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Big NY Times Round-Up on HD Radio Receivers

My spread in the New York Times on HD Radio is up: I spent a few weeks receiving and testing five tabletop HD Radios, and the results are now in print and online. I was able to get review units from Boston Acoustics, Polk, RadioShack, Radiosophy, and Sangean--apparently, I'm the only reviewer to get my hands on the Radiosophy and one of the few to have touched the Sangean at this point.

My takeaway is that all the radios have excellent qualities and fill different niches. The Accurian is a very fine radio, with its only flaw the decision to omit alarm clock features. Radio Shack dropped the holiday price to $150 before the $25 rebate, and I suspect the price will not go back up to $200 after the Jan. 14 rebate ends. The Polk i-Sonic that I tested had muddy sound, and I hope that's not the case for all units. The Polk lacks equalization features, so despite the bass and treble controls, I was unable to get a cleaner sound out of it.

The Radiosophy Multistream HD is rather cool--just 1.5 pounds for the module with nice rubberized buttons, and a nice look overall. I spoke to the company today, as they had expected to be in production by now and shipping in December. Unfortunately, they've had one more round of delays, and they now expect to ship by Feb. 1. If the unit is purchased (pre-ordered) by Jan. 14, the radio will still qualify for the $50 iBiquity rebate that's due in by mid-Feb.

I love the Sangean's styling. Only Boston Acoustics' design comes close, and it's a very different aesthetic. But Sangean should have invested more in its LCD display, which is oddly clunky looking. I expect that that's a relatively straightforward upgrade for them if they get enough feedback from potential buyers. The radio works very well with a built-in telescoping antenna, which makes the radio easier to move and makes tuning easier.

Equalization (EQ) is the only fault consistent across all five radios. I would expect that digital devices could have very inexpensive and good EQ. None did. The Accurian's EQ is quite awful, but the default, uncorrected sound is very good, so there's no need to use the EQ. (I also dislike the poor design of the icons that are supposed to indicate which EQ mode is in use--a crummy saxophone for jazz, for instance.) Other radios had just bass/treble, or strange preset EQs, and none of the options will please even the least-discriminating audiophile. Except for Polk's radio, the sound without manipulation is quite good for both analog and digital radio.

Another mild issue is antenna placement. I note in the article that HD Radio signals are rather faint by design and regulation. All but the Sangean radio come with external dipole FM antennas--T-designs in which a long lead split into two perpendicular arms. The better the antenna, the more likely you'll get a consistent signal. For some people, a powered FM antenna will be a necessity, and the benefit could be picking up quite distant HD Radio and analog signals on top of the local radio broadcasts. Update: I was informed that powered FM antennas only boost the center band for a station, which could improve analog quality and degrade digital! Time for new powered antenna designs.

The next big market to start expanding is component tuning. Several inexpensive component tuners are due out shortly; Sangean may already be shipping theirs, and Cambridge SoundWorks will have a component tuner and a tabletop radio.

Posted by Glenn Fleishman on December 5, 2006 8:59 PM | Permalink