Customer Reviews

Timex T617S Nature Sounds Auto Set CD Clock Radio with Smart Knob Tuning and MP3 Line In (Silver)

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(41)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(20)
1 star:		(25)

 

 

UPDATE: It has been 3 years since I purchased this product and unfortunately problems have arisen. The dimmer fluctuates every so often but even worse, when you try to set the alarm, the digital displays illumination dims so low that it makes it very difficult to see what time value you are entering. I have not been able to correct this problem and it only gets worse as time goes bye. The radio reception is pretty poor, even with the provided cable antenna. Other than that, everything else works fine. I would give this product 3 stars for durability if I could.

Overall this is a great alarm clock with the exceptions of: the

loud synthtic Nature Sounds and lack of a 5 day week alarm (which is included in

the T307S model)... yes, there is NO 5 day week alarm !!!!

The synthetic Nature sounds are NOT soothing at all and are better as a wakeup call rather

than for falling asleep. These 4 sounds would be much improved if they got rid of the

annoying and loud bird calls and frog calls. If they even put these calls into the

background, then it would be satisfactory... if they removed them entirely, then

it would be fantastic. However, since you have a CD player, I highly recommend

true nature sounds from the people who brought you "A Week in Hawaii" & "A Week in Brazil". The surf

and rainforest sounds are the best and you will calmly fall asleep to this cd in 90

minute sleep mode at half sleep volume. Yup, you have a separate limited volume (3 settings)

control for sleep mode so that it does not affect your alarm volume.

This is NOT a stereo folks, so the speakers are good (but not great) and the fact that you can

attach your mp3 player is a nice bonus, especially for all you ipod owners.

The dimmer is great and there are 3 intensity settings that won't blind you at

night.

It would be great if the buttons were categorized by size or illuminated by

touch, so you could easily select the buttons in the dark.Unfortunately, you

have to guess at it and interestingly enough, the button layout was much better

on the T307S model.

Haven't had any problems with the CD player so far, eventhough it looks pretty flimsy. I do like

the height over depth ratio and think that the vertical CD player is much better compared to a

horizontal cd player, in terms of space

on my nightstand.

The automatic time setting is great especially when you forget about setting

your clock ahead or backwards... this clock does it for you automatically.

Batteries are included.... nice.

**** I give this product a soft 4 stars and would have given it a solid 5 if only the

Nature sounds were revamped and 5 day week was included.

I read all the negative reviews posted here, then bought this product with some misgivings because it has something hard to find in CD clock radios--a headphone jack. That's important to me because my spouse likes it quiet at night, and I like background noise, so I use a pillow speaker. My Sony Dream Machine had one, and was a good product, but the time display is too dim and too small for my baby boomer eyes.

This product works for me. True, there is an annoyingly bright, light-up-the-room-in-neon-blue light that comes on whenever a CD, the radio, or nature sounds are playing, but that light is easy to cover--I pasted a piece of construction paper over it. The digital time display itself is perfectly acceptable at the dimmer settings.

I agree with most other reviewers that the nature sounds are unrealistic, overly dramatized, and not at all relaxing. That is a feature I will not be using. The radio reception is better than the Sony's.

Great product, and solid frame. It doesn't feel cheap. The "Nature Sounds" aren't great, but I didn't buy it to hear low res recordings of nature. I bought it for the fact that it can do a 5-day alarm...saving the weekend for sleeping till double digits. Wrong!

The product description lies! No such feature! I ended up buying this from timexaudio.com, since amazon didn't have it available. The problem was that when I double checked the product description at timex, there were only a few bullet points. When I searched for a manual, the one clock radio that they didn't have a manual for was the T617S. So I trusted amazon's product description. Never again.

Other than that bad experience, I like the sound and the radio reception is fantastic. The MP3 input is just a simple 3.5 mm jack, so you can basically play anything through this.

My recommendation is that if you like everything but the 7/5/2 day feature, go for it.

