Sangean WFR-20 WiFi Internet Radio & Media Player by Sangean
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Digital camera reviews of Sangean WFR-20 WiFi Internet Radio & Media Player
Digital camera Review: DOA
Summary: 1 Stars
The first radio arrived DOA. The second radio played well for about 10 minutes before the display froze when I tried to input another station. It then went blank and never recovered. I was of the opinion that there was a bad batch of these radios and it was just my bad luck to encounter them. However, the replacement radio had a number of small scratches on the bottom and now I'm wondering if Amazon had shipped me a returned or refurbished item. I paid for a NEW radio in good working order, NOT a RETURNED or REFURBISHED item.Digital camera Review: Excellent Radio
Summary: 5 Stars
My radio arrived last week. It is my first wifi radio and I had waited a long time before purchasing in order to do as much research as possible and read all the available reviews. I'm very glad I finally took the plunge.
The radio set itself up, pretty much as advertised, right out of the box. I did have a brief unknown problem finding an IP address or something, but it worked itself out when I restarted the radio by unplugging and plugging back in.
My results have been great. This radio basically brings the world of radio right to your home without the antenna systems, signal fade, and interference problems of shortwave and with high quality clear audio. And, it offers the thousands of stations and streams that you'd never be able to recieve on a shortwave radio.
While I appreciate having one-button operation on the radio, I do find it convenient to have the remote control handy in order to use the "back" button and to navigate up and down in menus while listening to a station. If you want to go "back" in a menu using the radio itself, it can sometimes take awhile to get where you need to be, and if you want to look for other stations while listening to another, using the radio button requires you to start at the top and then dive back down into the menus. With the remote, you can explore the stations in the same subcategory listed before and after the station you are listening to at the press of a single button. If you are the type who just wants to find your favorite stations and spend less time searching around eventually, this would become less of an issue. The remote also seems to have good range across a room. The battery for the remote was included.
The radio only has 12 presets, and it really should have more. But, this is not really a problem because if you register with [...], you can add an unlimited amount of stations (at least I haven't hit a limit yet) to your "My stations" folder. In effect, this list becomes your presets, and though there are a few extra steps to get to the list of "My Stations" as compared to accessing a preset station, it's not inconvenient to access these at any time. Anytime I find an intersting station while tuning around, I make a note to add it to "My stations" from the website later.
I have had very few occasions where a station didn't connect, and that is probably just because it is offline at that time. The sound quality is awesome. My radio has never been more than about 50 feet from my linksys broadband router (with cable internet) and I have had almost no problems with buffering, the notable exception being with BBC1, which, ironically, is the station that comes preset in preset 1 on the radio. I believe this has to do with the BBC1 stream; I know BBC1 is their most popular stream and I imagine that many people are trying to use it at the same time.
I have had a couple of experiences with an "internal error" message mentioned in other reviews. I don't know why this happens, but after about 20-30 seconds, the radio resets itself and reconnects to whatever I was listening to at the time. Really not a big deal for me so far, and as I said before, I've never had a perfect radio.
My media player function works really well and it is a pleasure to hear all the music stored on the computer through such quality speakers. The only problem I have had is with podcasts. To me, this is an extra feature anyway, so not a big deal, but when I try to stream podcasts from "my podcasts" which are saved in my profile at [...], the stream always stops at some point. Eevntually, the stream starts over but there is no way to fast forward to the point at which it stopped, so as far as my experience goes, the podcast feature is not a selling point on the radio.
All in all, I am very pleased with the unit and highly recommend it. It does everything I expected it to and more, and what it does, it does better than I had hoped.
Digital camera Review: Works Well.
Summary: 4 Stars
Works Well.
Just wish faster connecting to each radio station (but probably not the fault of the machine). Takes about 10 seconds.
Digital camera Review: Stylish, Solid, Sleek, Simple Set-up, Superb Sound.
Summary: 5 Stars
First off, I am a certifiable Cyber-Imbecile for whom anything related to computers or the Internet is at best daunting, at worst threatening. Especially the initial hook-up-and-get-running phase which is generally good for a 50-point blood pressure spike and high-volume cursing.
Not this time.
I had the Sangean out of the box, plugged in, network-connected, and playing Brahms on FM Classic UK, Irish music on Midwest Irish Radio, Old Time Radio's "Horror Theater", and "Streaming Soundtracks" from somewhere in France and a reading of "Dracula" on BBC 7 in just over 5 minutes. And this includes frequent checks and re-checks of the user's manual as I was performing the set-up. It really couldn't be any easier. You can use either the single knob on the radio face, or the nifty little remote, or both. The whole system works flawlessly,
With its matte black grille, multi-purpose single knob and high-gloss piano black case, this is a handsome unit. And the sound that comes out of the dual 5W speakers is, well, amazing. On the stronger signals (96 bphs and up), the sound is Bose-like: Rich and full and clear and room-filling. I intended to buy a pair of auxiliary speakers to use with the Sangean, but now see no need to as it's already like having a mini-concert hall in the room. I'm listening right now to Dvorak's "From the New World" Symphony No. 9 it all its full orchestral power glory. I have to repeatedly shake my head at just how good the sound is that this small unit produces.
The user's manual is thorough and easy to understand, and there is a sort of flow chart fold-out that graphically depicts every function.
Some have complained about how difficult/time-consuming using the multi-purpose single dial is. Not a problem for me, mainly because I mainly use the remote and move around quickly and easily. You can do it all with the remote, including adjusting base and treble, backlight/dial brightness, volume, instant switching among 6 presets (on the remote), and everything else. With it's Reciva-based innards, the Sangean gives you access to nearly 14,000 stations, along with the ability to store your favorites under My Stuff (which, in effect, gives you almost unlimited presets).
You can search by Location (scroll through the list, stop on Ireland or the Cook Islands or Anguilla or wherever, punch the button and almost instantly there is a list of every station in that country (nearly 2,000 in the UK alone), When you find one you want to try, punch the dial and within seconds it's playing. Or search by Genre (rock, classical, 80s, punk, grunge, folk, news talk, jazz, etc. etc.) and get similar lists. You can also scroll through these [...] and Save any you want and they are automatically sent to your radio's My Stuff list, there to access whenever you want to. It's like some kind of wizardry.
It's a lot of fun to listen to some of the Old Time Radio horror, detective, and comedy shows from the 1920s, 30s, 40s, and 50s.
If you love radio, the Sangean is Nirvana. If you aren't yet a radiophile, buy this unit and you will be.
Digital camera Review: Next Generation in Radio
Summary: 5 Stars
I am a hard sell when it comes to consumer electronics and research anything I'm thinking about buying for several weeks before taking the plunge. This purchase was not exception. In fact, after two weeks I had exhuasted every resource I could find on the internet. Actually, after the first week, I felt that the Sangean was the way the go but, fearful of buyer's remorse, I strung out my analysis to be sure. The Sangean has met my expectations. The sound quality is phenomenal. Apart from not being able to link to Clear CHannel stations, I'm very satisfied. The one short-coming has to do with the unit's inability to fast forward and rewind podcasts. I hope this gets worked out in a subsequent software update.