Customer Reviews

Boston Acoustics SOLO2B Solo II AM/FM Radio with Clock (Gloss Black)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The sound quality is amazing for a 3.5 inch speaker, with very smooth bass that really fills a room. When the radio first comes on at your preset alarm time, it is whisper quiet, slowly building in volume level to whatever level it was when you last used it. It's a very pleasant way to wake up.

The alarm-setting process is easy to control, and you can be awakened with the radio, an alarm sound, or it can try waking you with the radio at first and then use the standard alarm if you don't wake within 5 minutes.

It has an automatic brightness control that dims the display when the room gets dark, with 20 levels of adjustment that you can control manually if you're sensitive to light in your room.

The radio tuner is quite good -- it digitally locks on to the signal, with very little if any static on weak signals. It's the strongest radio receiver I own, including the one in my car. If the built-in antenna doesn't suffice, you can even connect an external antenna to a port in the back.

The build quality of this radio is very high, giving a feeling that it's truly a luxury product, something to be proud of owning.

One of the coolest features -- and there are several -- is that it can hold its own radio and clock settings if the power goes out, without need for a battery. It uses a capacitor to maintain a charge, which it says is good for one or two days without being plugged in. I've only tested this feature moving the radio from one room to another, but it held all settings.

Overall, this is a great clock radio. I'm so glad to have it instead of using my cell phone to wake me, a poor substitute in comparison to such a fine product.

This is my 3rd Boston Acoustics clock radio. I own a 1-speaker Receptor which I used for 5 years and was happy with, but I wanted a radio with an aux-in port, so I bought another model and then this Solo II

This unit sounds great. It has bass and treble controls for adjustments. But b and large I'm happy with the sound coming from the speaker. It's at least as good as my 1-speaker Receptor.

The controls are annoying. There are two buttons to turn on the alarms. The large middle knob is the power and volume. The knob on the right is the tuner and cycles through the presets. And the knob on the left controls *everything* else, which makes things a little difficult in the dark. My biggest complaint is that the sleep timer is buried in the multitude of settings controlled by the left knob. If the sleep timer were controlled elsewhere, I'd be a lot happier.

The clock keeps terrible time. In about 3 weeks of ownership, it's fallen off by about 5 minutes. But then every BA clock radio I've owned has been like that to varying extents. Who in the chip world is making such garbage timers that are finding their way into these radios?

The write-up boasts 20 different levels of display brightness control. But as others have written, if you're senetive to such things, it's going to be too bright even at the lowest setting. I fixed that by covering the with a piece of tinted plastic I made with a presentation slide and my printer. It darkens it just enough.


All in all, it'll work for now. But I have a feeling I'm going to be searching for a replacement in a few months

Wow -- what an incredible clock radio!

We had just purchased a Sangean RCR-22 AM/FM Atomic Clock Radio but had to send it back. That unit was defective, plus the sound quality was pretty miserable.

This Boston Acoustics Solo II, however, is an amazing clock radio. It is not very large but has a great sound. I'm a musician and am quite picky about sound quality. Of course this is not as good a sound as a full stereo system, but the sound is incredibly clear and warm and has a lot of depth for the small size of this device. It does not distort even when it is turned up quite a bit.

The user interface is simple, especially after you get the idea. The unit has 20 station presets and 2 alarms. You can snooze by just touching anywhere on the metal rim. The more you tap the rim the more time you get to snooze (up to 60 minutes max). I really like the fact that it has knobs to turn on the front. Large, easy to use knobs instead of little buttons to press to turn volume up or scan for stations.

It has an auxiliary input for mp3s and NO ipod dock (YAAAAAYH!!!!). It also has a capacitor to keep the clock going when unplugged or when the power goes out.

While the radio is on you can choose to display either the time or the radio station. You select the mode of 'Info' to set this. (We had to work with it a bit to get that setting to work right.)

