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Good performance for the money
Build is not as cheap as other reviewers led me to believe. You have to remember, this radio only costs $45. The sound from the large 2 way speaker is great ...... think of it as a speaker with a radio attached. The sound is much better than my $150 Sony ICF-SW7600 GR. Of course, the Sony is a much more advanced and sophisticated radio. As a general 'round the house radio this thing is great. It has great sound for NPR and AM talk programs. The FM reception is great, and the AM reception for my local stations is very good during the day. At night this thing pulls in some pretty distant AM stations. Sitting on my front porch in Central Florida, I've pulled in Nashville, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Bahamas ........ I can't wait to see what it pulls in with an auxiliary AM antenna. As many reviewers have pointed out, the frequency you're receiving and the number on the dial have little to do with each other. My dial seems to be off by 1/2" on the lower AM frequencies, and more on the higher frequencies. CCrane will repair this for a modest fee ..... I'm debating on having it done. If you want a simple, quirky, radio with great sound and reception, you can't beat the Superadio III for $45. Get it now, they seem to be harder and harder to find. Best sound, Indifferent quality, poor ergonomics As a professional broadcaster for many years, I LIKE radios a lot. I've lived with my Superadio for about 10 years. THE BAD: the ergonomics of the unit, the "human engineering", is pretty awful. The rotating pots for volume and tone are often sticky and gritty right out of the box. The plastic toggles for band, AFC, narrow/wide AM, are as cheap and cheesy as can be made and still function most of the time. The big tuner knob is pretty good, though. I don't get much drift once I set a station. The calibration of the dial is comically inaccurate, however, so the frequency markings are pretty much just a rough guide. The form factor is another annoyance. Center of gravity is high so the unit tips over easily, and sometimes even adjusting the volume is a two-handed operation -- one to hold the unit and the other to twist the gritty little knob. Overall build quality is not very high, and many purchased units are defective. Anyone who complains that they can't get decent reception or the sound is bad on their Superadios have defective units. That's the only possible explanation. THE GOOD: The sound is absolutely glorious. Nothing can touch it in its class, and for twice the money. In addition to the large speaker the unit boasts a small tweeter. Voice or music, it offers the best sound you can get in a portable radio. Reception is likewise incredibly impressive. Listening to AM at night is a real trip, literally. This is one of the reasons that there is no digital tuning on this model. A dial setup will pull in stations much better than a typical digital tuner will. "Digital" is not always best. Battery life seems infinite. BOTTOM LINE: This is the radio for people, and only for those people, who want the best available sound from a table/portable radio. Dontcha all be lookin' for clocks and alarms and doodads on this sweet thing, now. It's ugly, downright fugly, with iffy build and questionable design. But once tuned in, the glory of the sonics will be a reminder of a little money very well spent indeed. I've owned two for fifteen years -- fantastic This is just a fantastic product. I've owned two for fifteen years and hope they never stop making this model in case I want another. The sound is great, the reception is great, the price (was) great; the durability is great and the battery usage is great. It's all great. It is certainly not "feature rich" but who needs all that nonsense for AM and FM radio? More feature would just get in my way. TIP: The radio has a ground screw on the back which I'm guessing most people don't use. After hooking up a long wire outdoor antenna, I noticed that what really helped AM DX reception was the ground! I bought a grounding rod from Radio Shack to isolate the radio from the noisy house wiring system. (I pounded in the rod in the ground outside the house.) That REALLY helped! So much so, that I removed the wire antenna and now only use the ground. Good Old School Radio Good sound, good options. A bit larger than you might think from the picture. Sound is good, as is reception. I have it on the back corner of the desk as background music. RCA Superadio III This was the worst radio I ever tried in over 60 years. It only tuned one strong local AM station and that took up a large part of the dial. Another local AM station that all 9 radios in the house receive with ease could not be tuned in. I think I believe the reviews, though, and assume that the quality of current production is so poor or variable that a number of these radios, with once a good reputation, can no longer be expected to function. They were quick to refund my money. | |
