Radios Reviews

I read the other person's interview, but still decided to try it. The farthest reception I got was when I was 0.5 Miles away from home (according to my GPS), I was able to talk to my husband. Even then, the sound was garbled with static, even when I was on the GMRS (not FPS) mode.

We tried using it in a mall (garden state plaza, NJ), and my husband and I could SEE each other, and we only saw our mouths move, but no sound came from our cobra LI6050's. Needless to say, it was bit embarrasing.

I just returned them and got the Motorla SX700R. Friend has a set, and we used them in camping trip and it works great. It says 12mile range, which also is a fiction, but at least it works in closer ranges.

I am throughly disappointed with the Cobras.

17 Mile range?????? Hahahahahahahaah.

These radios have an effective range of approx. 2 miles. Do not buy them, instead go with a cheaper Motorola model that will give you better range and performance. The batteries also are failing to hold a full charge.

I have used several Garmin GPS units in the past and was really undecided over the Quest II or the more expensive units. Once I received this unit it did all and more than what I was expecting. Unit is fast in calculating routes as long as you select what regions you will be traveling to, is very user friendly and highly recommended if you understand using GPS units.....I am very satisfied with this unit!

Firmware v2.6 greatly increased overall speed of this unit. I was a little doubtful in February when I bought this, but it is now amazingly fast on POI search as well as route recalculation.

I bought this because even though I never have had difficulty reading maps, it is a royal pain to do it on a motorcycle! I have the Quest II mounted on the handlebar by the left grip ('91 BMW K100RS) with the RAM mounting system. Though it is has an integral battery, I opt to power it by the motorcycle battery, because I like to leave the background light on all the time at night when driving. I bought the Garmin motorcycle accessory mount for this which provides power and audo connectibility.

I was a little concerned at first when I saw the screen size, 'cause I thought it a bit small, but it is not a problem. When it is time for a turn, the screen zooms in and increases the type size so it's no struggle at all to read. However, I also have the audio hooked up to my AUTOCOM Intercom system so I also hear the voice alerts. Very impressive. It tells you (both visual and voice) well ahead of time that you will have a turn coming up to the right, so you then have more than adequate time to move over into the right lane. The next audio alert allows much time for braking and signalling. I look at the screen to confirm (I'm just that way), and it's never been wrong yet. I took a trip to Asheville (NC) this weekend and punched in the address for the restaurant we wanted to go to, and when it was time for dinner I hit "find" and it routed correctly through three freeway changes, tricky on-off ramp routing and one-way streets to basically a back-alley address. Incredible. I know that even with great map-reading skills a master navigator couldn't have done the same so efficiently with the kind of maps most of us carry (state, not city, maps).

If for some reason the map CD is not included in the box (because the map is preloaded on the unit they say), contact Garmin and they will mail you one (free). Advance route mapping is so much easier on your computer than trying to do it on the unit itself. This is especially important for motorcycle riders who usually do not want to go from point A to point B in the most direct manner (we like the scenic routes).

I'm into maximum bang for the buck. This is it. You can spend twice as much, but why?

I purchased these headphones at the same time as my new XM player. I'm in a tree-covered area and didn't expect great signal from the player's antenna alone. This was an incredibly great purchase. It arrived in 2 business days, at the standard shipping price. The sound quality is excellant (another reviewer said that it was only monoaural and not stereo... his must have been broken or not correctly plugged in). The headphones do work for other non-XM radio devices (the plug is the standard size). The extra volume wheel on the right earpiece is very useful for times when you want to leave the player in your pocket or bag. My only complaints: the headphones rest a tad loosely on my head, so when I'm working in the garden and bending my head down, they occasionly tilt forward or slide off. Not a major problem, but worth noting. I'm not a fan of earbuds so this was a necessary purchase; plus the reception improvement has made this absolutely worth the price.

Purchased my Xm2Go in December '04. Never was impressed with the personal antenna for portable use. I was heading for two weeks at the beach again this summer (east coast) and didn't want to deal with the old antenna, which had to be aimed "just so" for a good signal ON THE BEACH! Decided to try this unit (couldn't be any worse?) and WOW WHAT A DIFFERENCE! Crystal clear reception, and better sound quality than the original ear buds. NEVER lost the signal, sitting on the sand or walking in the surf. Volume control on the right ear-cup was an added bonus. To lose the signal (an experiment) I had to stand by the trunk of a 30 foot tree in full bloom! WORTH EVERY PENNY!

