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Tangent Cinque Table Radio 

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This is a top quality DAB radio, it also allows you to play CD’s using a lot loading drive. Various colours are available, mine was shiny black but most things can be done using the 32 key remote control.
Tangent Cinque DAB radio and CD player

The Tangent Cinque DAB radio is 23x21x12.5cm, as stated mine was shiny black that will normally show all the fingermarks but once in place you really only need to touch it to insert or remove CD's and as that is a slot loader not really even then. It looks magnificent with the black mirror finish.

The rear has the various connections and an eight piece (67cm) rod aerial. The other sockets are input for the 12volt DC, headphone output, auxiliary input and line out. Everything else is on the front apart from the single speaker that is cut into the top of the unit.

The front has two large knobs either side of the two sixteen character line display. The left know is volume and the right tuning. When power is removed the radio station and volume level are remembered so once it is returned you are listening to the same station at the same volume. There is a power button on the unit and on the remote however these do not remove power just put it in a very low power drawing mode the two line display showing (after a few seconds of lit white background) a dark grey background with black lettering showing the mode IE DAB or FM etc and the second line the current time. From pushing the power button in this standby mode to the station being retuned and you hearing it is five seconds. However if power has been removed there is an extra step as you still have to push the power button and to listening again is around nine seconds.

Below this is the slot loader for CD's and below this two lines of eight push buttons with an extra two on the bottom line moved a little apart these are power and enter. 

Setting presets is just a matter of pressing one of the buttons until you get 'preset saved' message. Tuning on DAB is easy as just scrolling the tune button displays the station name. For FM you need to know the frequency and moving from one end of the band to the other is not quick but unlike a lot of other units you do not have to listen to static and hiss while you make the journey. When tuned it just displays the frequency and not the station name as some recent units do.

Sound quality (providing you are not in a fringe area) is excellent it will say Stereo on the display but unless you are using headphones or external speakers you will be listening in mono.

Auxiliary allows you to take advantage of the quality inbuilt speaker. CD mode allows you to play your CD's through the unit there are some choices but not as many as you get with a decent stack audio and of course the output is mono and of course you have no tone adjustment. There is nothing wrong with the sound it's just that you only have volume.

As stated almost everything is duplicated on the remote so the unit can be placed on a shelf if required, but with the unit looking so good you will probably want to display it prominently.

It has a sleep timer and an alarm however unless you are in a well lit room the display when off of black on dark grey will probably make the clock all but invisible.

I am not quite sure why the power supply is such a brick but there is around 1.5 metre of lead between the unit and the brick so in most cases it can be hidden.

Doing my Internet searches found the Tangent Cinque at a best price of £225.42 including delivery for either the Black or White finish from the first link below.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=Tangent%2BCinque%2BDAB&index=blended

http://www.tangent-audio.com/00003/00011/00119/   

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Comment by paul_smart, 18 May 2009 11:18

The version I had certainly has a rod aerial.
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Comment by blanchc, 18 May 2009 11:01

I'm searching for a DAB radio/CD player for the kitchen and have homed in on the Tangent Cinque DAB Table Radio.  But it must have a rod aerial given our poor digitial reception.  Paul Smart's article refers to an eight piece (67cm) rod aerial, which sounds ideal, but two suppliers contacted by phone/online seem to be suggesting the DAB version(as opposed to AM/FM version)doesn't have the rod aerial.  Can Paul or anyone else with the DAB version confirm it does?

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