Customer Reviews

C Crane CCRadio Plus Multiband Portable AM/FM/Weather/TV Band Radio, Black

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(30)

 

 

I last reviewed this radio after my initial purchase... almost one year ago. My original opinion (for the most part) hasn't changed. Compared to other portable radios, its reception capabilities (on AM) is above average. I DID however purchase a TERK AM Advantage antenna to use with it, because AM reception is really important to me. THAT makes a world of difference!! The TV & FM reception are good. The weather band does a fairly good job as well (depending on your location). Overall sound is good... but I wish the bass were a big stronger. Battery life is SUPERB!

Now for its downfalls. Similar to what another reviewer said, sometimes the station preset buttons have to be given a good "push" to change the channel.. (but they always work). I also wish there were jacks on the back for an external FM antenna AS WELL as an AM antenna. Last but not least........... another reviewer complained of an earlier model losing the digital display from time to time. THIS HAS ALSO HAPPENED TO MY RADIO. On several occasions, some of the digits have suddenly vanished! Then after a little while, they returned. It's VERY, VERY tempermental. It may go months with NO problems, then suddenly it'll act up for a day or so, then correct itself and be fine again. I was all set to return it to C Crane, then thought I'd wait to see if it did it again. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I've knocked my rating down to 3 stars following the "vanishing digit incident".

APRIL 15th UPDATE --- 2006

Late last Fall I became so frustrated with the LCD on this radio, that I called C Crane. They were familiar with this issue & gave me a repair # with intsructions to send it back to them. I did, & after about 6 weeks or so, it returned with a NEW LCD and has had NO problems since! The best thing of all...... they repaired it for FREE!!!!!!!!!! Absolutely FREE!!! So if I were you, still having this issue, I'd stop complaning and CALL THEM!

I would also like to also add a 4th star to my rating! ****

I had a repetitive problem with the CCRadio Plus and had returned it for repair. That repair was made at a cost to me as it was outside of the warranty period. The repaired radio failed in exactly the same manner, albeit in a much shorter time frame, and I reacted by tossing the radio and writing a rather negative, yet accurate IMO review. That review was read by a Crane Customer Service Rep over a year later and they offered to replace the original radio at no cost to me. I took them up on it and the new radio was received yesterday. Our boat goes in next month and I will be evaluating the radio once again during our weekend camping trips in the boat. Hopefully, they got it right this time in regards to fixing whatever generic problem was causing my earlier failures.

I have no idea what Crane did to fix the problem that I had experienced but to say they did is an understatement. The radio now seems to live forever on a battery load. We use it extensively each 3 day weekend on our boat and also for our two week stays in the islands. Reception is phenomenal. It's like a Timex - it just keeps "ticking". Only downside, and it is no fault of Crane, is the loss of my local TV station's audio due to the FCC mandated switch to all digital transmissions. I would buy another CCRadio Plus in a heartbeat were I to lose this one. Kudos to Crane - both their customer service and their technical staff.

For some strange reason, my computer will not allow me to change the rating - it should show 5 stars now. dated September 1, 2009

I'm on my second cc radio since 1999, both have had LCD failures when using it in my camper. Other then that, it has been a fine AM and Fm receiver in the back country of Idaho, Montana and Northern California. It does not have the speaker quality sound of my GE Super III with it's larger 2 speaker system, but it will filter out more backgound noise on FM and AM stations. However the smaller size, clock, alarm, and WX band keeps the Super III at home and the CC with me.

After lengthy talks with C. Cranes techs today, they tell me high condensation has caused LCD failures in some observed conditions. Condensation in a camper closed up at night from ones breath is quite a problem, especially in the Winter or at high altitude with wide temperature changes. The LCD failures I've had are always in the Camper on battery power, after 3 or 4 days of camping. This last incident was in Idaho with a freak cold rain storm for two days in July. The radio when brought home seems to "heal" itself within a day, and the LCD works again. So the condensation theory seems plausable. C. Crane has also stated some LCD units had problems in some shipments of 2000, so they are going to replace the LCD in my out of warranty radio, with the later LCD, for free, after a call to them today, 7-19-05. 5 years later, what more could I ask for. Well, perhaps the new Mini CC, they tell me it will sound better than the cc with a smaller speaker, like a Tivoli Song Book.................

Footnote:

Researching LCD's in general, I found the following about them:

"Condensation at terminals will cause malfunction and possible electro-chemical reaction. Relative humidity of the environment should therefore be kept below 60%." Other sites mention limits of 10% to 80% limits with "No" condensation.

Perhaps those camping, or using the radio in other high condensation areas like a bathroom etc. Should consider radios with analog tuners. I now remember my LCD alarm clocks won't work at all below certain temperatures when camping in the Winter.

