 "THERE'S NOTHING BETTER IN THE MARKET" | 2009-10-06 |
| - Reviewed By User: A24T618VXKI2A6 |
I HAVE A PROTON CLOCK RADIO WHICH IS ALMOST 20 YEARS OLD. AFTER BEING SPOILED SO MANY YEARS WITH THE PROTON I STARTED TO LOOK FOR SOMETHING SIMILAR IN SOUND QUALITY AND FEATURES. I CAME ACROSS THIS CLOCK RADIO AT A LOCAL STORE IN MIAMI FLORIDA AND AFTER PLAYING WITH IT; WITHOUT HESITATION I BOUGHT IT !!!
THE SOUND EVEN IN MONO IS SUPERB. THE AUTO-DIMMING FEATURE IS VERY HANDY FOR PEOPLE WHO PREFER TO SLEEP IN TOTAL DARKNESS.. I ONLY HAD IT FOR A WEEK SO FAR; NO PROBLEMS.I DON'T UNDERSTAND ALL THE PEOPLE WRITING REVIEWS HERE AND COMPLAINING SO MUCH ABOUT EVERY LITTLE THING THE RADIO HAS OR HAS NOT. IT'S A CLOCK RADIO PLEASE!!
CAN'T BE ANY BETTER !!! |
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| "state of the art clock radio/ mp3 player station" | 2009-10-04 |
| - Reviewed By User: ACB3RVKFC49B |
| Everything worked as advertised. The quality of the unit speaks for itself. The tuner pulls in stations you thought you would never get. I connect it with my Creative mp3 player to listen to books on tape. Clear sound with amazing bass. A very compact and hansome unit. It has an extra long antennae wire. You can dim the display- which is bright when the lights are off- I turned it down to '1' and it is still a bit like a night light. You preprogram station and use a dial to cycle through the numbered stations. It seemed like it would have been difficult to program/ operate but it is a breeze. |
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| "Great Sound, Pleasant to Use" | 2009-09-28 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2AIK3IWR5F83I |
I've had this radio/alarm clock for about six months, and I've been using it daily. It sounds better than any other clock radio I've ever used. The sound isn't audiophile perfect -- to get good sound out of a box this small, you have to make design choices, and the sound can get a little weird if, for example, you're listening directly on either side of the radio -- but it's really very pleasant to listen to. Makes radio (both speech and music) sound great, and does the same for songs on my iPod. Good reception, better than other radios in my house.
The user interface can be a tiny bit tricky, but I actually prefer that to the other option, which is cluttering the face of the radio up with tons of buttons and knobs. I wish the display could be dimmed a bit more, as well. I like that you can put the presets in any order you want; I like the dual alarm feature, with different wake settings (e.g. radio/beep) for the two alarms, and I like how small it is for what it does. Overall, quite pleased and considering one for my office. |
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 "Everything I had hoped for" | 2009-09-14 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1DVBN35XL1OE5 |
| I have looked for a bedside clock radio for the past year and had found that either they were very cheap or very expensive. I was looking for a radio that had digital tuning and decent sound. The less expensive models were all analog tuning that made going from specific AM stations to specific FM stations something of a challenge and sounded tiney. The Bose Wave radios and Cambridge SoundWorks radios sounded great, but were too expensive for a bedside radio. The Boston Acoustics HSOLONDNT Horizon Solo was everything I had hoped for in a radio. It sounds great, is moderately priced, and moving around the presets to both AM and FM stations is very easy. I have really enjoyed this radio and have already recommended it to several friends. |
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| "Terrific Radio, Decent Alarm Clock" | 2009-09-13 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1T1XV3X5PRXV1 |
Overall, I'm pleased with the Solo, but there are some weak spots that are disappointing for the money it costs. I've given the Solo four stars because of the excellent radio and because the alarm clock deficiencies are not too bad.
The radio is the shining star. It produces clear, fairly wide range sound from weak stations. I tried several different clock radios, across a broad range of prices and brands, and none came close to the sound quality or clarity on the one station I was most interested in hearing. Some of the competing products could not even tune in that station, much less produce acceptable sound.
The 3½" full range driver does not produce audiophile quality sound, but it does provide good quality sound with solid mid-bass, midrange, and treble for clear, wide range sound unexpected in such a small radio. The driver also delivers room filling sound. You can't use the radio for a party, but it doesn't fall far short of it!
Where the Solo falters is in the alarm clock functionality. The display is attractive and provides many clear display elements, rather than glowing dots alongside bezel labels as is so often the case. However, the contrast of the display falls off significantly as you move off axis (as you look at it from the right or left or from above or below). Furthermore, the blue background is luminescent, so the entire display emits light. This is the source of more light than desirable for a clock radio. Many have complained about the light being too bright. On its lowest setting, it is not as bright as a night light, though it is still too bright. The problem is that the contrast decreases with the brightness. I have mine set at 3 (nearly the dimmest setting) and I point it nearly parallel with the side of my bed. It's actually angled very slightly toward the bed. With that configuration, the time is just readable and the display is not too bright. If the display were dark except where the digit segments and other display elements appear, it would probably be ideal.
Others have complained about the touch snooze. The outer, rectangular edge of the front of the radio is touch sensitive. One touch snoozes for 10 minutes. Another touch adds five minutes. As others have noted, it is rather easy to add too many minutes with what feels like a single touch. The radio should require a longer time between what it senses as distinct touches to avoid this. What's more, it should be possible to wrap the snooze time from the maximum of 60 minutes, back to zero and beyond in order to correct a too large snooze time. As it is, when the snooze time reaches 60 minutes, you cannot change it. It would also be useful if one could configure the initial snooze time. Ten minutes is rather long. I'd like to be able to set five minutes instead of 10. Other clocks permit snoozing for seven minutes or other odd times, so it would be helpful to configure the snooze increment and then each touch should add that amount of time rather than one large initial time and a smaller increment thereafter. A nice touch is that once the snooze is active, touching the snooze "bar" shows how much time remains before the alarm will sound again.
The alarm can be set for radio only, tone only, or both. It wakes you gently by starting from a low volume level and slowly increasing the level until it reaches your preset level. This can be helpful if you wake easily enough as you can avoid waking your spouse if you catch it soon enough. If you choose both radio and tone, the radio sounds first, with the volume slowly building from the lowest level. If the radio plays for ten minutes, then the tone begins, once again building from the lowest level. Unfortunately, the radio's volume level will be reset to zero(!) if the alarm switches from radio to tone. That means you really need to check the volume level each night to ensure the alarm will wake you the next day.
My final complaint is that while there are two alarms, they cannot be configured for weekday versus weekend. You must remember to turn on or off each alarm, as appropriate, to get weekday and weekend alarms.
I've learned to deal with most of my complaints, but they do detract from what could have been an ideal product. One can only hope that Boston Acoustics addresses these issues. If they do, they'll have the ideal clock radio. |
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