Honestly can’t believe it. I know nobody listens to the radio (except I always do in the car) but did you know it’s almost impossible to buy a decent small am fm radio?
Wanted to buy one for my 5 yo kid to listen to music. She loves singing in the car.
I figured must be easy to get something kinda nice. Analog. Like a Panasonic or Sony. Cheap because it’s just a radio.
Nope. Pretty much impossible.
I found one Sony but seems expensive. Otherwise it’s all random brands on Amazon. Sure, they all work fine but I’m kinda shocked you can’t get a small simple nice radio.
Yep. I feel old.
I bought the shitty $20.
It’s crap. I regret it.
I’ve literally spent hours looking for a nice designed radio that is inexpensive. I don’t need a Tivoli for $200 or audiophile quality.
Here’s a novel idea:
Get a used one (ebay?), with ol’ skool authentic charm, design sensibility, build quality and maybe even a bit of patina
Cheaper (maybe) and much better…
I like taking my Sony Walkman radio to the baseball games to listen to the broadcast while watching the action live from the nosebleeds (there is significant lag when streaming over the internet). The problem I have now is I can’t connect my radio to my Bluetooth headphones.
One of the last local stores in Montreal sold my wife a crappy one that didn’t even work. They refused to return it too. This is why they will likely close soon.
I own both. They are solid, well built, pretty easy to use, at least compared to the trash everywhere else. The sound is OK too. I think this is the only company at the low end that gives an eff.
I hate to link to Amazon, especially this week, but that’s life in 2024 isn’t it?
Sony ICF-C703. Had one, loved this thing, was the last clock radio I owned. I had it atop a pile of boxes while moving in downtown Boston and when I turned my head someone stole the f***ing thing. So sad. It really worked well for what you want radio functions to do, and had that characteristic Sony style.
If you really want to you can snag a little rechargeable aux to Bluetooth transmitter dongle for pretty cheap. We do the opposite (Bluetooth receiver to aux dongle) on our analog Tivoli stereo, and it works great.
As others have noted, eBay. And as a bonus, a used portable Sony SW FM AM radio is barely more than a Sony FM AM radio.
For sure, your 5 yo daughter might just want to sing (to FM), but in a few year’s time she might enjoy letting SW aid her imagination in travelling around the world.
Your situation aside, another bonus of FM radios over digital devices is the incredible battery life. (Though removing AA batteries from the radio to charge them is more effort than just plugging the radio in. Hmmm. Some Sony Discmans had a Ni-cad battery that fitted in place of two AA batteries and could be charged inside the Discman. I don’t know if they did this with any radios)
LongDownD: Are you in the US/Canada? Last time I listened to Shortwave (10+ years ago), it was almost all religious broadcasts. I think all the international broadcasters have moved to streaming audio.
I do miss shortwave though and thank god for NPR / CBC and what little public and college radio remains!
My shelf radio is dying and I noticed that Panasonic has some OK shelf radios. This is another category that has been destroyed by Sonos. Denon also has some, but for 4x the price.
Sony has always made some amazing miniature AM/FM radios for the UK market, and they continue to do so with DAB (digital broadcast) models. I owned a few different versions of SRF (e.g. M95) models over the years which you can still find on eBay and run off 2 x AAA batteries.