I've owned this product for two years, and I do not recommend it. In fact, it's one of the worst purchases I've ever made. Let me explain . . .

The much-hyped AM reception is vastly overstated in Crane's advertising. I tested this unit against my car radio (which is nothing special). The standard radio in my car does MUCH better at pulling in distant stations on both AM and FM bands. This C. Crane unit is 80% hype and 20% performance. Like Bose, it's "better sound through marketing".

Within a year the alarm function failed and the station quick-select buttons sometimes don't work unless you really bear down on them. The antenna is fragile and snapped off.

I sent the unit in for repair ($50) only to find out C. Crane needs at least 4 weeks to do the work. Absurd! They don't give a damn about service. I sent the president/manager of the company an email and never got a response.

Update 3/15/2005: When I received the radio back from Crane's repair depot, I discovered that they had in fact NOT made the repair and didn't even test the unit before it was returned to me. They agreed to repair again, but it took two additional weeks for them to send me a return UPS label. Now, I'm waiting again with no radio.

Update: 4/11/05: After almost four more weeks of "priority" service for the second repair from C. Crane, I finally got my radio. It works. That's about all I can say. Have a sour taste in my mouth from this whole experience and every time I use the radio, I think about it.

Update: 11/18/05: Push buttons to set clock and alarm have failed. As other reviewers have reported, there seems to be a real problem the controls on this unit. No more clock radio in the morning.

Final update: When I complained to KGO radio in San Francisco, one of the big stations that advertises C. Crane products, I got a call from C. Crane's owner. He promised to send me a check for $50 to reimburse me for the botched repair experience. Over a year later, guess what . . . no check. I'm still waiting. Soon after, the radio stopped working. Just a flashing LED display, no working controls (again) and no audio. It's not worth repeating the repair experience with C. Crane, so I pitched it in the trash.

The bottom line is that this product is a dog. And C. Crane Company is slow, incompetent, and doesn't keep their promises. I will never buy another product from them and you shouldn't either.

By the way, this radio is nothing more than a re-branded Sangean. Sangean makes a nicely-designed radio, although the reliability of this particular model is POOR.

I repeat: save yourself some grief and buy something else. If I could downgrade my original rating to one star, I would.

If you want a decent small-format (travel) radio, consider the Kaito models -- much smaller than the C.Crane/Sangean reviewed here, perhaps too small for a desk radio, but better quality and half the price. See the Kaito reviews on this site for more information. For a table-top unit, consider other Sangean models. By the way, I tried the Tivoli and found it to be very poor.

Look for products that have many excellent user reviews. That's the best way to steer clear of the manufacturer and retailer marketing hype. It's dissapointing, but often the products you hear the most about are actually the worst choice.

Thanks for listening!

I found the AM reception better than any other "average" radio I've had. There's nothing special about FM reception but I don't think they make any special claims to superior FM. But I'll never purchase another product from Crane. I purchased my first CC Plus a few years ago. It worked fine for a little over a year or so, then it died. All attempts to reset the radio failed. Since the CC is expensive, I didn't go right out and get another one. The problem is I use it in my company vehicle which doesn't have a radio. If you've tried this you know it's difficult to get good AM reception from portable radio inside a vehicle.
Many months later I purchased their pocket version which claims to be the best AM pocket radio on the market. It does OK but I found nothing remarkable about it's performance. Their claim it works almost as good (reception wise) as the CC Plus just isn't true. Desparate for a decent radio I broke down several months ago and purchased my second CC Plus. This one only worked for about 4 months and died. Any attempt at resetting it has failed.
These radios are not cheap, so buyer beware. Again, I was pleased with the performance of CC Plus while it worked. Maybe it's just my bad luck, but I'm through with Crane.

My husband bought this radio for me as a gift on our anniversary. I was a bit taken back but, reading the expression on his face, I could tell he was excited and meant well. At first, everything seemed to work according to the user manual but now, seems to have gone wild with a mind of it's own. Sometimes, when I press the power button, nothing happens and I have to press again. Or, I press it and the dial light comes on but not the radio. But most annoying, when I press a memory button, it will either stay on the old frequency or go to the wrong frequency. There have been times when I have to press button #4 three times before it changes to the memorized frequency. But now lately, it is acting even more bizarre. About two times out of every ten, when I press memory button #1, it goes into the alarm mode with the first digit of the time display flashing. I then have to press the alarm button a couple times to get this to shut off. I've reset the radio (insert toothpick into small hole on bottom to trip switch) and re-programmed it a couple times but it always goes back to acting strange. I've put the radio back into its box and storing on the closet shelf. I hope my husband don't notice as I don't want to disappoint.

