I have recently purchased a brand new car. First thing I was told about the so-called infotainment system was: you can choose between DAB (that sounds much better!) or the old FM radio.
My assessment after the first month of use is: it actually sounds better, with some minor flaws (more on those below), and one big caveat. The latter is: sometimes it just stops! At least here in Italy, I find that frequently there is just no signal and the thing mutes temporarily and starts again after a few seconds. Too annoying to be used. So the old FM radio should be preferred, at least while driving in the city, even though it is noisier and strangely loses high frequency extension from time to time. But it does have sound continuity. In my environment, DAB does not. And this is a major flaw. Besides, it sounds softened, tamed in the transients and a little muffled.
If I have to compare DAB vs. FM radio in my car, I keep thinking back to the my earliest days in hi-fi when I used to record vinyl on cassettes. DAB reminds me of Dolby "B" recording while FM radio reminds of raw, no noise reduction recording. But with a different overall conclusion: while all-in-all no reduction sounded better to me back then, I clearly prefer the less noisy even if a little less dynamic DAB sound now. But discontinuity I prefer not. So I'll stick with FM radio for most of the time, until the situation changes... and more digital airwave come. Here in Italy. I don't know about other countries. The situation might be much better (or even worse) elsewhere.
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