Some people are complaining about the brightness and it is a bit brighter than some clocks. If you are very sensitive to light you might think it is bright, but it goes down pretty low, we thought. I love this clock radio so much I would just put some sort of tinted film/plastic over it to dim it if that were a problem for us, as some other reviewers have suggested.

We don't listen much to AM radio, so I can't comment on that, but the FM reception and sound is superb.

So glad to have sent the Sangean back because we really do care about nice sound and this unit is smaller but sounds significantly better. The Sangean does not even come close to this unit in terms of sound quality. Plus, the Boston Acoustics user interface is simpler to use and the build quality is better. The Sangean came defective but the Boston Acoustics Solo II is fine. This one just feels more solid.

We are very happy with this purchase.

There's really two ways to review this thing. First, I'll review it as a tabletop radio. In this aspect, it does okay. You may need to adjust the bass down a bit, as it's quite the overachiever at its standard setting, but music generally sounds great. Voices are clear, music is well represented. Zero problems with the tuning circuits, they seem to do a very good job pulling in stations. There's 20 presets, which in my area covers about 70% of AM and FM channels that are available. Not a problem, as I don't plan on listening to the 36 religious AM channels.
The controls are sub-par at best. All the features are selected with the left hand dial, then there's the large volume dial and the selector dial. These dials are also buttons, but for whatever reason mine do not respond well. Many times I will hear the audible "click" of the button, but nothing happens. Not a huge issue, but expecting buttons to work isn't too much to ask, is it? Final disappointment for the radio review: Why on earth is there no sleep button? You need to use the rotary dial to go in and select sleep mode, then use the right dial to set the time. Their "simple, elegant" design is the culprit. Who cares how pretty it is if it's a pain in the butt to use? Poor design, a criticism that compounds in the next half.

Clock radio use. First of all, the fancy auto-dimming display doesn't dim nearly enough. If you enjoy a dark room, you may as well look elsewhere now. It's not unbearable, but I do tend to push items in front of the display at night to cover it up. The main problem? The clock circuit. Never in my entire life have I seen a digital clock keep such atrocious time. It's fast. Unbelievably fast. In fact, I'll go check right now. Actual time 8:50, displayed time 8:56. I just reset that about a month ago. Digital watches from the dollar store keep better time than this. Ridiculous. On the upside, it does remember your time and presets if you unplug it, no battery required.

And just a warning for the 0.0000001% of people it applies to: If you live right near a radio tower, there is a good chance the touch-sensitive snooze controls will not work whatsoever. But you knew that.

All in all? A bit hard to recommend. The sound is great, but the simple, elegant design they were striving for came at a high cost, it's clumsy and unintuitive to use. That, and the clock is a joke.

I've had this now for a week and I'm loving the decision to upgrade my old clunky Sony clock radio. I would say that most of the reviews on here are correct. If your taste runs like to the reviewer (or counter) then your experience will be predictable. Here is my take:

Pros:

Bright LED. I put this first because there were a few negative comments about this. I LOVE IT. I cannot see very well w/o contacts or glasses on at night. I love how clear and bright this is and can read it from all angles. If this is you then you too will love it. It does give a faint and I do mean faint glow across the room but that works if I get up in the middle of the night. I love it and hope they don't change. If you would like a bit dimmer toss a handkerchief on it or something.

Fantastic sound in a small footprint. This radio is so tiny that it doesn't crowd out the night stand and yet fills the room with music and even beyond. Because the face can be rotated it can take up even less space.

Masculine Styling. This looks a bit retro with the large simple knobs. I keep my bedroom uncluttered and this style fit in well. There was a card in the box that says you order optional grills with different color patterns so you don't have to stick with black. Or if you scratch the black one you can order a replacement.

Crystal Clear FM. This locks into distant signals and weaker college signals with ease. I haven't tried it with any AM stations. Nothing there for me.

Easy to use knobs that install confidence that they're not going to break.

Built in battery backup.

