Customer Reviews

Kaito PLL Synthesized Dual Conversion SSB Shortwave Radio with Recordable 256MB MP3 Player, KA1121

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

 

 

They must have read my mind. I have a KA1102 which I consider a classic, and I had been hoping that Kaito would make a radio similar to the KA1102 that would also play MP3s. Needless to say, I was more than overjoyed when this product magically appeared. I previously listened to my MP3s on my cell phone which has a speaker that sounds like a cheap tin can. The sound quality of the KA1121 is very good for a radio of its size, and there is little need to mention the legendary Kaito reception that is significantly better than most portable radios. The radio performs very well so long as it is unplugged from the wall and running on the batteries. There are lots of nice features that you would expect from a Kaito radio, including SSB, line in, and tuning knob. I particularly like how I can recharge the batteries without removing them. It has a cool flat black finish that feels rubberized. The MP3 player supports USB 12Mbits/second Full Speed(not V2.0 480Mbits/second High Speed) and file transfers are fast. You plug a USB plug into the KA1121 MP3 player and it shows up in Windows Explorer as a removable drive, so you can simply drag and drop files to it. The MP3 player has a cool green glow which stays on all the time you are using it, although there is a time out setting to automatically turn off if you wish.

Now for some of the issues that need some improvement. The LCD on the radio is too small. You need some sharp eyes to see the tiny battery indicator. The buttons do not light up like they do on the KA1102, and the size of the radio is outside the pocket category. The MP3 player display truncates long MP3 file names, and even though it scrolls the MP3 name across the LCD, the scroll rate is too slow and requires too long a wait to scroll to the end, and despite the scrolling, very long file names still get truncated. In the case where the MP3 is playing, the information stored in the MP3 title tag gets displayed instead of the MP3 file name. File name truncation is a problem if you want to listen to a sequence of MP3s with long file names. I have to manually rename and shorten the MP3 file names and tags. I use a freeware program called Mp3tag to do this. I also feel that the method of timed recording to the MP3 player is too complicated and the manual is not clear enough on this. A couple of times, I ran into serious problems where the MP3 player became corrupted during download of MP3s or while deleting MP3s. When the corruption happens, the MP3 player will not work and all the MP3 files are lost. My computer has never had any USB issues with any other USB devices, so I am blaming Kaito for the corruption problem. Kaito does mention that if the MP3 player stops working, to use the included utility disk to reformat it, so Kaito apparently is aware of the issue. I'm not sure why they did not fix the problem before release. The included utility disk reformatted the MP3 player, but the MP3 player still would not work, so I then formatted the MP3 player from Windows Explorer as FAT32 and then it worked again. The MP3 player certainly needs some improvements, but I will still give the KA1121 five stars simply because I consider this product to be ground breaking and competing radios don't even have an MP3 player.

The KA1121 is a high performance AM/FM/SW weather radio and MP3 player/recorder with many features and few shortcuts. If you need MP3 capability then buy this. If not, you might consider the KA1102 or KA1103. I listen to MP3s often, and I enjoy the KA1121 very much. I have upgraded the batteries from the included 1300 Mah NiMH batteries to higher capacity TENERGY 2300 Mah NiMH with good results.

UPDATE: A fix for the MP3 player corruption issue above seems to have been found. A comment from passband.com Thursday, May 8th, 2008 - "What causes this is the `1121's electrically noisy AC adaptor. To get around this, either remove the adaptor plug from the radio or undock the MP3 module before starting an upload." or they recommend replacing the power charger with a less noisy one. Jameco P/N 283573 $6.95 with a Radio Shack Size H Coaxial DC Power Plug $2.99 Model: 274-1571 they say is effective.

I bought the Kaito 1121 mainly because I've been looking for a portable,full-range(3.000-30.000m)sw radio that also has the NOAA weather stations.Thanks to Kaito,the search is over.I no longer have to use two radios while listening to sw and NOAA stations.
The sw reception is very good(much better than my Grundig 300).AM/FM reception is good,and the sound quality is very good,considering its size.Most of the outer casing is rubberized,making for a comfortable feel and for damage protection if dropped.The suede carry-pouch has a thong,so one can carry the radio like it's in a shopping bag.The LCD remains on when the radio plays,and its color is a moody green.A great asset of this radio is the push-button volume control.I had my doubts about this feature,for some radio volume-controls do a poor job of controlling volume,i.e.,there's too much of a jump between volume intervals.But this is not the case with the 1121,for the screen-displayed volume control is terrifically coordinated.When the number buttons are set to frequencies on different bands,you don't have to change bands for the desired stations,for the radio does it for you.I can't comment on the mp3 player because that's another world to me right now.I'll be asking my 18-year-old nephew to assist me on this one the next time I see him.
To me,there are two main drawbacks:the LCD is too small;and at times the user manual is poorly written.It took me about 4 days to figure out how to set the buttons to selected frequencies,mainly because the instructions
omitted the last step in the process and I figured it out by trial and error.There's also no signal-strength meter.
But all things considered,the Kaito 1121 is a great choice for a sw/am/fm radio.

I'll list my pros and cons:

Pros:
-Great radio reception.
-Can be programmed to turn on, record radio, then turn off. That's the main reason I bought it.
-Can do line-in MP3 recording
-Has a detachable MP3 player.
-Great speaker for unit it's size.
-If you use rechargable batteries (AA size), they can be recharged in the unit.

