RCA RP7887 AM/FM Super Portable Radio

by RCA

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 10 x 10.6 inches ; 7 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00120WRSU
• Item model number: RP7887
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (155 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,026 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 7, 2004

Product Description

PORTABLE AM/FM SUPER RADIO SUPER RECEPTION SWITCHES AUTOMATICALLY FROM AC TO DC

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

83 of 87 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Reception and Big Sound In Spite of Inaccurate Tuning Dial, May 18, 2007

By 

M. JEFFREY MCMAHON "herculodge" (Torrance, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

If you're looking for a 45-dollar radio with no frills, the best AM available, very strong FM, big sound and you don't care about looks or big size, accurate tuning dial, no clock or MP3 output, you've found your radio in the RCA High-Performance Super Radio. I keep mine in the garage and it booms big enough to hear when I'm washing the car. The AM is great. About the biggest headache is getting used to the tuning dial, which is less accurate than any radio I've owned. But it's still easy to use. To get a high-performance radio with digital tuning, presets, similar big sound, and accurate read-out, you'd have to dish out 125 dollars or so for the Kaito 2100. So depending on your budget and needs, the RCA may be the best radio available.

If you're looking for a replacement for the now discontinued Super Radio, you might want to check out the even better Sangean PR-D5, featuring a 200mm internal ferrite antenna, the biggest one available.

52 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Best sound; Indifferent quality; bad ergonomics, November 29, 2007

By 

Bran Englander "Bran" (Ann Arbor, MI USA) - See all my reviews

As a professional broadcaster for many years, I LIKE radios a lot. I've lived with my Superadio for about 10 years.

THE BAD: the ergonomics of the unit, the "human engineering", is pretty awful. The rotating pots for volume and tone are often sticky and gritty right out of the box. The plastic toggles for band, AFC, narrow/wide AM, are as cheap and cheesy as can be made and still function most of the time. The big tuner knob is pretty good, though. I don't get much drift once I set a station. The calibration of the dial is comically inaccurate, however, so the frequency markings are pretty much just a rough guide.
The form factor is another annoyance. Center of gravity is high so the unit tips over easily, and sometimes even adjusting the volume is a two-handed operation -- one to hold the unit and the other to twist the gritty little knob.
Overall build quality is not very high, and many purchased units are defective. Anyone who complains that they can't get decent reception or the sound is bad on their Superadios have defective units. That's the only possible explanation.

THE GOOD: The sound is absolutely glorious. Nothing can touch it in its class, and for twice the money. In addition to the large speaker the unit boasts a small tweeter. Voice or music, it offers the best sound you can get in a portable radio.
Reception is likewise incredibly impressive. Listening to AM at night is a real trip, literally. This is one of the reasons that there is no digital tuning on this model. A dial setup will pull in stations much better than a typical digital tuner will. "Digital" is not always best.
Battery life seems infinite.

BOTTOM LINE: This is the radio for people, and only for those people, who want the best available sound from a table/portable radio. Dontcha all be lookin' for clocks and alarms and doodads on this sweet thing, now. It's ugly, downright fugly, with iffy build and questionable design. But once tuned in, the glory of the sonics will be a reminder of a little money very well spent indeed.

46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars 2009 version - Not Super anymore. Lousy build quality and sound., November 3, 2009

By 

Mr_Dave - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: RCA RP7887 AM/FM Super Portable Radio (Electronics)

Apparently they are sending a totally different version of this radio now compared to what was available when many of these reviews were written.
The radio they are sending now (8-2009) is a heavy but cheap piece of black plastic with the lowest quality components possible. The sound is fairly harsh (due to significant amounts of high frequency distortion at ALL volumes) and it breaks up completely into a blast of noise and distortion with the volume is set past 3-4 on FM. It's not the speaker distorting, the problem is the tiny amp rated at 1/4 to 1/3 watt. Those numbers are fairly accurate and based on actual electronic measurements I did with a quality true RMS Volt and watt meter. While being physically large, this heavy radio has less power than some tiny radio's that I have and only 1/10th the power of a decent, 4 watt mp3/clock radio setup. Due to it's size it gets loud enough to use in a typical kitchen or living room setting but it's easily surpassed in reception, sound quality and volume by pretty much any decent quality boombox and most amplified mp3 or computer speakers. The original GE SuperRadio woofer has been replaced with an equal size but lighter and more efficient speaker with a smaller magnet and a lightweight cone.
There is a separate tweeter for clarity but the radio as a whole is easily distorted by even modest volume levels due to the tiny internal amp. Yes, the batteries will last a long, long time because tiny amps don't take much power.
They should replace the amp with a better one or change the design over to AA batteries instead of D cells since it would still run a long time even on AA's and then the radio could then be built at half the size and weight and still sound better.

The AFC button (auto frequency control) has a design flaw in the circuitry that reduces the bass response by 3-4dB when enabled.

The rotary knobs have a large amount of slop in the mechanism even when new and feel like they wont last long.

Good tuner designs can be completely silent between stations but they didn't try much on this one. It has loud noise and distortion between FM stations and the noise is often louder than the stations themselves.
Even a tiny Sandisk $29 Sansa mp3 player that I tested gets more stations and is clearer.

I own an original GE SuperRadio and have realistic expectations so I felt inclined to let people know that this is not the same product. RCA is clearly not trying much with this model since it has no relation to the original GE SuperRadio that it's based on. After reading some reviews talking about the wonderful sound quality I felt obligated to provide more detailed information from an Audio Engineers perspective and let them know that this is not the real deal anymore. I returned it.