Roberts Blutune200 Sound System Review

Summary: Built to last with great sound quality, this is one of the best DAB radio CD players on the market.

Buy it online: See price on Amazon.co.uk See on John Lewis

The Roberts Blutune200 is the model up from the cheaper Blutune100. It comes in an attractive piano gloss wooden cabinet that has been acoustically-tuned for a better sound.

This high-end product is much more than just a radio: you can play CDs on it, use it as a Bluetooth speaker, and even record the radio onto a USB drive or SD card.

Features

Dimensions: 36 cm wide x 12.5 cm high x 27 cm deep
Weight: 3.9 kg

Performance and use

Set-up

The Roberts Blutune200 is a sturdy radio that uses mains power. Setting it up is very quick and easy, and it will automatically find all the DAB radio stations available in your area.

Radio

DAB reception is impressive compared to cheaper radios. FM reception isn’t so special, but you probably won’t need FM given this radio’s powerful DAB signal. The sound speaker has a telescopic aerial, though you can remove it and connect it to a wire aerial or external aerial if you need to.

Bluetooth

Syncing the radio up with a smartphone via Bluetooth is quick and straightforward, and you should be able to stream music from the other side of a large room.

Sound quality

The Blutune200’s speakers are very good quality. The bass levels seem high on the default setting, but this can be easily adjusted using the graphic equalizer. The sound system will remember your EQ settings for the next time you switch it on, which is very convenient.

You won’t have the depth of sound or feeling of space you’d get from some good separate speakers, but for an all-in-one radio/CD player combo, the sound quality is very good.

CD player

When you want to play a CD you just push it into the slot rather than using a tray. The Blutune200 will grab the CD and then eject it once you’ve finished listening to it.

USB/SD recording and playback

Recording onto a USB drive or SD card is easy, and it records in MP3 format at 128k bits a second. Playing music from a USB drive or SD card is easy too, and the Blutune200 displays the track name on the LCD screen.

Remote control

The remote control is a welcome addition, but it can be a bit fiddly to use.

Verdict

The Roberts Blutune200 is an impressive all-in-one sound system. It has an FM/DAB/DAB+ radio, a CD player, Bluetooth functionality and the ability to record and play music back from a USB drive or SD card. Given the sound system’s long list of features and classy, sturdy construction, it offers good value for money.

Unlike some of Roberts’ new budget radios, the Blutune200 has the “built-to-last” feeling the brand became famous for.

This sound system is significantly more expensive than the average DAB radio, but it’s a very versatile piece of kit that will let you rediscover your old CD collection. It’s quite hard to find a DAB radio with a CD player and a high-quality built-in speaker, but the Roberts Blutune200 fits the bill.

While CDs are on the way out, many of us still have a large CD collection, so it’s a real treat to find a modern DAB radio with Bluetooth that also lets you play CDs. This, combined with the USB and SD ports, makes the Blutune200 very versatile—the only thing that’s missing is the ability to listen to internet radio.

Apart from the lack of internet radio, the only real flaw with the Blutune200 is its fiddly remote control, which Roberts will hopefully redesign if they release a future Blutune model.

Similar radios

The most similar radio to the Blutune200 is the Roberts Blutune100. It’s the slightly than the Blutune200, and lacks the ability to record or play music from a USB drive or SD card. If having that feature isn’t important to you, the Blutune100 will offer the same performance as the Blutune200 but at a slightly lower price.

If you’re interested in getting something similar but from a different brand, you should consider the Pure Evoke C-D6. It has a very similar design to the Blutune200, but with the lighter wood finish characteristic of Pure’s Evoke range. It has a similar price tag to the Blutune200 and has almost identical features except for lacking USB/SD recording or playback.

If you want a sound system that can do more or less everything (DAB, CD, Bluetooth, internet radio), you should check out the Roberts Stream 65i. It will probably cost you about £100 more than the Blutune200, but it will let you listen to the 20,000+ radio stations available online.

You can see some more high-end radios here.