clock radios

I was looking for an inexpensive alternative to a Bose Wave alarm clock I had on loan. This product is an excellent choice. Here are some of the highlights I especially like:

- Display has three brightness levels for easy viewing day or night.

- Display is easy to read even though my bed is slightly lower than my nightstand.

- Plays CD-Rs and CD-RWs.

- Radio reception picks up stations in my area I can't get on other radios.

- Sounds great.

- Alarm sound is a nice repeating beep rather than an annoyingly loud buzzer.

- Gentle Wake feature keeps me from being startled out of bed in the morning.

- I can adjust the minimum and maximum volumes of the Gentle Wake feature.

- Dual alarms and weekend sleep functions give me plenty of alarm options.

- Sleep time for radio or CD gives me 10,20,30,60, and 90 minutes options.

- Snooze function gives me 9 minutes. The alarm will not be completely disabled till after an hour of snoozing.

All in all a great buy.

The radio sounds wonderful. You can turn it all the way up to 32 on the volume scale and it sounds like a small stereo boombox. You can set the alarm so that you can wake up to the sounds of your favorite CD. The clock radio is small and compact so that you can take it with you on vacations. It has a headphone jack on the side (and the radio sounds even better with stereo headphones).

So why didn't I give this excellent clock radio 5 stars? Because the gray digital numerals are a little hard to read. With the radio on the dresser right next to where I sleep, it's no problem. And the 3 fluorescent light settings help a little bit, too. But from more than 5 feet away, you have to squint or have the clock radio aimed right at your line of vision to see the time. So when I'm in front of the mirror getting dressed and I glance over to see the time, sometimes I can see it and sometimes I can't.

So if you want an easy to read display, I would look for a clock radio that has a clearer numerical display. But if you keep the radio close to the bed, then this shouldn't be a problem. And the radio sounds so good that I had no problem with obeying my wife and moving my Panasonic boombox to the office.

While this CD/radio/clock has some very attractive features, the sound is absolutely awful. It sounds as if the speakers are under water, or, if you've ever had one of those old 9-volt transistor radios, like the bass is turned all the way up and the treble turned off. CDs and FM radio sound muddy and distorted and AM news/talk is mostly unintelligible.

Since there's no way to tweak any settings to make it listen-able, i've returned the Philips and replaced it with a Sony Dream Machine. The Sony takes up more space and looks like a dopey version of a flying saucer, but it sounds terrific. The Phillips has some features i really like that the Sony doesn't, but ultimately, if it doesn't sound good it's not useable. You'd think that if you were making something to play music, the sound would be a primary concern, but apparently not in this case. That's regrettable.