|
||||||
Reviewed By Daniel Marsalone(Audiophile) From New Orleans, Louisiana Review Date 06/03/2001 Overall Rating  4 of 5 Value Rating  2 of 5 Visitors rate this review 5.00 of 5, 1 votes Rate this review? Price Paid: $150.00 from ccrane.com Summary First the good, the CCRadio can tune in loads of AM stations. It is also an contains an exceptional FM tuner. The real treat for me are the presets and digital tuning. This just makes the radio so much more convenient, you can easily hop back and forth to other stations during a commercial break to check out whats going on on elsewhere. Great for those times when one is in one of those short attention span phases in their biorhythms. Also killer is the backlight. You can tune this puppy in bed without haveing to switch a lamp on. There are many other little features that make this guy a pleasure to use like the auto power detection for AC/DC. CCrane truly expend a great amount of effort to find out what sort of useful features radio listeners desired. Usually with radios you'll find one radio that has one useful feature and another that pulls in stations like a mother, etc. but never one that has all the great creature comforts and radio performance rolled into one unit until now with the CCRadio.Now on to the negatives. My biggest complaint with this guy is the audio quality. The fact is that it isn't bad compared with most other radios. The CCRadio sound is just average. You'd figure that with CCrane setting a high standard for the radio performance and feature set that they'd try to maintain a high standard in the audio department as well but hey don't and that is what disappoints. It sounds good through headphones but who wants to listen through the phones if they don't have to. Another quibble I have with the CCRadio is the handle. You can't get a positive lock with your hand around it like with a strap or bar as on other radios. I think that it is neat that there is no hinged bar to interfere with the antenna, or break off. The feeling leaves one a little insecure about toting the heavy and expensive radio around and really makes one excercis caution when doing so, much like carrying a full cup of hot cocoa upstairs. I think that CCrane should improve on the idea and keep the handle where it is but remove material in the present case to render the current handle into a recessed bar. That way you'd be able to get your thumb around it and not worry about it slipping out of your hand. The main rival of the CCradio is the GE SuperRadio. The SuperRadio has some of the best audio you'll find on a portable. Listening to music on FM is pleasurable and more important desirable with GE. The CCRadio is weak compared to the GE. The ad copy states that the CCRadio was design for good vocal reproduction as most AM cats listen to talk radio. But while the CCRadio actually handles the audio demands of talk radio decently, the GE is even better at talk too. As far as tuning... I find that the GE can pull in as many stations as the CCRadio. FYI when used with a tunable external loop antenna like the Select-A-Tenna and Terk reception is improved remarkably. Pricewise the GE is only about $40 to $50 making it a C-note cheaper than the CCRadio but the GE lack almost all of the features of the CCRadio. Overall I use my GE Super Radio more than the CC. as I mainly listen to radio at night when there isn't much good stuff on so I don't have the need for presets usually I'll listen to Phil Hendrie and Art Bell and just keep it locked in. On the weekends during football season however, the CCRadio truly shines allowing me to flip back and forth, with ease due to the presets, between several football games. If the CCRadio was priced at $100 it'd be a great buy and I'd recommend it to one and all, except those that listen to FM a lot and might want the better fidelity that the GE SuperRadio III gives. At $150 the CCRadio is a little pricey and makes the GE an even more attractive choice. Basically the $150 price tag will make one think about what features of the CC will truly be useful and necessary. Strength Fantastic sensitivity and selectivity on AM and FM. Loaded with convenient features.Weakness It is Overpriced. Sound quality is weak. Handle makes me worry about dropping it especially as it is heavy.Would you like to Comment? Join audioReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member. Reviewed By Steve Lessman(Audiophile) From Milwaukee Review Date 05/21/2001 Overall Rating  5 of 5 Value Rating 2 of 5 Visitors rate this review 3.67 of 5, 3 votes Rate this review? Price Paid: $159.00 from ccrane Summary Everyone raves about the great AM sensitivity on this radio, and I have confirmed that this is indeed the best radio at picking up distant AM stations. However, no one, even the manufacturer or magazine test reviewers mention how great the FM is at getting distant stations as well! I can get FM stations that my stereo with the outdoor directional antenna can not pick up, and get this... with the telescoping whip antenna on the CCradio all the way down! As a matter of fact, pulling the whip up seems to not really add much to the reception, so I just leave it down. I can't figure out why the great FM reception for distant stations is never mentioned anywhere. It is just as impressive as the AM reception. Too good to be true, as most radios have good FM tuners and really poor AM tuners, and I figured since this radio was mainly designed for AM, that the FM tuner would not have been that great, but it is the best.Strength Great Reception on AM AND FMWeakness High PricedWould you like to Comment? Join audioReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member. Reviewed By Mike(Casual Listener) From NY, NY Review Date 02/06/2001 Overall Rating 5 of 5 Value Rating 5 of 5 Visitors rate this review 1.00 of 5, 1 votes Rate this review? Price Paid: $130.00 from C. Crane Company Summary The ad hype on this radio claims it's the best AM radio available. I have been trying out many different receivers for the last 5 or 6 years since I really got bit by the radio listening bug. I have found generally that even multi-hundred dollars shortwave portables have mediocre mediumwave (that's AM broadcast) performance, and so have become wary of hype. But the bottom line is that the CCRadio really does exhibit the best performance of any modern AM radio I've tried, getting more stations, and more audibly, than even the benchmark GE Super Radio III. I have a Grundig Satellit 800 AM/FM/SW radio (they sell for $500 new) which SOMETIMES outdoes the CCRadio because it uses