Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Introduction: This is my forth internet radio. We started with a Grace table radio, it’s nice and stable, easy to use, and versatile. Next I got a Mutant M-Wavio, fits in a shirt pocket, but drops streams and the network regularly. I recently bought an Onkyo internet receiver, big and competent with lots of input options. So with the Sangean I had expectations. I am an old radio fan. I carried a portable radio stuck to one ear everywhere back in the day, but terrestrial (local broadcast) radio doesn’t offer the same entertainment value it used to, so I have turned to the internet. Getting acquainted. The Sangean is a big portable. It makes a good table radio; and though it has a ridge in the back that acts as a grip to pick it up, it would benefit from some sort of handle on the top. You know it isn’t small if it takes four D size batteries. I intended to use AA size rechargeables with D size adapters to power this radio, but that didn’t work out; the battery compartment is too tight, and I could not stuff my batteries with adaptors into this space. I can now see why people who purchase this radio (according to Amazon) also order the rather costly D size rechargeable batteries. The AC adapter for this is an odd 7.5 Volt 1.6 Amp device that will be hard to find a replacement for if the original is lost or broken. The paper manual included is really pretty easy to read (unlike some other Chinese manuals), but is not as useful as it should be. This radio is shiny black, solidly built, all points of contact feel snug and secure, all the buttons snap sharply and smoothly, there are four nice grippy feet on the bottom, nothing cheap here. The unit takes some time (about 30 seconds) to start up (I have mine set to disconnect from my WiFi when in Standby until I sort out my battery situation. Leaving it connected to your WiFi should shorten the startup time.). Connecting to my WiFi went well, run the Wizard, select your network, choose the characters for your WiFi password, and boom, you’re in. The steps in the manual do not exactly match the steps required on the radio, if you’ve done one like this before you will be fine, if not you may find it confusing. The tuning/selecting encoder suffers from the same problem most of these do; it doesn’t always keep up with the user, depending on what the unit’s processor is doing, it may be several seconds before the encoder recognizes that you are attempting to make a selection, and then it may jump ahead several steps. The operation is a bit of a learning curve, but if you have operated a WiFi radio before, this is pretty straightforward and intuitive. The display is bright, colorful, beautiful, and informative. The display stays lit when the radio is on the ac power supply, and fades down after a few seconds of any input when on battery. The sound is really good for a radio this size. This radio has sound contour presets to help you find a sound you like and includes a custom setting so you can set your own sound profile. This has a separate line output (in addition to a headphone output) that easily powers externally amplified speakers, and it sounds good doing it. When listening to internet radio the “INFO” button will step the display through several sets of data. There are five preset buttons. There should be ten, or more. You do have the list of favorites from the Frontier Silicon Radio Portal, but five presets is ridiculously small today. This radio depends on the Frontier Silicon Radio Portal. My Mutant, and my Onkyo both use the VTuner portal. In my eyes these two portals are so similar that I suspect them to be operated by the same people, but with a different user interface. If you are not familiar with this service, take a look at this link for a free glimpse of what is available. http://vtuner.com/setupapp/guide/asp/BrowseStations/startpage.asp This is a pretty comprehensive offering, but if you know of other stations that are not listed on the service’s site, you can add streams to the “Added Stations” list for retrieving later. Local FM reception is good, better than some of my other portable radios. There are images on the display for signal strength, stereo, preset number, and others that I don’t understand, and none of this is explained in the manual. There are five presets for FM, again, this should be ten. There is a scan function, just press and hold the Tuning/Select button for a second; this works pretty well to find the next station available. Plug a USB memory sick into the top, and you have a nice music player. Controls work well, sound is great, and, again, the display is very informative. I plugged the output of my MP3 player into the AUX input, this input requires a lot of power to drive it, I had my MP3 player up to just about full volume for good sound. I did not test Spotify; I don’t have an account. Daly use. This radio is immensely easy, and pleasant to use. The batteries charge while the power supply is connected to the radio (if you have set the internal switch to “Rechargeable”). In the weeks I’ve had this radio, it has only lost a stream, twice, and I suspect the stream source as the problem. I’ve got dozens (or hundreds) of streams saved in “My Favorites”, and if it plays, it plays without interruption. I primarily listen to streams, or local FM, and although the built in speaker has good sound, I usually send the LINE OUT to amplified speakers if I’m listening to music. There is a sub section in the Internet Radio menu titled “HDi” (apparently these are High Definition internet radio stations) where I found many high quality Classical and Jazz stations. This is also not explained in the manual. I generally do not like digital volume controls, I prefer an analog rotary volume control; but the up and down volume rocker on this radio is large, well-shaped, respond quickly, and provide lots of small increments. The end. I use this radio every day, and I have not been sorry I bought it. The manual will get you started, and after you learn your way around, experimenting is well worth it. This is one of the nicest built, and most useful radios that I own. Pros. 1. Strong Wi-Fi reception. 2. Strong FM reception. 3. Good feel, and accessibility to all controls. 4. Good sound on built in speaker, strong line out (in stereo) to external amplified speakers. 5. Great display. 6. Long battery life. 7. Really sturdy. Cons. 1. Needs a handle. 2. Batteries can be a tight fit. 3. A bit heavy. 4. The Tuning encoder can lag, or jump ahead. 5. Only five FM station and five internet station presets. 6. Odd Voltage AC adapter. The pros far outweigh the cons. Sangean has a hit here.