AM/FM Table Top Wooden Radio (Walnut)

There is not nothing that I dislike about this radio. In other words, it's everything that I hoped it would be.I bought it because of it's low footprint. It sits on my side table by my recliner. I bought it because I was very impressed by the techie specifications of its audio chain that were included on its Amazon page. The Sangean people are successfully channeling the Bose people. It has wonderful fidelity that holds up even if you set its volume to a relatively low level.Caveat (warning): It's internal FM antenna is rather pathetic. Unless you live near the stations you want to listen to or if they are very powerful, you're likely to be rather dissatisfied with this radio's ability to pull in stations, but there's a really easy fix for that. This radio DESERVES an external antenna and fortunately, there is a jack on the back of the radio where you can plug in an external antenna and a switch that will allow you to direct the external antenna to it.An oldie, but goodie set of rabbit ears from our analogue TV days came to my rescue. The FM section really came alive after I plugged them in.If you type "rabbit ears for an FM radio" into Amazon's search engine, you'll be served up with several options.#1 A whip antenna. These can be useful, provided that you're willing to play with the whip, but they have their limits.#2 A dipole antenna. Dipoles are finicky and directional. They need to have their broadside at right angles to the station you're trying to listen to. If you've got one and only one station that you really want to listen to, it could be your best bet.#3 Rabbit ears. Interestingly enough, a set of rabbit ears identical to mine came up in the search. They are like dipoles in the sense that they have two arms, but they are far more versatile. Their arms may be set to any angle between them that works for you and rotated. My rabbit ears have a little built in antenna tuner in their base which really helps me optimise reception.Go with the rabbit ears. With the rabbit ears, I'm pulling in one of my favourite stations, a little 3,000 station located at least 60 miles from me full quieting. That station happens to be on top of a 5000 foot mountain, but, even so, that's still quite a haul.BTW: Its AM section is a bit above average for an AM radio and the Sangean people have even included terminals on its back to hook up an external AM antenna (long wire) and ground. I may try that out one day soon.

This radio and speaker is really excellent. And it’s a great deal for the price. It’s a little larger than I expected but that is undoubtedly partly why it sounds so good. I wanted this type of device so I could use it as speaker for my desktop computer (via mini stereo jack out of computer and into this speaker) as well as to have a radio on my desk. A few specifics:PROS- The sound quality is amazingly good. Full, not tinny. Good bass response. This unit replaces a Tivoli Pal and this cheaper radio sounds better. Now, it’s a good deal larger, so the speaker has the benefit of a bigger cabinet, so it should sound better. (The Tivoli sounds great, of course, but this sounds better.)- I wanted to be able to switch it from FM to AUX (for computer speaker) WITHOUT having to unplug the cable from computer to the Sangean unit. That works GREAT. Now I can switch back and forth as I want to from computer to radio without changing anything else. Why does that matter to me? On the Tivoli radios, you have to unplug anything plugged into the AUX jack in order for the radio to play. So, sure, it has that little switch on the front (most all the Tivoli’s do) to go between AM, FM, AUX or AUX/BT, but you cannot leave something plugged into AUX and just switch to the radio. As much as I am a Tivoli fan, this is a significant design flaw if you plan to use the AUX jack and the radio, a good deal. Now, for portability, the Tivoli PAL has it all over this unit. This is NOT portable. It’s a good sized table radio.- The lighting of the retro tuner is really nice. Soft, warm, and retro.- Controls feel good. Solid, logical, and simple.CONS- Tuning on this unit (the Sangean) is weaker than the Tivoli models. It’s undoubtedly simulating an analogue tuner dial but is actually probably digital, as it can lock in a station in odd ways, going from one direction (up) or (down) in slightly different places on the dial. Hard to describe but I saw someone on a radio expert website trying to describe this type of behavior.- The FM dial is right on, in terms of numbers and location of stations. The AM dial is off a good 50 points. So, if you are tuning a station at 750, you might be finding that station at 800 instead of 750. I do not like that, but it’s something I can live with.- As others have noted, AM may not be this radio’s strength. If you have a strong area and station you like, signal wise, and you can orient the radio to get it tuned right, you should be fine. It does have connections for external AM antenna, which is pretty great for a radio at this price point.Bottom line. Seems made very well. Solid. Hefty. Really surprisingly great sound. Audio quality is really good for both music and voice. It’s very pleasant to listen to.

First of all, I want to say that this is really a nice radio. The sound is rich and the reception is really good even though we live in a rural area. Sadly, I ended up returning it but it had nothing to do with the radio's performance. It was its size. I am not criticizing the radio but merely writing this so that others may take note and possibly prevent any returns. Here's why I returned it: We just completely remodeled our kitchen so I wanted a nice tabletop radio for on the countertop that didn't take up a lot of space. The radio is 6" deep so it was rather obtrusive on the countertop. The other thing is that the plug has a large black gizmo (I'm sure it has a name) that is 3" high and 1 & 5/8" deep. That was an eyesore. If I placed the radio in front of the plug, then the radio protruded a total of 7 & 5/8" onto the countertop. There was nowhere else in the house for a radio like that so sadly I returned it. If it were on a table top where the plug went down behind a piece of furniture, it would be fine.