[newcoppiceman]

I've had one of these microsystems (all-in-one DVD, CD, DAB, FM, USB) since November 2007; it's still a current product and features in Teac's 'Reference Series 2009' brochure. The design shortcomings listed below were brought to Teac UK's attention shortly after purchase.

Firstly, I'm not using HDMI - reading some other posts, it's just as well as this seems to be this unit's principal area of weakness. However, for those wanting to listen to anything on phones, to DAB radio or CDs, read on re other significant issues with the DR-H300DAB.

1. Noticeable hum/buzz on phones output, accompanied by clicks when changing sources. Note - having used with both Rogers and Audio Monitor speakers over the past 18 months, I do not believe there is a design problem affecting the loudspeaker outputs - no noticeable hum/buzz or clicks; other posters may have genuine faults or other issues. Late at night I often use phones to listen; quiet passages on ANY source (I often listen to Freeview TV via AUX 1) WILL reveal a fixed-level (doesn't change with volume or mute on/off) of annoying hum and buzz. Simply unforgiveable in a unit built around digital sources.

2. NON-RANDOM mutes on DAB. You WILL hear mutes (anything up to 5 seconds) even with a decent RF signal level. The DR-H300DAB uses the Gyro 1122 DAB module and - to their credit - its manufacturers have willingly engaged with me regarding the problem of any (and they are actually quite frequent) change of transmitted bitrate on a BBC service (eg Radio 4 from 128kbps stereo to 80kbps mono) causing a mute across ALL BBC services on the same DAB multiplex, so that's Radio 1, 2, 3, 4..., as the little Gyro module has a headache and goes back to square one to sort itself out!

This is not typical behaviour for a DAB radio, indeed some (eg Pure Evoke-1) are very good at handling these bitrate switches and you hardly notice them on the switched service itself. A feature of this shortcoming, is that if you have muted the DR-H300DAB, it will promptly unmute. This is what the nice man from Gyro said in his last e-mail: "While we need more tests to validate, I would like to thank you for understanding and you did help in a way that prompted us in improving next tuners!" You might think that this was more constructive than a confused letter from Teac's UK Service Manager wherein he stated that "...we have absolutely no doubts about the quality or performance of the DRH300DAB unit... ...why not just settle back and enjoy the sound reproduction of the system instead of ghost-hunting for faults with it."

3. CDs. If you play CDs from start to finish, the start of around 40-50% of all tracks is clipped - by half a second or so. It does vary with CDs, but after 18 months listening to loads of CDs, that's where I'd put the percentage. This is really annoying. If you press skip back the track will then play cleanly. The problem is usually repeatable for affected tracks. This may be happening because it’s a DVD player first and a CD player second - it also takes an age to read a CD’s TOC (table of contents) when the disc is first loaded. I have a service manual for the DR-H300DAB and plan to bring out temporary connections to the circuit boards to see where in the signal chain the clipping is present - including right back to pins 224/226 of the MediaTek MT1389HD chip (which is as far back as I can go in the analogue domain). The MT1389HD chip forms the core of the DR-H300DAB's DVD/CD functionality - because it does so much, it's known as a 'system-on-a-chip' (SOC). If I can find a cheap one, I'll also try an external DAC. My ears are too old to be 'golden' so I don't have one already - but they still know when something ain't right! MediaTek have been helpful in correspondence and say they don't think the problem is with their chip.

4 I had intermittent CD play problems early 2009 (15 months old) - fixed after I fitted a new Sanyo SF-HD65 optical pickup assembly; not a difficult job and replacements quite cheap (<£15).

5 We usually watch DVD films on a Saturday night and the DR-H300DAB has behaved impeccably in this regard, using the Scart RGB output to feed our Panasonic 28" widescreen CRT TV (consumer flat panels aren't there yet if you want to watch natural pictures, in my opinion).

Hope the above is helpful to owners and prospective purchasers alike.