Digital Radio Review

1. 

   Techno Geek Guru
   January 5th, 2010 - 11:56

   UPDATE: I was so happy with my first IR2000 I purchaced another one for home.

   This is a great radio. I’ve owned it for nearly a week now and it’s worked flawlessly. I was looking for a radio for my desk at work and I couldn’t have made a better choice. Over the past few weeks I read every review I could find about every internet radio on the market. I finally decided on this one. I really love it. The sound is great but don’t expect to be using it on full volume to cover your entire house. Here is my list of likes and dislikes and I hope it helps.
   
   Like’s:
   
   - The size was perfect for my desk
   
   - It looks very stylish
   
   - I fired up the radio and had it working within minutes without reading the manual
   
   - It was very easy to register at [...] and automatically download my radio stations and streams.
   
   - I added some personal streams and they appeared on the screen of the radio within minutes.
   
   - It was very easy to browse stations around the world without the use of my [...] account.
   
   - The Audio sounded really good. Especially for the size of the radio
   
   - WIFI setup was very simple. I moved it from one network to another and it remembered both password keys (WEP & WPA)
   
   - The signal strength was really good especially with an internal antenna
   
   - Navigation on the screen was very simple.
   
   - When available it scrolled song or audio information across the screen. E.g. I tuned into aircraft traffic control after I added it to own streams after finding in on a website and within minutes weather information was scrolling across the screen.
   
   - The remote is simple to use
   
   - External input for an MP3 player, etc is a great addition
   
   - It can stream audio from just about anywhere…..Radio Station Streams, Pandora, Sirius, Your PC, any MP3/REAL Audio/WMA stream off the net….

   Dislike’s:
   
   - The headphone jack is on the back. I use my headphone a lot and it’s a pain having to pull the radio forward each time I want to plug them in. The Aux (External) input should be on the back and the headphone input should be on the front.
   
   - Although it’s good that the radio is light, it tends to slide a little when I press the select button at times.
   
   - I looked at the manual after I got everything working and it’s laid out OK. They could lay it out just a little better.

   Conclusion.

   The radio is well worth the money. It’s very easy to use and setup. The sound is great. The menus are easy to use. It’s built well. In all it’s a fantastic radio. If I were purchase another radio for my desk, beside my bed or on a table in the lounge room, I would buy another one of these for sure. In fact, I’m thinking about it right now. I give this one 5/5.
   
   Rating: 5 / 5
2. 

   L. Lofthouse
   January 5th, 2010 - 13:31

   This review is for the Grace GDI-IR1000 or GDI-IR2000 internet radio. This product is an updated version of the ITC-IR1000. The only difference between toe 1000 and 2000 is that the 2000 has a remote control.

   Network setup was relatively straightforward. I don’t normally broadcast my SSID, and I use MAC address filtering, so before scanning for my network I turned SSID broadcast on and disabled MAC filtering. Once I acquired the network I found the radio’s MAC address and added it to my allowed devices and turned off SSID broadcast again.

   The manual has you connect to[...] where you can register your radio, add stations to your list or set up Pandora. Once you’ve registered you’ll have access to your stations and Pandora directly from the radio. It usually takes about 15 minutes for your radio to be recognized and access your lists. You can also directly access all 15,000 plus radio stations directly from the radio.

   Pandora is the icing on the cake for this radio. Once you’re registered you can add artists or songs and get customized playlists of similar material. You can select an individual artist to create a playlist from or you can choose QuickMix, which will play selections from everything you choose from your list.

   The radio now has 10 presets, using 5 preset buttons plus a shift button for the second 5. This is enough for my needs, but you can always access your favorite stations from the menu if you need more presets.

   One surprise I got early on is that if the Reciva website is down, you won’t receive any radio broadcasts. The clock also won’t function. The upside is that once you configure your time zone the radio clock will synchronize with a network time server.

   Audio quality is very good for a tabletop radio. It’s certainly not hi fi quality, but nice for what the product is.

   Labels on this radio are no longer a problem. They peel off easily in one piece.

   Clock size, as mentioned by others is very small. It would be nice if there was a way to make the clock display larger when the radio isn’t playing.

   When I received my radio, as configured it took about a minute to connect to my network every time I turned it on, plus several seconds to acquire a station after one was selected. It also didn’t remember the last station selected. I never found it in the manual, but under , Stay connected to wireless in standby needs to be set to yes. Now the radio only takes a couple seconds to acquire a station and it remembers the last station selected.

   I’m very happy with this purchase.
   
   Rating: 5 / 5
3. 

   RJC
   January 5th, 2010 - 14:55

   This is a fantastic radio, I’ve owned it for just over a week, with no
   
   issues. I was very positively surprised with the audio quality
   
   produced by the Grace GDI-IR2000. After going into
   
   “Equalization”, in the Settings Menu, adjusting the Treble and
   
   Bass, the sound is amazing. Registering my Grace GDI-IR2000 at
   
   Reciva.com was quick and easy. After setting up an account, I put
   
   in the S/N and radio ID numbers of my radio, that are found in the
   
   settings menu of the radio.

   Pros:
   
   - Fantastic sound quality.
   
   - Had zero issues with connection to Internet
   
   -Ten preset station buttons
   
   - Easy to use menus

   Cons:
   
   - Clock too small, as a clock radio the numbers are only 1/4 the size of the full screen making it difficult to read at night, without my glasses. It would be better if the clock numbers filled the full screen area when in an inactive mode.

   Rating: 5 / 5
4. 

   J. D. Beischel
   January 5th, 2010 - 17:24

   This is my second Internet Radio. They have been popular in Europe for years and finally seem to be catching on in the U.S.A. The Grace radios are really sweet. Not only can they receive over 13,000 stations from across the world, but Grace supports Pandora, Aupeo and even Sirius (you have to pay for Sirius, but all others are free). The set-up is easy and the sound is incredible. We even connected it from the headphone jack to the input of our stereo and it really works great. Although I wish they have an aux output so we could use that instead of the headphone jack. Once you go Internet radio, you’ll never go back to AM/FM or even sat. Even if you still want to listen to your favorite AM/FM station, you can probably still receive it since most stations have an Internet feed. Also, this radio uses the Reciva technology and they support the Clear Channel stations in the U.S.A.
   Rating: 5 / 5
5. 

   Ed Babineau
   January 5th, 2010 - 19:36

   This is a fantastic Internet radio. I spent days comparing every model I could find and reading all of the reviews and the Grace Wifi Radio had the best combination of price, features, sound and looks. I have had it for three weeks now and I haven’t had any issues. The setup was simple and it connects to the stations must faster than my old Acoustic Energy WiFi Radio. The remote control is my favorite feature even though I listen to it when I go to bed I don’t have to reach over to the nightstand I just use the remote. (I know, I’m lazy) I also love that I can search for the stations that I like on the website and then add them to a list and the radio loads them when I turn it on. The only radio that is even close to this is the CC WiFi Radio. It has the same price, has a remote, and is a little smaller but I saw lots of reviews that said the sound quality is terrible compared to the Grace.

   You will love this radio!
   Rating: 5 / 5

Leave a comment