Cons:

Strange Programming. I work as a programmer and do mathematical programming. I couldn't figure it out at first and decided I was going to 'crack the code" on programming it w/o using the manual. I was going to challenge myself. I lost when I never lose. I don't know how someone who is casual and don't want to put in any effort would figure this thing out. I read the manual and was still confused a bit until I started programming several stations and the clock. Once I was in a rhythm of how it worked then it was easy or getting slightly easier. Any previous experience you've had setting an alarm clock, watch or radio is useless. Pretend you're looking at something from an alien culture. I guess they are.

Light Touch. You need a deliberate but not too heavy a touch on the controls or they will overreact. Think of scrolling with an IPOD or Droid. The first time you were overdoing it and then had to learn to be light but deliberate. Same here. I was getting upset with the menu because of this. Should you waste time "learning" how to use your clock radio? C'mon.

I think the 'cons" would have been addressed with two buttons on the back hidden from view. Everything on the face is overloaded - ie every knob has several operations depending on the mode you are in.

All in all I needed to spend an hour learning how to use my clock radio which is a first in my 40+ years. Once I did though I was able to setup the clock the way I wanted it and it performs really quite well. I don't have to program it again unless it loses power and I expect the process to be easier. I don't think you can get a better looking / better sounding clock radio out there. You have to decide if that is worth the price. I did and its yes.

I purchased this clock radio after returning a Cambridge Soundworks i525 (which suffered from inability to lower wake volume to normal level). Unfortunately this product to suffers from an excess itself. For me, the display even at its dimmest setting, was way too bright at night.

Upon opening the box and unwrapping the unit I knew it was solid and well made. Just had that feel. Setup was a breeze. The controls are simple to use (although not quite as intuitive as they could be). The unit picked up my fav. modern rock station with ease. The sound from the box was very good - although given my relatively low usage, I did NOT explore too much of this feature.

However I quickly became upset with my purchase. I researched the opinions expressed on amazon and other sites. I became wary of the brightness issue and emailed the manufacturer. They replied with a diagnostic re-calibration method for even more dim control. But I could only stand 2 nights of a glowing room. The problem is not with the brightness of the numerals, but with the blue backdrop they appear on. From what I can tell, the brightness control adjusts the numerals only - making them dimmer or brighter. But the blue glow remains. It kept me awake. In fact, as I lie in bed the 2nd night I could literally make shadow puppets on my ceiling from the glow emanating.

A couple of other issues make this unit lacking for my purposes. At this price I would expect to be able to select a source and volume setting per alarm. Rather you are limited to the station and volume that was set when the unit was last turned on. Also, while the snooze feature is cool - I don't use it. Rather I prefer buttons on the top of the unit to silence the alarm. Searching the front panel isn't as intuitive for me. But that is somethng I *could* have lived with if it weren't for the brightness issue.

Great product for a small office, but not suitable for a bedside alarm clock.

This item arrived in a timely fashion as promised. The Boston Acoustics SOLO2B is a great AM/FM clock radio and functions perfectly with great reception and marvelous sound quality.

My old Sony dream machine would barely pull in any AM stations. I bought this with the intent of hooking up an external antena to the AM input, but I don't even need it! This locks AM stations in clear as a bell and the audio quality for a clock radio is really nice. I found the dimmer function goes plenty low, and I was leaning a remote control over the face of my old Sony because it was too bright. I have the Boston set to 8 and it's just fine. I love everything about this radio so far.

We bought this to replace a faulty table radio in our kitchen. It has proven to be well-designed, solidly constructed, and, tuning-wise, very stable. Reception is good, and the user interface, once you read the instructions, makes it easy to operate. We're listening more and enjoying it more. If you need a reliably good radio to fit in a small space, we recommend this one.

Radio sound was impressive for a table top clock radio and a pleasure to wake up to. I was looking for s new gentle way to wake up in the morning so was very happy with the quality of the sound. Unfortunately the digital clock display was too bright even on the lowest setting; I wish we could have turned it off since it lit up the bedroom. Also I was dissappointed with alarm settings and function since it would not shut off even after tapping the rim as recommneded. I ended up unplugging it. Will be returning item for a refund.