Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Apparently they are sending a totally different version of this radio now compared to what was available when many of these reviews were written. The radio they are sending now (8-2009) is a heavy but cheap plastic radio with low end components. The sound is fairly harsh in the midrange and treble due to surprising amounts of high frequency distortion at all volumes. The sound breaks up completely into noise and distortion with the volume set past 3-4 on FM. It's not the speaker distorting, the problem is the tiny amp rated at 1/4 to 1/3 watt and low voltage power supplies. The 1/3 watt power readings are fairly accurate as they are based on actual electronic measurements with a quality true RMS Volt and watt meter. While being physically large, this radio has 1/10th the output power of a decent, 4 watt mp3/clock radio setup. Due to it's size it gets loud enough to use in a typical kitchen or living room setting but it's easily surpassed in reception, sound quality and volume by pretty much any decent quality boombox and most amplified mp3 or computer speakers. The original GE SuperRadio woofer has been replaced with a lighter speaker with a smaller magnet and a thin lightweight cone. There is a separate tweeter for clarity but that's not helping in this case with the small amp that distorts the treble response easily. On the plus side the batteries will last a long time because the small amp doesn't take much power. They should replace the amp with a better one and consider changing the design over to AA batteries instead of D cells since it would still run a long time even on AA's and the radio could be built at half the size and weight while sounding better. The AFC button (auto frequency control) has a design flaw in the circuitry that reduces the bass response by 3-4dB when enabled. The rotary knobs have a large amount of slop in the mechanism even when new. Good tuner designs (even very sensitive ones) can be quiet between stations but they didn't try much on this one. It has loud noise and distortion between FM stations and the noise is actually louder than the stations themselves. Even a tiny Sandisk $29 Sansa mp3 player that I compared to gets more stations and sounds clearer. I own the original GE SuperRadio and have realistic expectations so I felt inclined to let people know that this is not the same product. After reading some reviews talking about the wonderful sound quality I felt obligated to provide more technical information of the current product.