Dualit Kitchen Review

Brand diversity is all the rage these days (anyone else buy groceries, car insurance and a holiday from the same supermarket?) but Dualit, who build the appliances of choice for anyone with a loft apartment, has gone at it in a stealthy way.

 

At first glance, this DAB radio could pass for a toaster. And it’s called Kitchen, so the unwary could be forgiven for trying to force bread into it.

 

Behind the highly polished (and high-maintenance) exterior, the Kitchen is a straightforward-enough DAB/FM radio. It’s a mono design, with an integrated aerial and a little display for station confirmation and so on.

 

Having just a single alarm tone makes it less useful in the kitchen than its name implies, and just five station presets means it’s not for the musically adventurous.

 

Kitchen clean(er)
The Kitchen looks a bit gimmicky, but its performance is deadly serious.

 

It’s a resolute receiver, locking on to the full complement of DAB stations even in areas where reception isn’t that great. Working with the BBC’s 6Music (at a compression rate of 128kbps or so), the Dualit sounds bigger than it looks.

 

That single speaker delivers a broad sound, vocalists sounding articulate and well-defined.

Treble sounds, too, are well judged, especially as all that steelwork invites the Kitchen to sound hard and bright. Even lower-quality broadcast aren’t shredded by this radio, and it does good work too with FM stations.  

 

Bass is overcooked
There are a few minor problems with bass. If anything it’s too rich, making talk show hosts and guests sound like they haven’t quite finished that last mouthful of chocolate. It can sound fractionally loose, too. But music sounds good and punchy, unlike a lot of competitors this size.

Mind you, most competitors of this size don’t cost £180. But then, they don’t have shiny good looks and toaster credentials either.