Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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94 of 95 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Best "Real" Clock Radio at Any Price Point, March 1, 2008
I've had my Horizon Solo for a week now and can say that it's a huge leap better than its older brother the Recepter and the Tivoli Songbook and the Sangean WR-2, which I sold and replaced with my Horizon Solo.
Here is where the Horizon Solo shines:
1. Its AM/FM tuner is on steroids. Most of the time I don't even have to elevate the FM wire antenna to get hard-to-get Los Angeles stations such as 89.3, 88.9, and 103.1. The FM blows away the more expensive Tivoli Songbook and Sangean WR-2.
2. The AM tuner sounds like stereo with no background noise. This is truly amazing. The AM is far better than my very good Sangean WR-2.
3. The speakers are bigger and fuller than the already good-sounding Recepter and bear in mind the Horizon Solo is fifty dollars less.
4. The interface is easy to use. Like the Recepter, you use a rotary dial to tune up or down while scrolling through the 20 presets.
5. The radio is relatively small and leaves a small footprint on your bedside table.
6. Unlike the more expensive Recepter, the Horizon Solo has a headphone jack in the front.
7. The AC cord is two-prong and small in size, not one of those big fat wall-warts that take up half your available outlets.
8. Holding the bezel dial, you can't "twist" the radio into the horizontal or vertical position.
9. Marketed as a "custom" radio, the front grill can be removed and replaced with loud vibrant colors though truth be told I'm happy the with the dark "midnight" color.
Yes, I do notice a couple of bugs in my new model. Twice after turning off the radio, the radio was still on so I had to turn it off a second time. Also the time display is five minutes slow while listening to the radio and then when you turn the radio off the time is accurate again. I don't know if this is a bug particular to my radio or a general problem.
Bottom-line: As a radio enthusiast, I own over 50 radios and I will go out on a limb and say this is the best AM/FM clock radio I have ever purchased. In a market where clock radios usually have substandard reception or where the better radios cost $150-200, the Horizon Solo is the new champion on the block.
Update: Bought another Horizon Solo for my work office, an environment hampered by electronic interference and the Horizon Solo is doing very well, picking up Los Angeles stations 88.1, 103.1, 89.9 91.5 and other FM stations with outstanding clarity. My officemates are so impressed, they want to get one also.
Another Update: After 3 months, my second Solo got frozen on the 17 increment of volume control. After much experimentation, I discovered that the only way to "unfreeze" the volume is to unplug the unit for several minutes and then plug it in again. I hope I don't have to do this again or at least not often.
Nine months later it continues to be my favorite radio. The volume control can also be de-activitated by holding lowering volume to ZERO; then you hold the on button until the radio beeps; then you increase the volume to full blast or whatever limit you want. Then you turn off radio and turn on again. Boston Acoustics sent me these instructions after I contacted them. Since I've done this, the problem is gone.
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30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
great radio, but has ergonomic issues as a clock radio, April 11, 2008
Overall, I like the BA Horizon Solo. The FM receiver has excellent sensitivity, and the speaker and rich sound quality are first rate. You can adjust both the bass and treble, which you couldn't do on the predecessor product (the BA Recepter).
I'm rating the BA Solo 4 stars as I'm disappointed in the poor ergonomic design of the Sleep function. It's puzzling why BA did such a poor job on this, as they seem to have put a lot of thought into the ergonomics of most of the other functions.
Here is an excerpt from the user manual on how to use the Sleep function:
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Sleep Function
You can set the Horizon Solo to play for up to 90 minutes. After the specified time the Solo shuts off. Select the source and set the volume level where you want it.
1 Use the Mode control to highlight the Sleep icon in the display.
2 Press the Mode control. The Sleep icon and "OFF" will flash in the display.
3 Turn the Mode control to set the number of minutes until the Solo turns off.
4 Press the Mode control. The brackets around the Sleep icon will flash a few times. The display will return to its previous state with the Sleep icon lit.
...
Notes:
* To cancel the Sleep delay before it has finished, follow steps 1 - 3. Turn the Mode control down until "Off" appears in the display. Then press the Mode control. Or press the Power/Volume control to turn off the Solo.
* Touch the metal rim around the Solo to display the remaining time of the Sleep delay.