After reading many reviews and researching alarm clocks, I purchased this one, even though it got some bad reviews. I swear, I can't buy anything these days without reading the reviews on Amazon first; and there's always someone with something bad to say about every item. Anyway, I digress...here's what I like about it:

- snooze button doubles as a dimmer switch for the LED readout so it's easy to find

- "sleep" function has a separate volume than the alarm function, so you can fall asleep listening to music quietly playing on a CD and not have to worry about the volume being too low to wake you in the morning (there are only 3 or 4 'sleep' volume levels to choose from, but it's still good for me)

- I was wary of the nature sounds, as someone said they were lousy, but I enjoy them and don't notice any particular problem with sound quality

- Like the height to width ratio - you can see the time across the room & over the bed

- I like the LED display, because LCD displays need a backlight which make it hard to read the time & are too bright

- Like that the time is preset & battery is already in the clock when you unpack it; timezone selector is on the back of the clock

- Dual alarm clock is a must. It's really easy to see which (or both) alarm is set. While some clocks only have a red dot to indicate the alarm is set (and who can tell if it's alarm #1 or #2 in the dark?), this clock displays a picture of a bell and a #1 and/or #2 in the bell.

- My only dislike is the blue light that shines from the CD area on the front of the clock anytime you use one of the audio options. If I'm trying to fall asleep to CD or nature sounds, I prop a CD case in front of the unit to block the light.

I recently bought two T617S CD clock radios. One sounded quite good, but the other had a tinny sound so I returned it as defective.

I need white noise at night to drown out other sounds. What I really want is a clock radio with built-in pure white noise. I would think there is demand for that, but nobody seems to make them. The nature sounds are too annoying for me, so I run a CD that has recorded white noise [...], on repeat mode. The manual says that repeat mode only repeats the CD once. However, thankfully it actually runs continuously until turned off. I also have an old Timex T600B CD clock radio that looks like it's an earlier version of the T617S. The CD player on that clock radio stopped working after playing it all night for over a year. I expect that the CD player on the T617S won't last forever either, but what does?

I think the lowest setting on the dimmer works quite well. However, there is a window on the CD player (so you can see it spinning, I guess) that also has a light. This light doesn't dim with the dimmer on the clock. It's way too bright, but it's easy to cover since it isn't needed anyway.

The battery backup was also critical for me, since during the winter we have frequent power failures, sometimes more than once a day and lasting several hours. Amazingly, many if not most clock radios, including a Sony Dream Machine we have, don't have battery backup.

I like this model, the Timex T617S, much better than the older model, the Timex T609T. This review will focus on the differences between those two models.

The T617S has three different brightness settings. The lowest setting is tolerable, but not ideal; it still puts out a little too much light at night for sleeping. On the positive side, the T617S corrects a major flaw that the T690T had, in that the display is completely readable regardless of which angle you look at it from.

Two sorely missed features that are absent from the newer T617S are the ability to program CDs and the ability to set a varying amount of snooze time with the snooze button based on how many times you hit it. With the T690T, it was 6 snooze minutes per hit, up to 60 minutes. With the T617S, you get only one snooze hit that lasts 9 minutes. And the inability to program the CD player means that if you want to wake up to a CD, you always have to wake up to track 1.

Other than that, this is a great clock. It displays the date and contains a sensor that automatically knows the date when you first plug it in (I did have to fix the year) and automatically corrects for daylight savings time. It is smaller and more compact than the T609T and therefore takes up less space. It has 12 programmable radio station buttons (6 for AM, 6 for FM). The sound quality is the best I've ever heard from an alarm clock. The clock's buttons and controls are intuitive and easy to locate. The main knob is a "smart knob" that performs multiple functions, including the volume and changing the time for the alarm clock. It has a "nap" button that allows you to sleep for 15, 30, 45, or 60 minutes with a quick push of the button. It lets you set two different alarm times, and it lets you choose whatever function you want for each one (unlike the T609T, which forced you to use the buzzer or the radio for one of the alarms and the CD or nature sounds for the other). Finally, it has a digital scanner function for the radio.

