Tangent Quattro WiFi Internet Radio Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This is such a fun item. I can listen to any of the online radio stations I like anywhere in the house, not just near the computer, and the speakers** on the radio are far superior to my puter speakers. You need high speed internet and a wireless transmitter to make this work, incidentally. It IS a little expensive, but there's no subscription--the purchase price is all there is.
**Note: Someone has informed me that the radio has only ONE speaker. Sorry if I misled anyone.
Update October 29, 2008
She's still going strong a year later and that's after coming home to find it on the kitchen floor TWICE (cats). My heart nearly stopped, but when I turned it on, all was well. So add resilience to its other attributes. Also I should mention that my high-speed internet connection is really very slow for high speed and still I have no problem with the streaming.
Sure it was expensive, but I don't have real radio where I live (just country AND western plus some Spanish language) so it's this or the computer or Sirius if I want NPR and other stuff. Sirius was ok but it has a yearly fee and I was tied to that antenna--this radio, though it is plug-in and not battery-powered, can move from room to room. And once you buy it, that's it.


Click Here to see more reviews about: Tangent Quattro WiFi Internet Radio

The Tangent Quattro integrates WiFi radio with distinctive Danish styling. Housed inside a MDF wood cabinet with real walnut veneer, the Quattro has the highest quality audio among our WiFi radios. With the Quattro you have a unique way to search over 5000 Internet radio stations--both by location and genre. You can find anything from jazz in Taiwan to news from Germany. You can also use the Quattro to wirelessly stream music and audio from your PC or Mac, or connect your MP3 player to the audio-in and use the radio as a stand alone speaker. There's no subscription fee and you don't even have to turn on your computer to use it.

Click here for more information about Tangent Quattro WiFi Internet Radio

Read More...

Revo Pico Portable WiFi Internet Radio Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I've been waiting for this type product for a long time and I am glad I bought it. However, I would not recommend it for everyone just yet. It has a coolness factor which I paid a premium. I refuse to pay for XM because there is too much free music out there. It works seamlessly with the Reciva website but expect some of the stations to not work properly. That's fine because there is so much to choose from. The sound quality is only ok but most stations are sub cd quality anyway. Battery life is maybe 3 hours depending on the loudness. WiFi distance is not very good. FM is not great either. Navigating the menus is far from intuitive. You really need to be tech savvy to understand this radio. The podcasts I listen to cut off about halfway. The remote sucks. Despite the cons, I think future firmware updates will continue to improve the technology. Unless you have some disposable income or have to have the latest, greatest, you might want to wait until revision 2.
*** UPDATE ***
I need to add a star to my review. The beta firmware (as of Jan 09) has cured my some of my gripes. It now scrolls metadata for some stations and plays podcasts properly. It will play Clear Channel stations also. Reciva has made the menus easier to navigate. You still need to be a techie to enjoy this radio.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Revo Pico Portable WiFi Internet Radio

A radio is infinitely more valuable if it is portable. The Revo Pico radio runs nearly 8 hours on just 2 hours of charging. Take it with you from room to room, and enjoy the pleasures of WiFi Radio no matter where you're working or relaxing--being within range of your wireless broadband network. The splash-resistant Revo Pico Portable WiFi radio has surprising audio for its size, and also features a built-in FM radio, stereo headphone jack and an audio-in jack. Choose between several equalizer settings to adjust the audio tone to your preference. Includes user manual, remote control, and power/charging cord.

Click here for more information about Revo Pico Portable WiFi Internet Radio

Read More...