What a disappointment this radio was after all the good things you read about it. To pay over $160.00 for a radio to find out it works no better then any old AM/FM Radio is so disappointing!

Don't buy it!

The BEST thing about the CCradio, is that the digital AM tuning is in 1 Khz steps (not the typical 10 Khz steps) which means, with other digital radios, each step in tuning will go like: 870, 890, 900, 910 etc. But with the CCradio, you can tune: 870, 871, 872, 873, etc.

Since there are no other stations there, why is this great? Because, if say, you want to listen to 890 AM, if you tune to 891 or 892, you will hear the same station, but it will sound better with more highs, closer to the sound of an FM station.

Plus, if there is another station close to the frequency you want to listen to, you can tune more to the side away from the offending station.

This radio is marketed and hyped for the best AM reception, so I didn't expect much with the FM side, but I was pleasantly surprised! The FM side is great for distant stations as well.

I have a friend who has this radio as well, and here are the only problems we both have with our CCradios...

If you leave the backlight on for a few hours, some of the LCD display segments go out and look like it is broken. Turning off the backlight, after a while they come back and work again.

You can still tune the radio, but it looks weird when this problem occurs, so I turn on the backlight, tune in the stations, then turn the backlight off again.

Also, sometimes if you hit the preset buttons on the top, you will sometimes activate the clock setting or timer for some reason, even though you are not touching those buttons at all.

This doesn't happen often, and overall this is a really great radio to have, it has TV audio as well, so you can watch TV in the bedroom but have the sound come out of your CCradio at your bedside instead of from across the room.

It has weather band too.

And an alarm clock, so it makes a great bedside radio, although it is hard to find the sleep timers and backlight buttons in the dark.

I recently replaced this radio at my bedside with the Boston Acoustics Receptor which I like a lot better as a bedside radio than the CCradio.

However, I would never get rid of the CCradio, nothing else tunes in 1 Khz steps for AM. Seperate Bass and Treble controls are nice, but although they say the radio was designed for optimal sound for the "human voice", I find I need to turn up both the treble and bass controls to maximum to get the BEST sound out of this radio, for voice OR music. But that is usually the case for any radio with tone controls.

I find the price is a bit high for this radio.

I have had three of these radios over the years, and find that they provide excellent reception. However, I have had a serious problem with all three; the screen gradually becomes unreadable, with various parts dropping out until little or nothing is left. Now, to be fair, my problem occurred on earlier versions of this radio, and they may have resolved the issue in the current version. But my faith in progress does not extend to my buying one of the new ones.

I hardly ever write reviews, but saw the relatively low score on this radio, and felt obligated to throw in my two cents. I bought one of these from C. Crane about two years ago, refurbished, no less.

I use it almost if not every day. I've never had the dreaded "dead-digits" symptoms. The last year, I've run this more off AC power, which I suspect might make a difference. I only use the batteries when working on projects around the house not conveniently near an outlet, in my garage, or when placing it near the shower (maybe about 1/4 of the time). Note: I tried using rechargeables but they just don't hold enough juice (mAh, or milliamp-hours). Stick to alkalines and you'll get much, MUCH better life, even more than the mAh rating suggests. That's not just in this radio, but ANYTHING. The memory preset buttons are indeed a little picky, and you can accidentally save over them if you hold down too long. As an audio/electrical engineer, it seems like they could fix this pretty easily, so I wish they did sooner. I've just gotten used to having to press them quickly, and somtimes having to press a button twice. I wish I could lower the volume of the audible it makes when changing bands, but that's getting picky.

I'd say it's radio reception is solid, but it's no panacea for bad reception environment. I have a bunch of radios, and the CCRadio's reception is second only to an old Marantz receiver I have, which isn't exactly portable! It beats any other clock radio, walkman, boombox, etc. I own though. Music quality for FM is not as full as say a Tivoli Model One, but better than typical, mono, portable. Speech is very intelligible though, and tone controls are above average. The CCRadio picks up AM/FM better than the much-touted Tivoli, and it does TV/Weather, which most other radios don't do at all. The digital tuner is probably a good chunk of the added cost over cheaper, manually-tuned radios, but it's a great time saver. It adjusts in smaller steps than most consumer digitals, too.

Think of this model like the Toyota Camry of portable radios: it's not the best in any one category, but it's pretty good in a LOT of them. If you run antenna arrays in your back yard, want to talk Swahili to people 10000 miles away, or only want to pay 10 bucks for a radio, its not for you. For those of us who just want to flip between ball games, talk radio, and the end of a show on the local NBC station, it's absolutely great. OK, it's more expensive than typical consumer garbage. OK, it's not built as solid as a military short wave receiver. It may not be the be-all-end-all, but it has a nice feature set at a reasonable price.