Reply With QuoteAre you not considering replacing your radio with another Roberts? I'm very happy with all three of mine.
Ok my old Roberts has given up, I'm looking fora radio to sit in my office and play radio 4 all day. No fancy add on just the best sound quality. Can anyone recommend a model and make please?
Are you not considering replacing your radio with another Roberts? I'm very happy with all three of mine.
PURE are a good brand, mine's been chugging along with no issues for several years now.
Good to see there are other R4 fans on site
Roberts Revival RD60. I love mine.
Happy to buy another Roberts, but which has the best sound quality, they seem more interested in how it looks at the moment.Originally Posted by JeremyO
I have just ordered a Pure evoke 1 for my Dad £57 from Pure outlet (refurb)
we have a couple at work and are very clear
How about a Pure One Classic? DAB and FM, pause/time shift, and an aux input for iPod etc.?
The only way to see if the sound meets your criteria is to listen to the particular radio you are interested in. I went to my local Roberts dealer and asked for a demo before I bought any of mine. That said, I think the Revival has the best sound quality, something to do with it being of wooden construction, I'm told.
Buy a Ruark R1 if sound quality matters. Rod
i use a rakou soundbridge 1000, yes it is nearly as old as myself, yes it needs an amp and speakers, or one of the new fangled yokes that has a radio and speaker built in, also wifi is a necessety, it has an active community when ever i require them, as my 1000 has been confined to the history books you will need to check their websit for the newfangled yokes, i have this for more years than i can remember to only thing that needed replaceing was the wifi card, the replacement i found on fleabay for a fiver delivered.
Agreed. Real depth, like the person is there next to you.
Grundig used to make the nicest sounding radios .....not sure if their current range is akin to what they were....
Modern Grundig and Roberts radios are a very poor imitation of their forbears, having poor quality receivers, cheaply made and packaged in a "snazzy" casing.
Interesting. I can't vouch for the Grundig as I don't have one here, but I thought I would take a closer look at my Roberts Revival following your comment above.
The sound quality on mine, for a kitchen radio, is excellent whether you're listening to an FM or Digital Audio Broadcast. Comparing it to my fathers 1960's Roberts R700, the revival sounds a whole lot better, which thinking logically I suppose it should.
The receiver doesn't appear to me to be poor quality. I lock it onto a DAB channel and it's rock solid - no dropouts at all. The FM receiver is actually better than the Marantz one on my hifi separates, and that is connected to a professionally installed roof mounted aerial. It may be that the signal is stronger in my kitchen than on my roof, I don't know. All I know is there are no complaints from me about poor FM reception with the revival.
I've opened up the large hinged door and from the inside the cabinet it looks like it's made from MDF, then covered with the padded leatherette finish. I think the originals were made from ply as opposed to MDF so the original would score higher in that respect. However the quality of the components and the fit and finish of the inside of the cabinet looks to me to be top notch. The fit and finish on the outside of the cabinet is beyond reproach, there isn't anything I can see that would lead me to believe that it hasn't been assembled with care using quality components.
Roberts Revivals carry individual serial numbers that allow quality control tracking back to who assembled the unit, and what batches the components came from. Useful if you do ever experience problems I suppose.
Comparing it to my fathers 1960's model, whilst the R700 is a classic it certainly doesn't look any better made than my recently purchased revival, and in many respects the R700 looks to be of a poorer finish. This could be attributed to the fact that it's getting on for 44 years old, but it has led a sheltered life in his study and hasn't been abused.
Having studied my radio and compared it to my fathers one, I can't see that the Roberts part of your comment is based on experience.
another vote for the pure. we have a couple they have been very good.
johnw
Can heartily recommend the Pure Evoke 1S, amazed at the sound they can get from a small 3" speaker. It may be a little plummy and warm but it is not fatiguing if you have the radio on all day. Best auditioned with Henry Blofeld commentating :-)
If you have a little more space then why not a micro DAB/CD? I've a Denon DM38 with a pair of Wharfedale Diamond bookshelf speakers in my kitchen and can safely say that something like this will make any one unit radio sound like an empty tin of beans with string attached! You only need about 20 inches in width and about 11 inches depth for the lot.
PS There's also the option of playing the odd CD too.
AS already mentioned, Ruark (Vita Audio) R1. Slightly expensive but worth it for the quality.
Of course, if you have speakers attached to your PC, there's always: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/bbc_radio_fourfm
Actually, the comments were based on extensive lab tests, conducted by my good self a couple of years back.
Do you work for which magazine or equivalent?
Rod you've never been wrong before, but these aren't cheap, are they as good as you say?
For listening to spoken radio (not so much music) I've been very happy with a Tivoli Model One I bought a few year back...
I have 3 Vita Audio (now Ruark) R1 radios - each for kitchen, bedroom and 2nd home. The best sound from a radio I have ever heard (as above, it's as if the speaker is in the same room as you). I have bought wood veneer every time as I don't see the logic in paying £20 more for a prettier finish.
Expensive I agree, but worth it in my opinion.
If you buy from Peter Tyson, you get a 3 year warranty (and a free carry case!). I bought all of mine from here for the warranty.
No. At the time I worked for probably the best R&D organisation in the UK.
To be honest, most of the magazine reviewers couldn't identify a fart in a paper bag so I'd be very wary of taking anything they might say with a huge, coronary-inducing pinch of salt.
One more thing to note is that the equipment which people think sounds best is often quite poor technical perfomance kit; as an example the Tivoli FM receivers (which the HiFi press absolutely loved and said they were the best thing since the proverbial) were the most awful perfomance FM receivers on the market (including most of the £3 market-stall jobbies) and were massively overpriced tat.
:D
Jason
Ouch! :-) :-)
Heh, just noticed your earlier post about the Tivoli you bought! Sorry about that but they really were quite poor; image rejection, selectivity and sensitivity were all pretty abysmal. One of my colleagues at the time loved his (which was one of the units I tested) and was distraught to find that it was very much not what he expected. We opened it up to find a nice looking but poorly designed receiver, wonderfully executed in the finest chinese components. ;)
Still, if it works for you and you like the sound then that's fine.
To be fair I rarely used it on FM, mostly as a speaker for Internet radio coming from another device. I did quite like the warmth of the sound from it, but equally I didn't have many other units to compare to....
[QUOTE=justin44;2421737]Rod you've never been wrong before, but these aren't cheap, are they as good as you say?[/QUOTE
They aren't cheap to make, and you'll see that when you look at the build quality. I've had all the radios mentioned here in my hands at some point but the Ruark has shown itself the best. The construction aids the sound quality together with quality speaker.
Rod
My brother bought a Vita (Ruark) Audio R4 and I was blown away by the quality. So much so that I'll be getting one myself at some point. They really are that good.
If the R2 is anything at all like it then you'll be very happy despite the price.
I bought a Revo Axis for the bedroom which i've been very pleased with so far. It's got a touchscreen, wifi and streaming from a PC, Internet, DAB, Dock, etc. The sound quality isn't really in the same league as the Vita/Ruark stuff though.
Posting Permissions