an external antenna, but sometimes the CCRadio is better than even the Grundig.The only real weakness is a low-level hum, even when the volume is all the way down, although I think most people would not be bothered by it - I bought a returned "orphan" from CCrane, so maybe most units do not hum. Also, the buttons for the dial light and changing bands are a little small, but that's minor and you get used to finding them quickly. See www.ccrane.com for good commonsense advice on AM listening. And the hype is true for once - this IS the best AM radio on the market. Some say $160 is a little steep, but if you listen to a lot of AM radio, I'd say it's a bargain. How much do you really use that $250 DVD player you bought??? Ever try finding a weak station at night with an old analog radio like the GE Super Radio? It wastes a big chunk of your time. The CCradio's cool backlit digital tuning beats analog HANDS DOWN!! Strength Best AM radio currently in production.Weakness Low level hum, even with volume all the way down.Would you like to Comment? Join audioReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member. Reviewed By Mediahound(Audio Enthusiast) From San Rafael, CA Review Date 08/08/2000 Overall Rating 5 of 5 Value Rating 4 of 5 Rate this review? Price Paid: $160.00 from www.ccrane.com Summary My intial impression when taking this radio out of it's box was that it was bigger and heavier than I expected. It's more of an appliance, than a portable. That being said, it's still smaller and better looking than it's competitor, the GE Superradio. There is a handle on the back of the CCRadio which does make it easier to pick up and carry, something I do often when I'm listening to it and I want to walk into another room without missing anything. The CCRadio is not a pocket radio that you can pack in your luggage on an airplane trip, but it is small enough that I would take with me on a car trip. Normally though, it remains in my home office and/or bedroom.This radio performs and sounds extremely well on the AM band and I have had good performance on the FM band as well, with the built in stock antenna. I'm in Northern California and was able to pickup Utah and Los Angeles AM stations at night with no problems. I like the features and design of the radio. It has digital tuning, a clock, sleep timer function, alarm and a switchable lit display. I like that when listening to the radio, if you disconnect the AC power cord, it automatically switches over to battery power (and vise versa) with no interruption of service. I also like that you can choose to have the radio display the time or the station you are set to and the radio stays where you left it. For the price, I feel that this radio is slightly expensive. I would have rather paid about $100. for it, although I don't regret buying it even though I paid more. Some people have complained that this radio has muffled sound. I have not found it's sound to be muffled at all. On the contrary, the speaker sounds very nice and is a joy to listen to for many hours at a time. It's supposed to be optimized for voice though, so if you are looking for something to listen to music on, this radio is not the best choice. For me, I use this radio to listen to talk radio and news (including NPR on FM), and for this purpose, it excels. When I want to listen to hi-fi music, I turn on my home stereo or portable CD player with headphones. The CCrane company offers a full 30 day money back guarantee so I'd recommend you try the radio out for yourself, with plans on just returning it if you end up not liking it. That's what I did and I ended up liking it and not returning it. If you listen to news, sports and talk radio this is a good radio to purchase. Strength Good sound, pulls in stations well, nice feature set, nice design and build.Weakness Slightly larger and heavier than expected, headphone jack output is mono only. A bit too expensive.Would you like to Comment? Join audioReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member. Reviewed By Michael(Audio Enthusiast) From Tulsa, OK Review Date 07/19/2000 Overall Rating 5 of 5 Value Rating 5 of 5 Visitors rate this review 1.80 of 5, 5 votes Rate this review? Summary When I first read about this radio I was searching the net for a good AM antenna to improve the reception of a radio I used primarily for listening to talk radio. In my search, I found a review of what was claimed to be "the World's BEST AM Radio". I was skeptical, but ordered the C.C. Radio for a trial. WOW! This radio is truly the best AM radio I have had the please to use.The C.C. Radio is a digital radio which tunes AM from 520 to 1710 kHz, FM from 87.5 to 108 MHz, VHF TV audio Channels 2 to 13 and NOAA weather from 162.400 to 162.550 MHz. Separate Bass and Treble combined with a 5 inch speaker tuned to reproduce the human voice, provide truly exceptional AM fidelity. Fine tuning on the AM band is in 1 kHz steps. AM sensitivity is excellent, and the ability to tune in 1 kHz increments allows me to tune-in weak distant stations, even when they are adjacent to strong local ones. The radio can store 5 stations into memory on each band. The built-in weather band easily tunes my local NOAA weather station for current weather conditions. The radio features a special Weather Alert feature which can be set to either flash a visual signal or sound an alarm to notify me of weather emergency updates. Be careful though, I found that the alarm really startled be at night when I was awakened by an alert. I now only use the visual signal! FM reception is good, but FM sound is only mediocre. If you are interested in FM radio, the Model 88 radio designed by Henry Kloss (Cambridge Sound Works)is excellent. It is the radio the Bose Wave Radio should have been and is less than one-half the price. I am very impressed with the build quality and AM performance of the C.C. Radio. For AM tuning and listening, it easliy out performs any other portable or table top radio I have used, including the AM section of my Yamaha 2095 receiver. I enjoy listening to this radio. Is it truly "The World's BEST AM Radio?" I happen to think it just may be! Strength The C.C. Radio has exceptional AM reception. The speaker is tuned to play human voices, which makes listening to talk radio a real pleasure.Weakness FM reception is good, but the sound quality of music on the radio is average at best. If you want exceptual FM radio listening, the KLOSS Model 88 is a must hear.Would you like to Comment? Join audioReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member.
 |
|
3.5 of 5
|
|