Everything else is the same as with the T609T (CD player, MP3 line in, digital radio display, four nature sounds, etc.).

It's really pretty amazing that all of this is contained within an alarm clock. All in all, it's a great purchase.

I'll begin by saying, like most others, that this is a great clock. Unfortunately, the caveat is "when it works." Unit #1: the CD player didn't work. Unit #2: after about 2 weeks, the alarm buttons activated the nap function and alarms wouldn't set. (By this point I'm curious just how many clocks it will take to have all functions operate correctly!) Unit #3: fast forward button doesn't work (this tunes the radio and changes CD tracks). Unit #4: CD player's "pause" button doesn't work; CD must be stopped by using the "Power Off" button. Some of these problems would not be that taxing to deal with, but the fact that FOUR clocks have all had some sort of malfunction causes me to harbor serious reservations about the reliability of this alaram clock. Besides, when you pay $80 for an alarm clock, all the shiney buttons should work! That is a truly horrendous quality control record. In addition to the afore-mentioned problems, 3 of the units had scratches and scuffs right out of the box!

I didn't buy this radio for nature sounds, and now that I've heard them a few times, I wouldn't listen. The croaking toads don't croak soon enough.

I didn't buy this for the alarms, either, but I must say that once the alarm goes off, it's so annoying that I can't refuse it any more than my puppy staring at me at 6:30 AM. (Puppy eyes are the best alarms there are.)

I bought this because it had the CD that could be programmed to repeat and shuffle, and I sleep to the CD through the night. The sound is great, and can be adjusted to very pleasant settings. When I discovered that it also pulls in radio stations in very hilly terrain, it became an even better decision. Now I can listen to several all-night FM stations and in 36 years in this house, that IS new.

I disagree with others as to the brightness of the display. There are three settings. At the brightest, I can see what time it is from 8 feet away in the middle of the night. At it's lowest setting, it's just a nice glow unless, I guess, you're living in pitch darkness. As for having to face it in the direction of AM radio stations, that's the nature of physics...unless you have a ferrite antenna that goes from the radio and is wrapped around your entire house.

Last, other than its good looks and sturdy styling, I love the clock which sets itself even after a power outage (and we're all getting too many of those) or when DST kicks in. Now that we have four "atomic clocks," I'll never get anything without.

So, after this glowing report, why not five stars? First, style is in the eye of the beholder. Second, if you need the dual alarms for weekends and you don't want a dog, this isn't the radio for you - though you could put it in the kitchen with your clocks from the oven, microwave, Fridge, and even dishwasher. Third, while I think "nature sounds" is so 70s and as pleasing as 99¢ new age CDs or that guy with the tenor sax, some of you may enjoy lightning and thunder and frogs and rivers and rushing streams all of which make me want to go to the bathroom. For all of your sakes, I took off a star. Have I ever steered you wrong?

Kudos to the engineers who designed this one. They thought of just about everything. Especially nice is the large knob on the front which controls the volume among other things. So many clock radios force you to fumble around on the back of the device to adjust volume - no fun in the middle of the night. The digital read-out is large and clear. Controls are easy to use. The earphone jack and MP3 capability show that someone in engineering was paying attention. A nice-looking unit that is a bit tall for the nightstand, but it sure does everything you might ask it to do. My only complaint might be with the AM side of the radio band. As usual with modern radios, the AM seems a bit puny and will not clearly pull in the lower-powered stations in town. Some of us like to listen to AM talk radio at night.

Despite having owned previous models of this TIMEX product, I foolishing opted for a less expensive radio/CD player from another well-known company. What a disappointment. I returned it the day after I received it and ordered this latest generation of TIMEX clock radio/CD player. I am elated with every aspect of this product. It is the perfect unit for a bedside table; sleek design occupying minimal space, every feature one could desire, including pre-sets, dual alarms, nature sounds, easy drop-down front-loading CD player, earphone jack and auxiliary input, excellent stereo separation when used with headphones, acceptable sound without, good reception with wire antenna (included). A super buy for under seventy dollars.