TABLETOP HD RADIO

The only radio in our house that could pick up the closest NPR station
was going in for it's sixth repair. "That's it!" I said. "We need to
find something else." I started my research, read lots of reviews
and decided, knowing I could return it if it didn't work for us,
on Visteon's Tabletop HD Radio. The first surprise was that I could
set it up myself. It was easy, quick and no frustration. I set it
to our elusive NPR station and the signal was the best. It takes up
much less space than our old radio and is very attractive. We listen
to the usual morning wake up stuff that we always listened to and
now we are picking up other segments throughout the day especially
Jazz late at night. We are so happy with the purchase!

I work for an NPR station and wanted an HD radio to listen to news programming and our two HD channels. I didn't want to invest $400 in a Polk so after reading good reviews, i ordered this one. I love this radio! The sound is wonderful and the reception is great. It is an entirely new listening experience- clear and resonant. I strongly recommend this radio especially in view of the price. As other reviewers noted, it is easy to operate. I plugged it in, attached the antenna and was ready to listen within minutes.

I realized that being a "gadget guru" means I should really get one of these HD radios. Well, I bought this one. What a disappointment. I listen to AM radio and live in Hartford, CT. I thought that not only would I be able to listen to WTIC AM in HD but that I could at least also listen to "distant" regular AM broadcasts such as WCBS or 1010 WINS out of New York.

This radio works ONLY as an HD receiver and not a great one at that.

Do not bother with purchasing this radio unless you live in a place that may have true alternative broadcasts and / or your regular stations would come in. Very poor local reception as well.

After research on the internet I bought this radio and almost sent it back after the first night of using it next to my bed. The 2.25 inch diameter tuning dial has a bright blue light ring surrounding the circumference. That is 7 lineal inches of bright blue light that cannot be dimmed or turned off when the radio is powered on. I can read a large print book in the dark from this light alone. It gives off much more light than a night light. And even the backlight on the display is too much. With backlight and contrast lighting at their lowest settings, and the radio off, there is more light there than I want when I want to go to sleep. I am going to make a small opaque screen that I can set in front of the display at night to block the light.

Also, the mono/stereo switch, speaker balance switch, and un-switched earphone jack are all crowded together on the back of the radio. Try fumbling with an adjustment from the bed after lights are out.

I am going to keep the radio because it does give good sound with the additional speaker. I am using a small Radio Shack speaker for the right channel. The speaker in the radio is on top of the cabinet. Don't accidentally spill your night-time glass of warm milk!

My opinion for design improvements: 1) Put the tuning dial on the right end of the cabinet without the light ring. 2) Move the tuning information display from the front left of the cabinet to the front right.
Do not backlight it and do use red alpha-numerics only that can be adjusted for brightness. 3) Move the speaker from the top of the radio to the front left. 4) Put the mono/stereo switch, the stereo balance knob, and the earphone jack on the front of the radio where they are functional. Also add a switch to the front to alternate between speakers and earphones so you do not have to plug/unplug the earphones to use them. 5) And make the power on/off switch larger than the other buttons, maybe with a little red dot of light on it.

I think this would improve the functionality of the radio greatly for those of us who like to read in bed at night or listen to music after lights are out.

The sound quality of this radio is quite good, although not significantly better than the conventional radios that we have. It has some difficulty picking up the HD transmission from stations that are 30-40 miles away, but picks up the conventional transmission of those stations with no problem. It is somewhat larger than I expected (about 11.5 cm H x 21.5 cm W x 13 cm D), but the biggest space hog is the huge transformer that comes with it, with a heavy-duty, bulky cord. The transformer must have capacity to support 20 times the power consumed by the radio. I wanted to set up the radio on a counter top, and the transformer must be on the counter top too, but it takes up too much space.