaps of the unit being installed.
Just to recap, Highway 300Di is designed for professional installation rather then the original DIY Highway unit which has been on sale for three years.
There are three key parts to the 300Di system: the control unit which goes on the dashboard, the main box of electronics which can be hidden away elsewhere in the car, and a two-part powered DAB aerial (above).
One part of the aerial fits externally to the top of the windscreen, the other part inside the car.
Additional features include dual tuners, line out, aux in, USB socket plus DAB/DAB+/DMBR and L-band compatibility.
The device is 'Made for iPod/iPhone" compatible so you can connect your iDevice and use the controller to search/play music while it charges too.
It's also compatible with USB devices such as a flash drive, or mobile phones/MP3 players with a USB connection. You can read the full details in our original news story.
Anyway, back to our own installation. Andy's Astra is now kitted out and he'll be putting the unit through its paces over the coming weeks, but in the meantime, here's a blow-by-blow record of how the Highway 300Di fits into your car.
Our friendly engineer starts pulling Andy's Astra apart.
This is definitely a professional installation job, not a DIY one. Halfords will fit the Highway 300Di to your car for free until the end of this year.
This is the inside of the powered aerial fixing that sticks to the outside of your windscreen. It can easily be removed if the windscreen has to be replaced. The other part of the aerial fixes to the inside of the screen.
The main control unit goes in the glovebox or behind the dash. It has all the sockets you'll need, and routes the DAB signal through the aux in to your existing in-car unit and speakers, or retransmits it via FM.
It's getting messy in there: don't panic Andy, they'll put it all back together again together again, promise!
The dinky control unit can be fixed anywhere on the dash with a self-adhesive pad and can be removed without damaging the interior finish of your car should you change vehicles.
That's better, looking much tidier now! When the Highway is switched on, it will be shown in the main dashboard display. The positioning of the control unit means a couple of minor buttons on the dash are obscured, but they're not used that often, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Finally, you can connect your iPod and play that through the system too.
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Comments
Call that a proper install? It's just stuck at a wonky angle on top of the other buttons! Very surprised that it was done this way for What HiFi when they knew it would be a feature.
Ok, so it is all supposed to be digital etc, but unless you have an Aux in, it is re-transmitted as FM and goes back through the Tuner? So we are back to FM quality.
Unless the station you want is not on FM what is the point?
No Raff. The device can be hard wired into the FM input at the back of the car radio meaning it isnt being re-transmitted as FM through the air. Other FM signals do not intefere whilst the unit is connected this way but when you turn the unit off you can listen to standard FM stations again.
You say what is the point of this device but you must remember it is also an excellent ipod/iphone/mp3 dock. Whilst connected it charges my iphone and I am still able to make and receive calls through my cars bluetooth whilst my iphone sits in the cars glovebox. The user interface is excellent, the screen visible in bright light and the dark. Scrolling through playlists/artists/tracks is fast and responsive compared to previous docks I have used.
Overall an excellent product and a great improvement over my original Highway. Good value too unless you have the option of fitting a new DIN radio...I have a BMW so this wasnt an option. I like the fact that if I sell my car I can transfer the unit to a new one without having done any damage or made any changes to the interior/radio/original spec of the car.
my mistake...hard wired to the FM input I guess it is still going via the tuner. It doesnt bother me though. Sound quality is fine and no interferance. I dont expect audiophile sound quality in my car but if you do this may be an issue, fair enough.
Although given that FM generally sounds better than DAB when the same station is offered on both, that may not be any hardship, and of course the aux out on the Pure/Aux in on your radio will be analogue anyway.
Wow Just a Nice information and description provide by you. I need to know the information of the new mobile features in feature like i-phone. Thanks a lot
Edited by mods.
The FM radio/cd player in my 07 Jaguar XJ is a complicated combination of wire and optical fibre installation. There is no way Halfords will get near that. It is a nightmare just to connect an IPOD. The TV in car is analogue too( a different nightmare to change)
DAB can be lower quality than FM as the broadcasters can cram in more stations into the bandwidth available.
The British DAB system is an early version and Europe has a "MK 2 " DAB system which is incompatible with the one in the UK.
So there we have it..potentially poorer quality. does not work in Europe, and difficult if not impossible to upgrade an older car.
That is progress for you, stick with FM!
The positioning of the controller looks proper ropey.
I used to have a JVC DAB radio in my old car and the antenna was a thin self adhesive wire that was positioned up the edge of the windscreen and the signal was perfect. No external part to get lost in the car wash, and no need to remove the A pillar trim, where airbags are sometimes fitted.
Be interesting to know what it sounds like.
I wonder how vandal proof that aerial is. And also, the bit that sticks out of the back of the aerial base that has to touch the roof (to provide a capacitively coupled ground-plane connection) - what does that do to the paint finish after 10K or 20K miles of vibration? I would not want that on my car. The control wigdet looks nice, and the iPod/iPhone control is a plus (although at the price they are asking, it would be disappointing if this was "just" a radio add-on). And Halfords...? - give me a break - those guys are not the chaps you want pulling the dash apart on a £20K+ motor. My car's only worth a fraction of that and I still wouldn't let them near it.
Also @WHF, there's an error in the text - "and routes the DAB signal through your existing in-car unit and speakers, bypassing the factory-fit radio." That sentence contradicts itself- going through the head-unit and speakers does not bypass the factory fit radio. The Pure unit either uses an Aux-In (if you have one - many car radios do not) or it retransmits on FM (can be hard-wired or through the air). Either way, the existing head unit, amplifier and volume control is used. Of course, the tuning controls are on the 300Di.
Agreed, that look terrible! I presume there's no option to use the steering wheel controls to flip between stations either. However the big question is, what's the sound quality like, feeding in on RF? What's reception like with this aerial, both rurally and in the city? Can it even feed up useful information to the existing Vauxhall dash display at the top, via RDS or what ever?
And lets not forget, it is not a foregone conclusion FM will be turned off. It was only pencilled in for 2015 if, and a big if, DAB made up 50% of all radio listening - we're currently no where near. Even then, only the big stations were moving to DAB, with FM left to smaller local stations.
Do not like that installation at all, can it not actually be clipped to the air vent like in the product picture above ?? we need a better or more integrated after market solution if that control box could be controlled by the OEM head unit it would be perfect. The Kenwoods and Pioneers and Sonys of this world need to provide a higher end after market solution considering DAB is going to be the only available standard in the future. The DAB head units available now are like base model units and look terrible which makes you think they will sound terrible there is no mention of any decent dacs in these units.
one thing i do like though is that aerial. it is a lot of work to get a proper outside dab aerial installed. so this aerial seems like a decent, convienient solution!!
I hope it sounds good, because the installation looks horrible