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Product Review: Page (1) of 1 - 09/28/07

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Radi-osophy HD100

Portable HD radio

By Joshua Virata

Many people don't realize this but most of us use the radio in our cars almost all the time, but when we're at home we usually listen to playlists in iTunes, Windows Media Player, or some other music player. We hardly ever have a radio that we listen to at home. But what if you had a radio that you would listen to at home? Would you buy one that stands alone or one that you can plug into your audio system? What about a small, black, functional stand alone? The $99 Radi-osophy HD100 is a small radio, just a bit bigger than a milk carton, that has the capability to tune into standard radio stations as well as those HD radio stations that most people dont have access to.

Small and simple, yet intuitive is what this radio is to the home that it's invited to. Starting at the top of the device there is a two line blue backlit LCD display, a Stereo and Digital status LEDs, next is the volume dial, to the left of the dial there are three buttons, Power, Tune + and Tune -, to the right of the dial there are also three buttons, Enter, Seek, and Band. Below this button combination there are the Menu, Snooze, Sleep, and Alarm buttons as well as a headphone jack finally there are five (5) preset buttons that are able to store five presets for both FM and AM bands.

The radio is housed in a curved case with a piano black finish. Accented with silver buttons and volume dial, the two line, blue backlit display offers all the information that you'll need when using the radio, including time, station name, band type, and text read outs if the station you're tuned too has that feature. The text read outs can list the station name, and if the station has more than one stream on the same channel, then the read out will also say what stream you're listening too. The read outs also give information about the song, artist, upcoming songs, contests that are going on, and other information that the radio station is putting into the air.

In testing the radio feature I tuned it to radio stations that I knew had HD counterparts, but it took a few minutes to find the HD signal once tuned to the station, I moved the radio closer to a window and it seemed to help a bit, I finally looked online for the radio stations that offered HD signals and which way to point the antenna for best reception. This helped out a lot. The radio does still take a few seconds to find the HD signal but after it does it sort of cross fades the standard audio signal with the HD signal until the HD signal takes over. Sometimes there's interference with the HD signal but you don't hear the crackling because the radio senses when the radio is losing the HD signal and automatically overlays the standard audio signal until the HD signal is clearer.

The radio also has a few bells and whistles like a clock, alarm, and an AUX input so you can plug-in your MP3 player or portable CD player or something else that you would like to listen to with speakers.

You can also use the headphone jack on the front of the radio to hook up external speakers to listen to the radio.
The built-in speakers are decent, but not that great sounding, so using headphones or external speakers could be a better choice if you like listening to the radio at loud volumes. Overall this is a great little radio that is perfect for either bedside stand use or desk use. For more information, visit www.radiosophy.com.