Well, the Amazon.com reviews are not all crappy...but, they certainly are a crap shoot (quite a bit of variation among the 11 reviews given, with an average 3 out of 5 stars). Nearly all the poor reviews take the receiver to task on its reception.
Here is another review of this radio (and comparison of four other HD tabletop recievers) from December 2006:
NYT's Review (note: site may require registration to read article)
The review focuses on testing digital reception. A brief summary: They did two tests for each receiver: an apartment test and a detached home test. They only tested digital FM stations (they were not close enough to an HD AM station). The reviewer says that all the recievers were "competent-to-strong entrants in this new market." The Sangean HDR-1 has a built in telescoping antenna which worked as well as the T-style FM antennas of the other receivers in the detached house test. In the apartment test (where reception was worse), it did not do well. But according to the reviewer, "substituting a T-style FM antenna for the telescoped one offered reception that came close to being the best of the bunch."
One of the Amazon reviewers discusses AM reception and calls it poor until he adds a passive AM indoor antenna. Then, he says "The sound quality of even standard AM is the best that I have heard on any table top radio." He is one of the more generous reviewers but also uses an added FM antenna for digital reception (vs the telescoping antenna).
So, it looks like for digital FM reception, this is a superb radio together with a cheap T-style FM antenna. For digital AM reception, things may be more tricky (and expensive, since a passive AM antenna is not cheap).
I's still thinking this out, but the 10%/7% Buy.com coupons (Link to FW discussion) are making this look attractive.
efficacyman said: Crappy reviews on Amazon for reception and interface quality. Amazon linkage
andre1000
Senior Member - 2K
posted: May. 30, 2007 @ 11:19p
++gwd302 said: Well, the Amazon.com reviews are not all crappy... So, it looks like for digital FM reception, this is a superb radio together with a cheap T-style FM antenna. For digital AM reception, things may be more tricky (and expensive, since a passive AM antenna is not cheap).
efficacyman said: Crappy reviews on Amazon for reception and interface quality. Amazon linkage
There are about 20 HD radios on rebate. I think the Sangean's are the cheapest from what I read on one site.
Do either Sangean radios, HDT-1 or HDR-1 have a ferrite antenna? Since the HDR-1 is shown with the Terk AM passive antenna , see my note below about similar antenna, that means to me that the HDR-1 has an internal ferrite antenna. And therefor the reception should be better, in my experience, than the other radio with only an AM input for a coil or longwire antenna. (external)
I talked with a few technical people* about AM/FM's AM receivers compared to desktop radios and they both agreed that most any stereo audiophile type receiver's AM reception is junk.
I asked why and they said matter of factly that people don't care about AM radio (marketing research results). I later inferred that audiophiles who DO care about AM get themselves a longwire or other 'wirey' AM antenna to connect to the input AND a ground connection (very important).
When I asked about what can be done. They both said that I could use an external AM antenna. There are many designs to put the amount of power into the AM section to make it work right. The designs are all involved in order to work well. See my two expensive receivers came with AM coils to attach to the AM antenna terminal. The receivers lacked ferrite AM antennas.
I have a Select-A-Tenna, the 'expensive' passive antenna referred to in the previous post. It's about $70 to buy and about $20 to make. It's very easy to make and worked exceedingly well turning even a $1.00 Dollar store radio into a 200 mile away hot selective tuner.
Back to why : On the JVC receiver I owned in 1975 it had an AM ferrite antenna attached to the back and the tuner worked as well as any AM radio around. While my expensive receivers with the AM external connection and coil antenna don't work. Even the Select-A-tenna won't help as the coil is so non- directional that it can't be set up without nulling itself out. (I think).
* The men I spoke with were AM antenna designers who made and sold tunable AM antennas and other types of AM and longwave antennas.
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