Sangean RCR-8WF Internet Clock Radio Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I purchased the RCR-8WF as a replacement for an old Panasonic clock radio mainly for the Internet radio capability and for use at night. It is not a bad radio but seems more like a work-in-progress than a well thought out product.
My issues with it are:
1) The sleep timer takes three button presses to work. Turn the radio on, press the sleep timer button, then press select. Try doing this in the dark when you are half asleep! It should take one - press the sleep button. This is the way their other radios work.
2) The display brightens to full when any button is pressed. The manual says that you can dim it in this mode but is does not keep the setting. You can dim it but then comes back full brightness the next time you hit a button.
3) The internet radio takes about 15-30 seconds to change stations or to come on the first time. I understand the technology involved, and could deal with this if it were not for the other issues.
I contacted Sangean a week go about these issues and still have not heard back. I will be returning it and waiting for a more mature product.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Sangean RCR-8WF Internet Clock Radio

Get 38% OFF

Click here for more information about Sangean RCR-8WF Internet Clock Radio

Read More...

Sangean WFR-1 WIFI Internet Radio Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)An internet radio opens up an almost overwhelming number of broadcast streams and for someone like me, who enjoys classical music, there is a wonderful choice of commercial free stations worldwide. I own (or have owned) a number of internet radios;a Slim Devices Squeezebox(!), a Roku Soundbridge R1000, a Revo Pico portable, a Receiva AE and a Sangean WFR-20, but the new Sangean WFR-20 is almost the best of the bunch (I will explain why it is not unequivocally the best in a minute!).
The Sangean WFR-1 is beautifully finished with a polished wooden case, an array of controls on the front panel, including on/off, volume and equalizer (tone control). They are not particularly intuitive but better than the single knob on the WFR-20. There is also a substantial and full function remote control, resembling that of the Roku, rather than the credit-card sized devices that come with Pico and the WFR-20. The amber display is larger than those found on any other set but the Roku (more about this later).
Set-up was very easy (I use an ethernet wired connection to my router but it works with my wi-fi network) and it was playing within a few minutes of unpacking. There is also an FM tuner with a separate antenna. Sound is excellent and far superior to any of the other sets I have owned except Roku, which is almost as good. For this unit, Sangean has gone to Frontier Silicon rather than to Receiva for their streams. Nevertheless, there is an abundance of stations, including Real format so I can get all the BBC channels (a big negative with Roku). There is little delay in receiving streams after switching on and Frontier has a good website where you can set up favorites and add new stations. Playing stored music from my computer via Windows Media Player has been easy and more consistent than with the WFR-20 or AE.
Now for the downside. Despite a larger display that claims to offer four lines of text, there is no control for format (as Roku provides) or for brightness (which the WFR-20 offers). Most frustrating is that Frontier do not stream program information with the station! There is plenty of room for this on the display and such information on content is invaluable because some stations do not provide this audibly; the WFR-20 does this well because it uses the Receiva streams but it would require reprogramming of software by Frontier to have this on the WFR-1. Frontier tell me it is being discussed but they have no plans for implementation! Surprisingly, Sangean, although the 800lb gorilla here, do not seem inclined to pressure Frontier. I have had several conversations with the amiable Selwyn, whom you reach quite easily when you call up technical support at Sangean, and he agrees totally with me and suggests that I contact Frontier (which I did) or write a review to make this point - which I am doing!
So in summary, this is an excellent product with great acoustic performance but marred by small, but irritating, shortcomings in the display. As a result, I gave it 3 stars rather than 5.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Sangean WFR-1 WIFI Internet Radio

Click here for more information about Sangean WFR-1 WIFI Internet Radio

Read More...

