14 out of 14 people found this review helpful.
Retro feeling radio with modern sound
Date of Review: Feb 14, 2007
The Bottom Line: This is a remarkably accurate tuner, solidly designed with surprisingly rich sound for its small size. A tad pricey for "just" a radio but you get what you pay for.
I have owned my model one for 5 years and I am constantly moving it, using it as a resting place for various coffee cups and generally treat it roughly. Despite this it is still going strong 5 years later and I continue to love it as being practical and well designed.
I basically wanted a radio / tuner that would be compact, relatively inexpensive and most importantly would be able to tune in a number of AM stations that are very difficult to find at the location I work at. For some reason radio signals have a hard time reaching my workplace so it was incredibly frustrating to drive around town and hear the stations I wanted but as I pulled in to park next to my building the signals would fade. By the time I reached the fourth floor, all radio signal seemed to be repelled from my old boombox.
The Model One is beautiful to look at and is constructed with a strong sense of design and durability. If you love the idea of retro done well then this radio is for you. The front gives you a big knob for tuning, one for volume and a switch for off, AM and FM and that's all you need worry about. Simplicity and elegance to spare. The back is just as spare with input / output an optional antennae input.
Performance wise, short of shelling out big bucks for a high end tuner (which in my research didn't seem to offer much more than the model one) I have been very pleased with the reception I have been able to achieve. The radio is equipped with a yellow LED that gets brighter as you reach the strongest signal for a particular station and the knob style tuner allows you extremely tight control over exactly when a signal sounds strongest / best. The antennae is either a cheap affair single wire out the back or there is a switch that lets you use the power cord as the antennae. I listen mostly to AM and the external antennae is only for FM so I have used the power cord and been very happy with its reception.
What is ultimately remarkable about this little box is the sound it is able to generate. It won't "fill" a room, but the sound is crisp with a surprising deepness to BASS sounds for a single speaker setup. I have used the external input for a portable CD player and have been very happy with the quality of the sound. I would describe the sound as very clear and if you prefer a more atmospheric type of sound this may not be the radio for you. I have found the clarity helps this radio sound bigger than it actually is. I worked with this radio for a summer in a large warehouse space where I was doing a freelance job and never lamented its size.
It's size has also allowed it to become semi-portable between rooms as it invariably will follow me around my space as I move into different rooms for different projects.
The only drawbacks I can see are the mono speaker (there is a stereo version and even a subwoofer for more $)
and for voice only oriented listening (AM talk radio) the sound is a little too deep - a tone control knob would be great. Music listening is really stunning however and the small drawbacks are easily outweighed by the benefits. While ultimately this isn't a "mini system," this radio offers superior sound and remarkable tuning ability.