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So they made the Sleep function a menu item instead of having a dedicated "Sleep" button. They could also have overloaded one of the existing control buttons (which are both knobs and push buttons) to turn on the Sleep function (e.g. press and hold the Power/Volume knob). But on this radio the only way to turn on the Sleep function is through the menu.
If the menu screen were easy to read and navigate, this might be acceptable, but unfortunately it isn't. I have to put on reading glasses to navigate the menu, which is inconvenient when lying in bed.
The radio has a small monochrome (blue with white letters) LCD screen, and when you turn the Menu knob with the radio on, you can navigate between the following:
- Presets/FM/AM/Aux
- Brightness/Info/Sleep/Bass/Treble
- Alarm 1/Time Set/Alarm 2
(The "Info" allows you to toggle between displaying the time or tuner frequency and mode.)
The menu has a strange "memory" function, i.e. it does not remember the last menu setting you last modified, but instead it starts from the current "mode" setting (the modes are the first 4 menu items, i.e. Presets/FM/AM/Aux).
To enable the Sleep function, you have to turn the Mode knob until the "Sleep" label is bracketed (with 2 very small, hard-to-read brackets that are small vertical bars, i.e. like the "|" character). If you keep the display level brightness set low, then it is even more difficult to see when these brackets are around the "Sleep" label. To further exacerbate this issue, the font size of all the labels is rather small and not adjustable. Once you select "Sleep" in the menu, it starts off at the "OFF" setting and so you have to turn the Mode knob to increase the Sleep time duration (up to 90 minutes maximum).
The Sleep function is 6 tactile "clicks" clockwise on the Mode menu starting from the Preset mode menu item -- you navigate the menu with a detented rotary switch, i.e. it has places where when turning the knob it clicks along the way -- but these are "soft" clicks and it is easy to overshoot if you're not careful and trying to count clicks.
The Sleep function design is very user-unfriendly. Since I like to use the Sleep function a lot, I consider this a major design flaw. Every $10 clock radio I've ever seen has a Sleep button, but this $100 clock radio doesn't??
Perhaps someone from BA will read this and come up with a firmware update to more easily enable the Sleep function without having to go through the menu. Here are some alternative suggestions to BA (from a user experience perspective) on how they might address this problem:
- Implement the same Sleep function control technique as on the BA Recepter. That is, when the radio is on "normally" (i.e. the alarm is not on), press and hold the touch-sensitive metal rim around the front of the radio to turn on the Sleep function for 90 minutes. Touch the metal rim once to check the remaining sleep time. Each successive touch of the metal rim reduces the remaining sleep time in 10 minute increments.
- Press and hold the Power/Volume knob (whether the radio is on or off) to turn on the Sleep function for 90 minutes. The user can then check or reduce the remaining Sleep time by touching the metal rim as in the previous suggestion.
- Add a useful memory capability to the menu ("Mode") button, e.g. one press of the Mode button takes you back to the menu item you last modified (instead of the current mode).
- Make the currently selected menu item more obvious. Rather than the hard-to-see brackets, indicate the selected menu item by highlighting it with bold font, or make it blink, or something obvious.
The other ergonomic issue is related to the lack of a "safeguard" switch to prevent accidental changing of the clock time or alarm settings. On some occasions, I have inadvertently changed the clock time, alarm settings, or alarm times -- either by accidentally selecting the clock time or alarm settings on the menu, or by unintentionally pressing either of the two alarm buttons on the front of the radio. They could have provided a "safeguard" switch that would have to be engaged in order to adjust the time or alarm settings, to prevent such accidental changes.
As another reviewer has mentioned, this radio runs hot most of the time, even when turned off! It seems that something strange is going on with the built-in power supply, or else this thing draws a lot of current for some reason even when turned off.
I have also noticed that the brightness function seems flawed. It tries to adjust the brightness according to the brightness in the room. The adjustment you can make affects the range of brightness that the display will range over. I have found that at night the lowest I can set it to is level 13 (the settings range from 1-20) in order to see the display reasonably well in the dark. So levels 1-12 are essentially useless (too low to be seen at night). Either my unit is defective or this is a flawed design.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
My last clock radio..., March 15, 2008
This clock radio rocks. It has an adjustable dimmer that is automatic, an alarm that slowly gets louder untill you wake up and a stereo headphone jack. The sound quality and the reception are better than the tivoli. Built solid.
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