Kaito Electronics Inc. KAIR168 Wireless WiFi Internet Radio Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I have one if these that I purchased on ebay and I also have an RCA RIR200. This radio seems to have better wifi connectivity than the RCA since it has an external antenna but I had to buy a new WRT54G wireless router to get the RCA working so that might be the reason it works well. If you still have an old 802.11B wireless router plan on getting a new G router for best performance. The IR-168 can play not only internet stations but also MP3's from an SD card plugged into the front, sort of like a big amplified iPod. They also claim it's a media player that can play files such as MP3's stored on your local computer using Upnp but I couldn't get that to work at all with Windows XP Pro or Vista. Even thought Upnp was enabled and the file folder was shared the radio said it couldn't find any Upnp devices or shared files even though the PC's could see the radio and access it's webpage to program in favorite stations. It worked great using Windows 7 Beta though and all I had to do was put the files to be played in My Documents in the Music folder and make sure it was shared. I didn't need to use Windows Media Player 11 like they say and don't see any need for that at all.
It only has one speaker but it's large and gives good sound whereas the RCA has two smaller speakers for stereo but the RCA is not as loud. The IR-168 can play stereo using amplified speakers plugged into the back or with headphones and Kaito has a second optional speaker available. The sound is much better using the second speaker but it's expensive at $30 but any 8 ohm speaker similar in size to the first one will work. The IR-168 comes with a tiny credit card size remote that's nearly useless but all the functions can be accessed using the front panel buttons. It uses a website called iradio168 dot com to find the 10,000 or 11,000 radio stations from around the world while most other internet radios use Vtuner or Reciva. Vtuner and Reciva let you go to the website to find stations and try playing them to see how they work but iradio168 does not although they claim to be working on that. The RCA can also play music from Slacker Radio and get weather forecasts but the IR-168 does not do that, only plays internet stations. Although I haven't found one there might be some stations out there streaming weather since there are some stations streaming police and airport radio scanners. Iradio168 dot com is a new site that doesn't have many US radio stations yet although they have lots of stations listed for China, Germany and other countries in Europe and a lot of stations in Canada since the radio is sold in Germany and Canada also. You can log on to the iradio168 dot com forum and have stations added if you want but you can also store favorites right into the radio's memory using a web browser so you don't have to browse through thousands of stations on the website to find them, which is a lot easier. There is also a list of 500 Top stations stored in the radio's memory but that seems to be just a bunch of random stations with names like Top40 or Golden Oldies so it's impossible to tell what they really are and there doesn't seem to be any way to edit them to add more or fix ones that don't work. There are a lot of different kinds of stations out there streaming different kinds of formats but this radio can play most of them. It does have trouble with some Clear Channel stations in the US such as KFI 640 AM that want to open a webpage for ads and send down an .asx file that only plays in Windows Media Player but it can play BBC stations that are hard to play on a PC unless you install the Real player then you might still get an error saying you can't play it because you aren't in the U.K. but that doesn't bother the IR-168. I found the gray on blue text hard to read so I replaced the blue LEDs that light the front panel with white ones to make the display clearer and easier to read.
They don't list many specs listed here so I have them below:
Specifications:
* Audio Streaming Formats Supported : MP3, WMA, Real Audio and OGG
* Firmware upgradeable through Internet without PC
* Support for ID3 & WMA tags (Album, Song and Artist)
* 4 line display, (128 x 64 pixels) for radio data with auto off backlight
* Automatic WiFi network scanning
* Support WiFi Security standard (WEP, WPA, WPA2)
* Speaker Power 3W RMS 4 ohm
* Supports Summer Time adjustment
* Display cities along GMT timings
* Auto-upgrade with the use of PC
* Compatible to 54Mbps IEEE 802.11 b/g
* Fireware upgradable via WLAN / Ethernet
* 3.5mm Headphone Jack / Audio Line out
* Power 110v - 240V, 9V, 1.3A DC input
* AC Adapter with CUL approved
The IR168 forum seems to be getting overrun with spam so I've started a new ir168 group without spam on Google Groups called iradio168-internet-radio-group. All messages are moderated. I'm going to have all the fimware on file, links to BBC station work-arounds, internal photos, lists of stations in the ir168 file, etc.
iradio168-internet-radio-group at googlegroups dot com
Update, the iradio168 dot com web site that was provided by the radio manufacturer is now down so the radio is not able to get the big file with the list of all the world wide stations when it's turned on. That's not really a big loss since they haven't updated it for over a year but it means that stations have to be added manually now by browsing to the radio's web page and entering the station URL by hand like they say to do in the manual for adding Favorites.