Cons:
-The user manual is awful. For several of the functions it "put me in the ballpark" but I had to figure out the rest myself. Very frustrating. An owner's manual shouldn't be so bad.
-The programmed radio recording doesn't give you as much time as the Pogo. Your only given three recording slots and each goes 99 minutes maximum for a total of 297 minutes. The Pogo can record all day long if you have a huge SD memory card and a low memory record setting.
-Memory of MP3 player is small and there is no expansion slot.
-Programming the unit for auto turn on and record is clumsy and can be frustrating.

Other issues:

I have had the MP3 player hang up on me. I had to format it with the computer's built in software to get it to work again. Since then it hasn't had a problem. (The included disk is almost worthless!)

If you import your own frequencies by editting the FREQ.TXT off the desk, make sure you chop off the notes from the bottom of the text or it won't work. The manual doesn't tell you this. I like how you can load up your own frequencies with your own ID's for each.

Keep in mind that there is difference in short press and long press for the radio on/off button. Long press off keeps the radio on but shuts off the screen.

In summary: If your impatient then I don't recommend this unit as the user manual is terrible. If you're patient and like to fiddle with things then eventually you'll figure this unit out and will be able to enjoy it. I'm glad I made the purchase.

Took awhile to try and understand the poorly written owners manual. The quick start manual is useless unless you maybe designed this radio/mp3 recorder. The manual has been updated at the Kaito web site. First problem I had is the mp3 player would not change the bit rate for recording. It was stuck at the lowest quality 32kbps and would not change. Tried contacting customer service on the web site but know one ever answers emails. No tech support either. After using the radio/mp3 recorder for aprox. 5 weeks (recording one show a week for an hour), the light on the mp3 play stopped working. Tried contacting customer service again for warranty service. no reply.
Great radio but poor mp3 recorder. I've owned two of these radio and both became useless. They both locked up and became unuseable. No tech support or repair service.

It's about time someone came out with a radio with a built-in MP3 player. I own 5 other Kaito SW radios and this is by far the best. The only problems I have encountered are that the MP3 will only access 99 files in a directory. To load more files, you have to create other directories. The other drawback is that when you power off the radio, the MP3 player doesn't continue from where you left off but reverts to the first file in the directory. It also doesn't save any special settings, for instance, if you set it for shuffle play, it will revert to normal mode after a power off. Other than these faults, the only other improvement needed would be a larger storage. Overall a great radio.

The built-in MP3 recorder is a great idea, but mine broke within the first hour of use. I removed the player to put a battery in, and that was it. The attachment system of the MP3 to the radio is flawed, in my opinion, and the MP3 component feels cheap.

The radio itself is not bad, but there are better options by Kaito.

Wonderful alternative to the Pogo radio! Sensitivity and sound quality are much better for much less. I can not record stations over 1,000 miles away on AM that other radios can't even tune in to. Nice size radio, super portable MP3. Bookmarks work great.

This is all I needed for the way I use SW radio. I listen with a pillow speaker after going to bed. When I fall asleep the auto off takes over. I never use the speaker and rarely the MP3.

I have owned portables at three times the cost but this radio is just great as far as SW goes today and certainly for the way I use it.

With the growing WI FI radio market I have noticed many if not most of the SW stations are gone. But when one listens to radio on the computer it is easy to see why this very old technology is really pretty much relegated to purists, CW operators and third world countries where computer ownership penetration of the market is not high.

I was out of SW for about 5 years before purchasing this radio and it is great but if I had it to do all over WI FI hands down. If you have a desire for an excellent little SW radio, you cannot beat this one.

It has more features than most will ever use. It can be operated simply in the dark with a bit of study at the out set. The dial face is hard to read for geezers like me that need glasses, since the letters and dial are quite small.

All things considered, for this price point there is no better to my limited knowledge.

Great sound for a small package but you cannot see what is on the display screen without a magnifying glass. The operation of the unit is a nightmare. Press this button 4 times to do this and this other button 2 times to do that, etc. etc. etc. It takes a month to figure it all out and if you don't use the radio for a month you will have forgotten how to use it. So now you start all over again going through the operation manual which is written up very poorly.

My radio arrived with no bubble/air wrap in the Amazon box to protect the radio's packaging, which might explain why the tuning knob was separated from the rest of the radio, but it snapped back into place easily, and has caused no further problems.

As the other reviews point out, the controls are not intuitive, to say the least. Thankfully, updated instructions can be downloaded from this radio's product page on Kaito's web site, as well as a FAQ & review from a radio reviewer named Art Simon-I *highly* recommend viewing his FAQ; it's as least as helpful as the updated user guide, if not moreso.

The included batteries (for both the MP3 player and radio) arrived nearly completely drained, and it took about thirteen hours to get them all fully charged. The MP3 player is what I would call "finicky", in that it took a few tries to get it to transfer some MP3's and communicate properly with the radio-I had the best luck formatting it using the firmware updating software (also from the product page on Kaito's web site).

Perhaps Kaito now uses a newer AC adapter, because I could not notice any background noise being caused by the adapter on any of the frequency bands when running the radio on AC (the manual even recommends running the radio on battery power when listening to AM or shortwave, but like I said, I couldn't tell any difference between battery and AC power).

Despite all my comments above, I'm glad I purchased the Kaito 1121. It does all it promises, and I like its performance. Just please be aware it may take awhile to get the radio working properly and to get acclimated to its controls.