I AM VERY HAPPY WITH MY PURCHASE AND THE SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME IT TOOK TO RECEIVE IT AND THE LOWER PRICE.

I did not do enough research before buying this scanner. You cannot connect it to a computer to program. Everything has to be manually programmed. It arrived blank. It is not user friendly and takes quite a bit of work to learn how to program. It is not for new users, The scanner works well after you get it programmed,

I don't know much about scanners so I read all the reviews and download the manual, read it and found out that the police frequencies where pre-programmed for scan. So I figured I could scan police frequencies. Well they forgot to write the part that says that all police frequencies are coded and you can't hear a thing. So if you want to scan anything but the police this is your scanner.
This scanner is great for airplanes

This is a good scanner if you do not mind having the 800 mhz unavailable. Easy to use. Good price. Long wait time if you need to return this item to Amazon. BC92XLT from J&R Electronics has the 800 mhz for $30 more.

Hardware awesome, software a flop. Since you HAVE to use their software the package is destroyed. I will give you the final nail on the coffin for me. I tried to put Podcasts on the device using the latest SonicStage 4. No chance. It wants to be able to find each "artist" in the Sony library. This was bad for the odd bit of music it could not find but obviously it can not find the podcasts in their library.

I had bought one of these and had considered one for the girlfriend - no chance now. Shame as the hardware was A1.

I bought this walkman, watched the tutorial on the softwear before I even opend the product and have had no promlems whatso ever, except i bought it to use at the gym and apparently sony thinks everyone is right handed, so the left ear bud has no cord at all! but i got diffrent ear phones and i love it, the sound qaulity is great, and while the software takes alittle while to load everything, it isnt all that bad.
But can someone please tell me how to set my favorite stations to the preset on the radio?
This is a great little product and alot cheaper then the i pod and i like it alot better, the ipoddosnt even have the radio!

I love this MP3 player. It looks great and the sound quality is excellent. I have had no problems using the software that came with the player. It was easy to install and use, and if I can use it anyone can. It takes about 5 minutes to import a complete cd onto my computer. I don't feel that is an unreasonable amount of time. The battery on this thing is amazing. It is easy to charge and lasts forever. I have never owned another MP3 player, so I can't compare it to any other players out there. The only complaint I have is that the earphones that come with it are very uncomfortable. I would recommend this player to anyone. It is awesome!

This would be perfect if it could receive any radio stations.
When I first bought this I lived in an apartment and got fairly good reception on several channels. Then I moved about 2 miles away and I can't receive anything now.

A way to hook up to an amplifying antenna would be a good idea here. As it is it is useless.

The most basic capability of this device is receiving radio signals, and in this area it gets just 1 star out of 5. In Seattle (Eastlake Ave, Lake Union area), I get just a couple FM stations, and 2 or 3 AM stations. Luckily NPR (94.9 KUOW) comes in very well, otherwise I'd have returned it.

The user's guide is informal but clear, and the set-up on a Mac/G5 was easy and quick. The software is quite good (no problems at all). Griffin follows Apple's iTunes shortcuts, which is nice attention to detail.

If only this device would receive more radio stations (seems pretty basic - how long have we been doing radio?!!) it would be a winner.

I'm glad that I have this - and will keep it - since it gets my #1 favorite station.

It's a worth a try, but keep the packing materials as chances are high you'll need to return it. Good luck.

The RadioShark works great. It is incredibly sensitive to placement of the USB cable. I experimented and experiemented and eventually got a long USB extension and positioned the RadioShark on the top of a bookcase across the room from my mac mini, running the USB cable around the room. I also had to move it away from my florescent light. That light seriously affected the reception for some reason.

Once all this was done the RadioShark was _exactly_exactly_ what I wanted. Off the local Dallas NPR station, KERA 90.1, I record This American Life, Car Talk, Fresh Air, Selected Shorts, and others. I set it up to record every episode. The quality is excellent.