Click Here to see more reviews about: Kaito Electronics Inc. KAIR168 Wireless WiFi Internet Radio

Get 55% OFF

Click here for more information about Kaito Electronics Inc. KAIR168 Wireless WiFi Internet Radio

Read More...

Grace Digital GDI-IR2500 Wi-Fi Internet radio Featuring Pandora, NPR On-Demand, Sirius and iheartradio Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I have owned the Grace GDI-IR2500 now for a couple of months, and I will try to be as brief as I can with my thoughts and comments.
Build quality: Fair - not terrible, but not great. The black vinyl or plastic wrap used over the wood housing is attractive but not assembled very well, with very noticable imperfections/large wrinkles on both the top front right corner and the top back right corner. The controls are of comperable quality to those of a $10 clock radio, and will probably start wearing out after a couple of years of heavy use. The 4-line LCD display is relatively easy to read.
Setup: If you have ever setup any other wireless devices such as a laptop, smartphone or other wi-fi enabled device, it is not much different and pretty straight forward. The only area that can be somewhat cumbersome is the same issue I have in other areas of operation: the poorly functioning and designed remote control. The remote basically offers up and down keys for entering a security key, scrolling through each number and letter of the alphabet, locating the character you need, then selecting, then scrolling... you get the picture. A remote offering a numeric/ABC type of entry would be preferred, and for $130 to $150, should be included.
Station selection: Good - but not nearly as good as some of the applications offered on iPhone, Android, and Blackberry smartphones such as WunderRadio and RadioTime. Searching for stations is also poorly thoughtout. Other than Clear Channel Communication's "iHeartRadio" offering, you can't even search stations by state, let alone city - and searching by call letters is again an entry where you have to scroll through every letter of the alphabet and enter each character, which is a pain.
Connectivity: No complaints, it starts up relatively quick once you have your wireless settings configured. Regarding connecting to a station url, it depends on the stream format... most .AAC streams begin playing quickly, .mp3 streams fairly quick, .WMA streams a few seconds longer, but none are frustratingly slow. It also played all streams consistantly for hours at a time without interruption.
Sound quality: Fair at best. I guess for $150 I expected this radio to sound at least as good as some of the $50 Sony or Panasonic tabletop radios from the past. There is no reason it couldn't on most mid-to-higher kbps streams - but Grace chose to cut costs on one of the most important aspects of any radio - the speaker - and the speaker quality is about on par with that of a $20 GE table radio. That would be OK if the radio cost $50, but for what these relatively cheap to build radios cost the consumer, I expect the materials and components used to be of higher quality.
Remote Control: Poor quality, poor layout, and many times you have to hit keys two or three times to get a response. I thought the included battery might have been old, but the Duracell replacement battery I bought did not improve the remote's performance.
The bottom line: If you want an internet radio that somewhat gives you the look and feel of your old tabletop radio, and you use the presets a good part of the time, it's an OK radio. I don't hate it, and have actually had some fun with it, but in reality it is worth about $79 tops. I would however look at the Logitech Squeezebox before this or any other internet radio. I played with one at Best Buy a couple weeks back and the build and sound quality is light-years better, and it also offers an optional battery pack.
If the old-time feel of a tabletop radio isn't important and you are wanting to just tune in stations from around the world and have decent sound quality, and if you own an iPhone, Blackberry or Android smartphone with 3G and/or a wi-fi connection, I recommend one of the many decent wireless bluetooth speaker systems (I own the Altec Lansing inMotion SoundBlade Bluetooth A2DP Speaker/Speakerphone, which I paid $50 for, or the Creative D100 Wireless Bluetooth Speaker, both of which sound much better than this Grace unit, and operate on either the supplied AC power adapter or batteries) and install some free to very cheap apps on your smartphone such as Pandora, Slacker, Sirius/XM, iHeartRadio, Yahoo Music, WunderRadio, and TuneIn (formerly RadioTime.) The beauty of smartphone apps is that you can also use them with many new car audio systems (wirelessly via bluetooth or wired via an auxiliary in jack), at the office, at the beach, and pretty much anywhere you have either 3G data or a wi-fi connection.February 20, 2011 note: I find it interesting that in one day my post went from "27 of 29 people found the following review helpful" to "27 of 37 people found the following review helpful"... yes, in one day, and over 4 months after the review was posted. Seems as though some Grace employees or dealers might not have appreciated my honesty.June 10, 2011 note: I have also owned a Logitech Squeezebox radio now for 6 months, and it is an outstanding radio, and a vast upgrade from the Grace radio. Build and sound quality are far superior, and the various interfaces available to control the unit, including the optional remote control, Android application, Squeezebox Server computer software, and mysqueezebox.com are all far superior to anything Grace offers. Also, while Grace touted that their radios supported iHeartRadio, this is no longer the case, with iHeartRadio confirming they will no longer be supporting Reciva, the radio station database used by Grace Radios.
Buy the Logitech Squeezebox radio.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Grace Digital GDI-IR2500 Wi-Fi Internet radio Featuring Pandora, NPR On-Demand, Sirius and iheartradio

