Customer Reviews

Grace Digital Victoria Wireless Internet Radio Featuring Pandora, NPR, SiriusXM, Rhapsody - Model GDI-IRN1941 (Color: Walnut)

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

 

 

This radio has been so much fun since the day it got here. I have amazon prime so shipping is always quick. The radio has very good sound which also sounds bigger/richer then it's size. Quality of sound is crystal clear. Set up was a snap just needs wireless internet access for it to work. Super product for anyone who loves old time radio or a collector of nostalgic radio's. Has the look of a nostalgic radio but the technology of today.

Wow, what a great Birthday present. Perfect solution for the music / news lover. Hooking up the GDI-IRN1941 to my 802.11n wireless router was a breeze. The radio picks up the router and I simply selected the letters of my password than pressed `end' when done just like connecting my lap top and phone). While it is simple it is not fun to do, but you only have to do it once (moving the radio between rooms it automatically connects the next time and remembers all my presets and time).

I have multiple internet radios and this is by far the best sounding radio (I have a Grace Solo hooked to my stereo and a Logitech radio in my den). It has a significantly better sound than my Logitech Internet radio. The Logitech has a good sound but the large wood cabinet and powerful speaker of the Grace Victoria radio fills the room with truly incredible sound don't get me wrong, it's a table top radio not a $5,000 home stereo but the sound really is awesome). As another reviewer noted it doesn't have some fancy iPhone style display. However, the 4 line display looks nice. After all it's a vintage style radio so adding a color display would seem a bit odd. The Free iPhone and Android remote control app seems pretty cool. So I guess if you want a fancy color display you can use that ...

I am a radio junky so I use the radio for my Sirius Internet radio account, free Pandora as well as NPR. Hence I use all 12 presets as well as a bunch more saved stations in the my stuff folder (I couldn't find the folder initially then realized you have to register your radio on their web site to get that extra folder as well as Pandora).

Obviously, I highly recommend this Internet radio.

I did a lot of research before buying this radio. It has met my expectations and it looks great. So far my only complaint is that I have to pay extra for some of the services. All the internet radio stations work great also Pandora is working fine. I would highly recommend this radio.

What a fabulous device! Endless entertainment and variety. The iPhone app is fabulous - presenting easy navigation to the endless listening options. The sound is great and it looks great sitting on my desk. My only quibble is minor. The knobs are flimsy plastic and don't match up with the high quality wood that the device is made of. Very highly recommended.

The delivery of this was faster than stated. The looks and sound were better than I expected.
The only problem I excountered was the radio would only work at about 15 feet or less from the wireless router. It would not work in the desired location, which is about a foot away from the laptop I'm using now (wireless) and 3 feet away from a wireless web-enabled TV (Wireless). The only place I could receive a 100% signal was about 5 feet from the router. This would be a great radio if you have a wired connection to the internet.

This Internet radio combines classic styling with modern technology.

I've had it for over a week now and I'm very impressed. I've been listening to it constantly with the wide range of stations available from the different Internet radio providers.

For those of us who appreciate classic designs (you know, when stuff looked good AND was functional), this is a welcomed item on the market. Too often when a product is designed as a "retro" piece, it's usually a piece of garbage - and looks it as well. This is not the case! Looks wonderful and provides amazing sound and quality.

In addition to the radio itself being a great find, the customer service with Grace is wonderful as well. The radio needed some technical tweaking that was not covered in the instructions. There was a customer discussion forum available and I got a step by step response from a customer service rep the very next day. Fixed the "problem" in two minutes.

Highly recommended all around! I wish other companies would make classic pieces like this with quality components and technology.

I was skeptical when I ordered my Victoria Wireless in part b/c I had no experience with Internet radio. I also didn't know if I'd like its sound quality, since I was buying it sound-unheard from Amazon. But I liked the look of it and was intrigued by the possibilities of web radio.

The upshot: This radio far outsizes my expectations. The sound is great - it's full and warm (it replaces a Bose sound system table-top, and if anything, this radio sounds better). It's also wonderful looking. Unlike other retro models, it's doesn't go over the top to recreate a nostalgiac look in a an inauthentic way.

And it is a very interesting and fun toy to play with. The radio liberates you from the narrow choice of stations in your local media market. It's like having a short-wave radio that gets perfect reception anywhere in the world. I inadvertently tuned into a station in Melbourne, Australia, and it came in as clearly as a local powerhouse station.

It is easier than I could have hoped to get up and running, and easy to work through the menu of the hundreds and hundreds of stations to select from in the U.S. and around the world. You can also select free music genre stations -- all it does it play that type of music at no charge, contually, ad-free.

Also it's great to have remote control -- I can change stations and volume from across the room.

I went on the Grace Audio site this morning and noted that as of this writing the radio is on back-order. I can see why. My advice: get on the waiting list and buy it!

Beautifully crafted, sound and connectivity, I enjoy it plenty and I had a lot of comments from friends and family about this retro INTERNET radionics;)

I have to say that When I first received it i had a lot of connectivity issues, well kudos to Grace Digital, after the last firmware upgrade all my troubles disappeared!

I purchased this as a gift, I personally own the Grace Solo GDI-IRA500 (which I really like).

This radio is gorgeous, it compliments the wood entertainment center she already owns. Setup was pretty easy (but I helped, as I had already setup my own, so it only took a couple minutes). She primarily controls it with her iPhone.

I am rating this at 3 stars, because there are a few issues you should be aware of (that other Grace Radios don't suffer from), and they could be show stoppers for you.

