Customer Reviews

Sangean SR-1 Pocket Size AM/FM Stereo Receiver with Built-in Speaker & Earbuds

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

 

 

My review got 4 stars because of the earbuds that are included with the radio. I was surprised that the Left and Right earbud wires are of different lengths. The left earbud is about a foot shorter in length than the right. Nothing was mendtioned about this. I suppose the reason is because they expect customers to place the radio in their left shirt pocket, closer to the left ear, so they have a shorter wire.

There is no pants or belt clip, so if you plan to walk around with the radio you have to put it in one pocket or another. This can be a problem for tall people, 6"+, as the accompanying headphones have a pretty short wire. If you have other headphones you like, then it's no problem.

The radio is good, I can pick up everything my larger SONY radio can. If the station is strong, the radio can hold it pretty well if you're moving around. The tiny built in speaker is as loud as you could want it to be in a room or car, for most people, even if it can't do stereo, it's decent for talk radio.

Frankly, I wasn't expecting much. I was looking for a good travel radio, and settle on this. It sounds much better than what you would expect for a 1" speaker. The AM reception is good, not great but that's only a small penlty for the size. I live in North Idaho and get the nearby AM stations up to 90 miles away loud and clear. At night I sometimes pick up KFBK in Sacromento and KGO in SF most of the time. On a SOny ICF-24 I get these stations consistently. The tuning is a little tricky. Battery life seems good, I've had the radio on for about 15 hours on a single AAA using the speaker turned up all the way, and it's still going strong. For the size and price this is the best radio going.

I got this earlier this year and it's been a great convience. It's easy to bring anywhere and the reception is fab. The earbuds help when I don't want anyone to know I'm listening to the radio.

Love the radio, but the earbuds are painful for my ears. I can only keep it in the left ear for an hour.

After hearing about this radio, I decided to purchase it thinking it would have great reception. But when I tested it out it picked up so much interference that I couldn't even pick up a few of our local stations. Only two channels came in clear. The only good thing is that the built-in speaker sounds reasonably good for such a small radio. Unfortunately I listen to a lot of other stations which I couldn't pick up on this radio, so I'm sending mine back.

I've had this product for over 8 months and would like to say that it has been the best little radio I've owned. However, like all portables, the headphone jack is starting to warp and the connection to the headphones is starting to lose coherence. For some strange reason, Sangean placed the power switch right next to the headphone jack so that every time you switch the radio on or off, you have to swivel the headphone jack out of the way. This incessant wear is the reason why the connection is starting to deteriorate. I wish Sangean (and other manufacturers) would address the inherent problems with the placement of headphone jacks because I have always encountered this problem. Otherwise, the AM reception is great and FM is good, no problems.

Anyone who has anything negative to say about the Sangean SR-1 obviously isn't old enough to remember what the first pocket transistor radios were like! I bought one in the early 60's for the equivalent of more than a hundred dollars. The quality of materials and construction was laughably poor, as was the performance. It was AM only and with the, more than two foot long, telescoping antenna fully extended it would not even pick up all the local stations in a medium sized town (while eating costly nine volt batteries in less than an hour).
The amount of technology packed into the SR-1 is truly amazing (three IC's, four transistors, and one FET along with associated components). Overall quality is excellent and performance is astonishing when realistic expectations are held. There really is no point in trying to listen to music out of a one inch speaker but for news, sports, and talk radio the clarity is excellent and volume is adequate in a quiet room.
Let me say that the best thing you can do with the enclosed ear-buds is cut the cord about six inches from the plug and use that as your external FM antenna when listening to the speaker. Then borrow a suitable pair of phones from one of your Walkman style gadgets for music listening. FM stereo can be quite breathtaking with a strong local signal, and very usable reception of AM stations hundreds of miles away is common at night.
For thirty bucks it's a trip!

Being the consummate news hound I must have access to radio at all times. This little radio is perfect at my office where radios are frowned upon. The battery life is very good when earbuds are exclusively used,and for covert ops I switch to a single earphone in black I found at Radio Shack. Reception is better than I expected and,I agree,the wire length of the earbuds is inconvenient. FM sound is excellent with the Bass Boost! For the money this is a great buy!

I bought this because I wanted an extremely small radio with both AM/FM reception that was almost credit card sized for use on commuting trips on Amtrak. Overall, I am pleased, and at the price point--quite pleased. It runs on one AAA battery for a long time (replaced once in 1 year). It is small enough to hide in an inappropriate location (say, a classical concert) to hear a game :). Surprisingly good FM sound through the earbuds--the small speaker is not very useful.

Small downsides: uncomfortable, hard earbuds--recommend replacements with anything compatible; paint on radio case easily rubs off; and due to the size, analog tuning is trial and error. A digital tuner with presets would be a plus--but I note that similar sized radios with that feature are almost 2X in price. Overall, a very good, very small, low-power, "hideable" personal radio.

I bought this radio as I have a lot of downtime during a night shift. Usually a standard radio does not get good reception inside the building where I work but with some adjustment of the ear phones which act as an antenna, the reception is far superior to anything I've ever used-it's perfectly clear inside this building which is just amazing!! It's also very compact. It fits in my shirt pocket and I can just slip it in and out for travel quite quickly and easily. I am also impressed with the built in speaker- which is what I use. The speaker is not high quality audio but is just as good as any portable alarm radio I've used. It's not heavy and the battery so far has worked all week- several hours a day and still going. It only uses one AAA battery. So far it has been durable as well as I have dropped it out of my shirt pocket a couple of times. Overall well made and would recommend to all. Wish I had found this little thing earlier.