Get 42% OFF

Click here for more information about Grace Digital GDI-IR2500 Wi-Fi Internet radio Featuring Pandora, NPR On-Demand, Sirius and iheartradio

Read More...

Sanyo R227 WiFi Internet Radio (Black) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Got my Sanyo R227 Internet radio from Amazon within 4 business days and was ready to rock 'n' roll. Easy set up and no problems finding stations to listen to. The sound is super for a clock radio, although I would have liked to see a tone control since the radio is a bit heavy on the bass. Build quality is impressive too. Compact and heavy; not at all cheap looking.
The bad news is that my radio always lost the WiFi signal within 3 minutes of connecting, thus requiring a reboot every time. I called Sanyo service and was met by the most droll, uninterested, tech support man on the face of the earth. He volunteered no helpful info and answered every question that I asked in the most bored, brief, demeanor imaginable. SANYO, find this unhelpful guy and DUMP him! Concluding on my own that my radio was faulty, I decided to exchange the radio at Amazon and I'm now awaiting the new radio. Never one to put all my eggs in one basket, though, I also order an Aluratek radio. I'll keep whichever radio works best!
Got the replacement radio today (10/6) and everything works great. I'm very impressed with the R227 so far. I'll be returning the Aluratek to Staples tonight. It's much smaller than the R227 and doesn't have the quality feel, or appearance of the R227. It couldn't beat this Sanyo R227 as a bedside radio since it has only one speaker. The Aluratek unit also has a cheap plastic smell. The Sanyo has no odors to overcome.
Buyers of this great Sanyo radio need to be aware that the 8 presets are, thankfully, not the only way to save your favorite stations. To get many more favorites, you'll merely log on to the Reciva site, enter your radio registration number, and their massive list of Internet stations is quickly at your fingertips. At the Reciva web site you'll select your favorite stations and, then, when you turn on your radio you find them all listed under MY STUFF on your radio's menu. In other words, you can have dozens (hundreds?) of favorites. You may have to reboot your radio to see them. At the moment I have two dozen favorites.
My only complaint as of today (10/7) is the searchlight-bright display in the dark bedroom. I'll need to find some clingy tint film and put it over the screen. You can adjust the radio backlighting, but it doesn't help. I'll post more when I find a solution to the light problem.
(10/8 Update) - I went to a window tint store and got some free samples of their various tint films. Then I cut out a display screen-sized piece of the tint film and laid it on the display window. No need for any glue; the film clings nicely to the display window. You'll have to experiment with various degrees of tint to find your preferred one.
Oh, I do have one other problem. I want to carry this radio everywhere I go!!!!!!!! (and I have XM in the car)

Click Here to see more reviews about: Sanyo R227 WiFi Internet Radio (Black)

Click here for more information about Sanyo R227 WiFi Internet Radio (Black)

Read More...