Customer Reviews

Tabletop Stereo HD Radio? Tuner

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm writing to "plug a hole" I see in the Amazon reviews. The Sony XDR-S3HD has many, but this radio not a one! And as someone who was supremely satisfied with his purchase (I actually logged on to purchase a second one of these for myself - the original purchase was a present for my mother), I thought I should speak up.

As I said, I bought this radio originally for my mother, who listens to it regularly when she is making pottery in her studio. She lives in a remote area, and I was worried about whether the HD signal would be received cleanly, but to my relief that wasn't a problem. And when there is any issue with the HD signal, it switches pretty seamlessly between HD and the regular analog signal.

I like this radio because it sounds great (the sound is warm and fills the room), looks great, is VERY intuitive and easy to operate (this was key, as ease of use is extremely important to my mother), and has an RCA input jack where you can hook up an iPod or anything else. In general, it just looks, feels, and sounds like a well-made and well-designed piece of hardware. I would recommend it to anyone.

I bought the Visteon HDT200 based on favorable Amazon reviews, and I have not been disappointed. I took it out of the box, connected the power cord and AM and FM antennae, turned it on, found my stations, and pushed the buttons to program them into memory, before even looking at the manual. Three minutes. Excellent sound,it does everything I had hoped for and looks good too. My reason for buying an HD radio was to gain access to the HD-2 broadcast by WRTI in Philadelphia. They play classical during the day, jazz at night, but with HD I can have either one at any time. I soon found other stations doing the same thing. Suddenly, radio is a larger part of my day. As another reviewer indicates, the Visteon avoids such problems, encountered with at least one other popular model, as a loud cooling fan(!). There is no extraneous noise. If I could afford it, I'd buy one or two more, for use in additional rooms. A very nice, well-designed product...Michael Robinson/Riverton, NJ

I read the reviews for all the HD tabletop radios Amazon offers right now, and this is the one I ended up buying. I'm glad I did. It is a great value for the money. The sound could be a little crisper, but it's still very good. Sure, it would be nice if a second speaker came in the box, but these are small quibbles. Reception is excellent. Even without the FM antenna plugged in, the radio was still pulling in all the local stations. With the antenna, I was able to pick up an FM station that's 80 miles away in Bellingham (though not strongly enough to receive the digital signal).

Is HD worth the premium you pay right now? All I can say is that stations whose analog signal is just a little fuzzy come in clean and clear on HD. Plus, about half the stations offer one or more additional, digital-only channels. One cautionary note: if you're primarily an AM listener, beware that few AM stations seem to have gone to HD as of now. In the Seattle area, there are none that have, as far as I can tell (supposedly, there are three: 850, 1250, and 1340; I'll have to try again).

If you're looking for a clock radio compact enough for a bedside table that offers excellent reception, HD capability, and nice sound, all for a good price, well, here it is.

I can't comment on other radios. I bought this one directly based on the reviews here, and now I've had it for a little bit, I thought I'd tell you the pros and cons:
PROs
1, Easy and intuitive to set. That huge tuning knob controls all of the functions and it's pretty easy to use - not too sensitive, not too vague - just right.
2, Sound quality is good. There's not a lot of distortion at high volumes and there doesn't seem to be much noise in the background.
3, It pulled in my local HD radio channels.
CONs
1, There are relatively few buttons and they're relatively easy to use, but that means there are only 5 FM pre-sets. I probably won't need more, but it seems stingy to say the least.
2, There is only ONE speaker in this unit. Bass is reasonable and the quality of the speaker is good, but it's really only good for mono. I bought it expecting to be able to plug it into a couple of stereo speakers. Well, yes and no. There's only an amplified speaker connection for a right speaker. There's an unamplified stereo connection that could be connected to an existing stereo via a 3.5 mm stereo jack to RCA connector. Or I guess you could probably plug in a mediocre set of computer speakers. However, to get more than just one additional speaker out of this thing, you need to hook up some sort of amplification. I wanted dedicated RCA outputs, but now I've got to go buy another adaptor.
3, Reception isn't as good as I expected it to be. I will play around some more with the antenna (which is a good one), but again I was expecting more.
As far as features go, it does have two independent alarms, each of which can be set for "every day", "weekdays" or "weekends". There's no further distinction down to days of the week. It's also possible to independently set the snooze function to the minute independently for each alarm. And there's a sleep function, settable in 5 minute increments that applies all the time. That's a big step up from one old Sony clock radio that I had which allowed you to either set an alarm OR use the sleep function. So you could either go to sleep or wake up, but not both! I couldn't find a way of going to sleep at one volume (low) and waking up at a different volume (high), but I'll keep experimenting.
Finally, this radio is sold under several different names: Visteon, AGT, HD Pulse and a few others.

So that about sums it up. The radio is good, but expensive for what it is. I will definitely have a closer look at the Sony if I decide to buy a second HD radio (although I doubt I will).

I work for an NPR station and wanted an HD radio to listen to news programming and our two HD channels. I didn't want to invest $400 in a Polk so after reading good reviews, i ordered this one. I love this radio! The sound is wonderful and the reception is great. It is an entirely new listening experience- clear and resonant. I strongly recommend this radio especially in view of the price. As other reviewers noted, it is easy to operate. I plugged it in, attached the antenna and was ready to listen within minutes.

The sound quality of this radio is quite good, although not significantly better than the conventional radios that we have. It has some difficulty picking up the HD transmission from stations that are 30-40 miles away, but picks up the conventional transmission of those stations with no problem. It is somewhat larger than I expected (about 11.5 cm H x 21.5 cm W x 13 cm D), but the biggest space hog is the huge transformer that comes with it, with a heavy-duty, bulky cord. The transformer must have capacity to support 20 times the power consumed by the radio. I wanted to set up the radio on a counter top, and the transformer must be on the counter top too, but it takes up too much space.

A real bargain, this small radio delivers a pretty big sound, superior in quality to my portable Bose Wave. Both classical and rock music have a full, rich sound. Great reception, a great little work horse, this radio more than meets my expectations.

I wanted to try HD and now that I have, I don't think it's got all the bugs out yet. Our four local HD stations sometimes just go away.
The radio itself is good. Controls are easy. Reception is nil without the external antenna.
The Boston Acoustic radio's reception and sound is much better.
I would give The HD radio idea another 6 to 12 months to fully develop.
Maybe I'll try an XM receiver.

I got this radio for a gift and I love it! Everything works; the sound is excellent. And, it looks really cool. The blue clock and big silver tuning knob make for a retro look that out-styles the other HD radios - this is one you love to have sitting out anywhere.

I BOUGHT THIS WITH RESERVATION _DID NOT KNOW MUCH ABUT HD OR THIS BRAND
BUT COULD BE MORE ECTASTIC. EASY SET UP, USE AND SOUND IS INCREDIBLE .
I CAN HEAR FLUTIST DRAW A BREATH AND PIANIST TURN PAGES.