Customer Reviews

RCA RP7887 AM/FM Super Portable Radio

5 star:		(70)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(44)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

This is a copy of a review that I posted on another listing on this site... Check around, prices vary over time between different vendors on Amazon.

How is it super? Let me count the ways:

Super Big...About 13x9x4 inches this is a large radio that has room for a large speaker for decent bass, and also a small "tweeter " for enhanced treble.

Super Heavy...Nearly 7 pounds with batteries, and installing batteries does seem to improve the sound quality.

Super Sensitive AM reception...At night, it is sometimes difficult to tell if a station is 1000 miles away or only 10!

Super Easy to Operate... No complicated digital stuff, just basic tuning, volume, tone controls, and a few switches.

Super Sound...Has separate Bass and Treble tone controls, to contour the sound to your taste.

Super Plain Looking...Very basic and functional design, not an eye-catcher. For "fancy" see my review of the Sangean PR D2V or Q radio.

Super Economical Operation...This radio will run *almost forever* on 6 D cells, and has a built-in power cord for AC operation, (you don't have to buy an extra wall wart supply).

Super Good Deal... I know of no AM/FM portable radio that offers this kind of performance at such low cost!

This is more of a Super-Radio 4 with the cosmetics of a Superadio III. This is the third version of the RCA-branded "Superadio". It's not made by Thomson Consumer Electronics as the original Superadio III was made but by a Canadian outfit called AVC Electronics. The target market no longer seems to be the USA but Canada (nothing wrong with that).

I bought one of these just to see what changes were made - I'm a radio engineer by trade and hobby.

It took me three samples before I found one radio that worked sort of properly. The first one was extremely mis-calibrated. The second one had floppy controls (the audio pots would turn 360 degrees as if their detents were broken) and dead spots across the dial. The third unit is calibrated properly on AM but slightly off on FM, particularly noticeable on the high end of the dial. A station on 106 FM appears halfway between 106 and 108.

Sound quality is not as good as the original IIIs. Audio is tinnier. The woofer in the current model doesn't have as much bass response as earlier units, even with the bass dial turned to maximum.

When turned on, it takes a while for voltages to ramp up and let the varactor tuning diodes return to the previous station that was listened to. Older IIIs would do this much more quickly. I haven't yet opened the radio to look at the circuit board, but the difference in performance suggests the electronics have been redesigned.

The most insignificant part is the slight but noticeable cosmetic changes: Printing on the top part of the cabinet is now gone. Also gone is the chrome finish on the knobs and switches - replaced by a dull-grey matte finish.

In short, I think it's seriously time to consider retiring this model line.

It's been a good 30 years (I, II and III under GE and the second version of RCA-branded III; the first version being plagued by defective tuning potentiometers) but better-quality contemporary analog-tuned and digitally-tuned radios (by companies like C-Crane and Sangean) have superseded it.

Clearly the current manufacturer (AVC Electronics) is just cruising on name recognition and not quality.

GE has made a super all-round radio with this unit. It has absolutely terrific AM reception, which makes it a much more affordable alternative to the Sangean CC Radio Plus. It has a relatively large speaker for clear crisp sound. There are three sound control levers to customize the sound.

I bought this radio for the AM reception, but it has a very good FM tuner as well (with a retractable FM antenna).

If you are looking for a good portable AM radio, or a good all-round radio, this is the one to buy without question.

Jim "Konedog" Koenig

A better radio does not exist at this price point. No, wait: a better radio than this does not exist, period! I own two of these, the original GE models, purchased in the early 1990s. One is on daily for 7-8 hours at my office, loudly and clearly pulling in my local NPR (FM) station with no distortion, no noise, no interference. The other is on in my study two or three days a week, tuned to an AM talk radio station; again, no distortion, no noise, no interference.

It's the quality of the human voice coming out of the large speaker that makes the difference, and it's a difference that one hears immediately. Talk about tuned circuits and feedback loops and other electronic stuff: I don't care about that really. The difference can be heard and appreciated immediately upon pushing the "ON" button. I've been enjoying the difference for over 15 years now: same two radios, same great sound.

Buy one of these (two! three!). You absolutely will hear the difference immediately, you won't miss any electronic, digital wizz-bangs and you'll reconnect with what radio is all about: the sound.

Bought this as a Mothers' Day gift; her old portable had a broken antenna. It was hard to find just a radio without any of that newfangled CD/ipod stuff, for an older person. This radio has a really sturdy heft to it, but mom can move it around without difficulty. She had to call and let me know how great it sounds---now I wish I had one! I was considering a radio shack table radio that was more portable and had a nice wooden box and decent sound for the same price--but it didn't pull in very many stations, and had no external antenna. I'm really happy with the choice I made. This radio will give her many years of pleasure.

I purchased this radio because I've had three CC Radio's and they only last three to four years. I'm hoping this will last longer. If you listen to only local stations this radio is okay, but if you listen to the radio at night and want to listen to am stations further away it's not close to the CC Radio. Also, the radio needs a dial light. If you can afford the CC Radio, purchase it.

It IS Super. This radio is the latest in Thompson/GE/RCA's line of the original Super Radio--it's as good as the 1979 model 1 2880, no, it's better! Amazing AM reception (4 stage IF). The sound stunned me! Though not stereo,the music is reproduced better than any portable that I've heard. The FM is "alive" helped by the adjustable bass & treble controls..it's "easy to hear"--that's the best way for me to say it! I use it inside (plugged into an outlet), or anywhere on the batteries(which last a long time). Also, at Amazon, I paid less for this than I paid for the 1979 model. Get one! A true bargain!