List Price: $399.95
Sale Price: $322.35
Today's Bonus: 19% Off
While I would not say that this item is perfect, it does stand alone in a sea of mediocrity. When you consider the impressive range of features that it offers, it's really easy to overlook the minor shortcomings. It's also hard to find much to compare it to, since there are only 2-3 units available that offer all of these features at such a reasonable price point.
First off, it's really nice looking. Piano black is a good description, as it is a deep, high gloss, black finish. This is complemented nicely by the blue backlit display (which is adjustable for both brightness and contrast). It feels solid and of quite good quality. Also, since neither this site nor the manufacturer's website describes it, it DOES include a full size remote control. Happily, it is not a tiny credit card type of remote. It is full sized and has real buttons. The remote feels a little cheap, but at least it offers those two features. I'll try to upload a picture of the remote at some point. The touch sensitive buttons on the unit itself do not offer any kind of tactile feedback, but do have nice blue lights, and seem to be responsive. I anticipate using the remote more often than these buttons.
The Pandora integration is really great. It does not seem to offer a way to "like" a song (as you can on the Pandora site) but it is easy to set up and use.
***UPDATE, 2/29/2012: I can't stress enough how much I enjoy using the Pandora integration on this radio! It is truly a joy. We use it in the kitchen, and if an artist or song comes up in conversation over dinner or breakfast, PRESTO! we can look for them/it on this radio! You do not have to log in to Pandora using a computer to create new stations.
The iPod integration is nice. It seems to work pretty well with my iPhone 4. It charges the phone while playing music. The remote control can be used to control the iPhone/iPod too, which is nice. The unit comes with a plethora of plastic adapters to get a secure fit for different kinds of iPods, but I have not tried them. The unit does not display the song info, but of course it is displayed on the iPod.
CDs take a few seconds to initialize, which is one of the minor drawbacks I mentioned before. And it does not display info about the CD such as track names, etc. It only displays track numbers and elapsed time. Not a huge deal I guess.
The Internet radio is very cool, and presents a whole world (literally!) of stuff to hear. It does not display info about individual tracks (another minor drawback). Instead it can display the name, description, genre, country of origin, reliability of connection, bit rate, audio codec, and sampling rate of the station. Nice!
FM reception seems good. I live close to a city, so your performance may vary. It does display station names, track names, artists, or whatever RDS info a station is transmitting (if anything).
Sound quality? Oh yeah, sound quality. Well, I'd say it's really good. I'm not an audiophile (if I were, I probably wouldn't even consider a tabletop radio) but I do have some musical training, a somewhat discerning ear, and a somewhat geeky mentality when it comes to audio/video stuff. So I'm going to say the sound quality, as perceived by a person such as myself, is an 8 or 9 out of 10. I'm using it in a kitchen with lots of acoustically bright surfaces and felt it was a little bass-heavy out of the box, but there are several EQ presets, and a personal EQ setting, which lets you adjust bass and treble.
Another minor drawback that I've noticed, and the one that seems to bug me the most, is the inability to power on and go directly to the mode you want by pressing the appropriate button on the remote. You always have to press the power button first, whether on the unit itself or the remote. You then cycle through the radio modes by pressing the "Radio" button, or for the other formats you press the "Media" button to cycle through CD, iPod, etc.
I have not tried the USB, SD card, or Media Player software, nor have I tried the recording capabilities. I wanted something with FM, CD, Internet radio, and iPod integration. As far as I'm concerned those other features are just gravy, and it will probably take a while before I try them. If they are important to you, leave me a comment and I will try to use them and report back.
In closing, you can't beat this unit at this price. Please buy it so Sangean keeps making cool stuff!
***UPDATE #2, 12/19/2012: I'm still pretty happy with this item, but over a period of 2-3 months this past summer I was having a few problems. At one point the FM radio would just go silent after listening for a while. The exact duration of listening required to see the problem would change, but the sound would only return after unplugging the unit. I contacted Sangean and they said I could ship the unit to them for warranty repair, ALONG WITH A CHECK FOR RETURN SHIPPING. Seriously? The item they made went bad so I have to pay shipping both ways?? Even Apple will pay shipping both ways for warranty repairs on laptops (at least they used to). Another problem was that the touch controls on the unit stopped responding to touches for a while. Both problems seem to have cleared up, at least for the time being. Still a cool item, but not without its problems.
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