First, if you plan on using this as a table top radio (not connected to your stereo), don't. The speaker is horrible, and sounded like an old school tinny $3 transistor radio from the 70's. But, connected to the stereo, it's sounds awesome.

Second, unlike mine, the volume control does NOT control the line out volume, but instead the SPEAKER volume. Makes sense, but the upshot is you can't control the volume to your stereo from your iPhone, which you CAN do with the Grace Solo that I have. If the built in speaker was usable, this could be forgiven.

Third, for whatever reason, we weren't able to send line-in to line-out. The line-in would go to the built in speaker, and internet radio would go to speaker and line-out, but no line-in to line-out. This is an issue because her stereo had a finite number of inputs, so I intended on plugging what was going to her AUX of her stereo into the Grace's line-in, and her using the Grace to select between internet radio vs. the CD player. But, no go. Grace could probably fix this with a firmware update, but it hasn't happened as of this moment.

OK, the lady who received this would probably rate it 5 stars. She loves it, and doesn't use it like a table top radio, and is willing to live without her CD player for now, and she's fine with controlling the volume with her stereo's remote control. She really loves the way it looks too.

But, I feel these issues are enough to knock a couple stars, which is a shame because this radio is MUCH sexier than my Grace Solo, and I would happily rate that radio 5 stars. These three quirks really put me off, though.

Years ago I gave up cable TV and have since enjoyed services like Pandora and Netflix, and never looked back. I listen to Pandora on my cell and laptop, but the quality from my laptop at home (plus having to lug it around the house) left me wanting. I spent some time looking at wireless radio devices and settled on the Grace Digital Victoria Wireless Internet Radio for a couple reasons:

First, it had to play Pandora. The setup for Pandora was easy, but I had to read the manual to do it, it wasn't intuitive. You need an account with Grace's website to link your registered radio to Pandora, and then you have to turn off your radio for a few minutes for it to sync when you turn it back on. It's a one-time setup, so no gripes there. The added benefit of getting to listen to my favorite NPR stations is icing on the cake.

Second, it had to have Audio Out (not just Headphone Out) jacks. This is important. My next purchase will be wireless speakers so I can move them to the bedroom or outside for parties. Audio Out allows the speakers on the radio to output while still sending to the attached speakers.

Third, the audio quality had to be better than my laptop (not hard, but important). This radio has a subwoofer inside the wooden cabinet. While it's not going to rattle your china cabinet, it's still better than most of the other internet radios on the market that don't have one at all. I can definitely separate the bass notes from the rest, and it makes a huge difference. When cranked up, the living room is definitely filled with rich sound (the dog had to leave the room!). For the music I listen to, and not being an audiophile, the quality from this radio is great.

Fourth, the user interface needed to be easy to use. The multi-line LCD display is attractive and responsive. Most of what you need to do you can do through this interface, but a few bits will require a computer to setup (account linking to 3rd-party services, like Pandora). The character select interface for "typing" in things like the wireless key is really nice. It's your traditional dial-turn selection process, but the navigation of the alphabet is nicely laid out.

Fifth, it had to meet my "minimalism" criteria. Something must be both beautiful and functional if I'm going to have it in my house. This radio fits my decor with a bit of modern and a bit of classic styling. It's extremely functional, serving Pandora, NPR and a ton more. The wall-wort power adapter isn't excessive, but keep in mind it doesn't have a battery option (the wireless and subwoofer would make this unrealistic anyway).

Sixth, an iPhone remote. Seriously, this is important. I don't want to carry around the included remote all the time, especially since it's line-of-sight, and if I'm in the bedroom, I want to be able to control the radio. The Grace app for the iPhone is GREAT. It required ZERO setup. Download app, start app, control radio. Kudos to Grace for this interface. This is exactly what you should expect from modern connected devices.

My only cons are thus:

First, the knobs on the front are plastic and have a bit of "wiggle" room before engaging the next increment. It's not a big deal, but they spent a lot of time making the radio look nice and highly functional, so to have skimped a bit on the tactile interface of the knobs seems inconsistent. Not worth detracting a star, though.

Second, as noted previously, is the requirement to use a computer to setup all aspects of the radio. I'm a technophile, so this isn't a big deal, but I know it would confuse my father (turn on the radio, get a registration code via the radio, go to the computer, register with the code, link to Pandora, then restart radio). User interface design is something I'm very in-tune with, and it's my perspective that every option of a primary feature needs to be accessible by each means of interface. If Pandora is a primary feature (which it is on this device), setting up the link to Pandora should be available directly from the device. If you require the creation of a Grace account, the device should provide an interface for it. While it's likely that someone with an internet radio will have a computer, that doesn't make it more convenient, necessarily. Additionally, if you have extraordinary steps (like turning off the radio to resync) this should be something the user is informed of during the account linking process (I had to go back to the manual to figure out why my radio wasn't showing as linked yet). I personally don't think it's worth detracting another star for this, as this is based upon my opinion of user interface design, and not something you have to do every day with the radio. The account you create with Grace does give you some nice, convenient interfaces for adding stations to your radio, so we'll say it offsets the negative.

Third, on page 30 of the instruction manual is the first place you learn there is an iPhone & Android app for this device. Put that on page 1! Put it on page 1 and make the app capable of configuring the entire device from (updating firmware, creating accounts, linking services, etc). If I could have plugged in the radio, setup the wi-fi, then sat back on my couch with my iPhone and the Grace iPhone app, I would have been giddy. Nit-picking, yes, so not worth subtracting a star.

So in summary, I love this radio. It looks good, sounds great, provides the services I want easily, and has a host of extra features that takes the functionality of this radio to a whole new level!