I had also tried Audible.Com for The Bob Edwards show, This American Life, Car Talk and some recorded books. I found the quality _terrible_. It is recorded at 32k bps as the highest quality level. Terrible Terrible Terrible. Turns out Audible is selling me the XM Radio broadcast which is highly compressed anyway and, well, terrible quality!

The RadioShark records at various quality levels, and I choose Highest. It sounds exactly like it does over FM. It sounds great, much better than Audible.

Turns out I can't get UNT in Denton, 88.1 FM, with the RadioShark. Bummer, I really like that university broadcast. Oh well, that would have been icing on the cake!

To begin, what I don't like about this product:

1. LCD is difficult to read (forget about trying to drive and read it).
2. The random/shuffle feature can take up to a 1.5 minutes to go to the next song *if* you have have hundreds of MP3s on your USB drive. Having only 50 to 75 MP3s causes no problem for the randomize feature, and I noticed no delay when playing the MP3 in order. It has an external jack so you can easily connect your IPod/other MP3 player, and I suspect since that device would be handling the randomization, there would be no delay between songs.

Now, what I love about the VRFM9:

1. Ease of use.
2. Flexible neck - should work in most situations.
3. Random/shuffle feature.
4. 16 FM channels to pick from.
5. Memory so you can continue with the same song (at the beginning) after turning your car off then on.
6. Doesn't scream "Steal Me" like an IPod would.
7. Displays the ID3 info of the MP3 playing (though the screen is difficult to read).

Given how flash/thumb/memory drives have dropped in price, you can have a great way to play your MP3 in your car and only spend $100 to $125 (including buying new flash drives).

I should tell you I'm not connected with Amazon or RoadMaster in any way - just a happy customer.

Mike Honeycutt

A versatile FM transmitter, the unit gives you three ways to enjoy your mp3 or wma collection!

Simply plug the unit into your car's power adapter then choose from one of three methods to listen to your stuff:

1) Plug in any USB flash drive to the onboard USB port, tune to the desired frequency, and sit back, relax (unless you're driving!) and enjoy your audio library clear, and static-free.

2) Use a 3.5mm to 3.5mm cord and plug one end into your mp3 player's headphone jack and the other into the transmitter, and enjoy hours of trouble free audio right through your car's radio...

3) And, as if this wasn't enough, the unit has a SD card slot giving you yet another way to listen to your collection!

With a clean and reliable transmitter and three ways of getting audio onto your car's radio, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better value in another FM transmitter.

Great value and an even better product! Get yours now!

Awesome..play your MP3 player through included jack/cable....unlimited music libraries with cheap SD cards...PLUS any USB drive. Connect your dvd player and listen through car stereo! Sound quality is superb! Better with SD card than my USB jump card. Highly recommended! I have a Chev Blazer...no issues here...My XM FM Modulator does not even work as well in the same car.

I've tried a number of "wireless" products in order to get music from my computer to my stereo without any wires. Unfortunately, most either have horrible sound quality or cost way too much. And I really cannot justify paying over $150 to play my MP3s on a device that runs its own music player where I must be semi-absent from my computer in order to play. So I came across this product, and I am a huge fan. Naturally, there are a few cons to this product, but they are soooo miniscule, that I just don't understand the couple of negative reviews (which actually made me reconsider purchasing this item... and it's a good thing I still bought it). So, the inevitable list of pros and cons:

Pros:
- Plays all sounds off of the computer, not just particular program sounds (i.e. I can wirelessly stream, and also use the music manager of my choice).
- The quality of the sound is equivalent (if not better) to plugging my stereo into my computer.
- Almost no interference, and the rare interference is limited to a click here and there.
- The universal remote is a very nice addition, and works very well with Musicmatch.
- The signal strength is very strong.
- Both receiver and transmitter are quite small.
- A previous reviewer said that you cannot listen to one thing on your stereo and another on your computer. Not fully true. All you have to do is set up Musicmatch to play on the Lyra, and set up your computer's audio configuration to use the soundcard, and use a different music program to play music on your computer. As such, you can play two things at once.

Cons:
- The remote control doesn't work with all music players. For instance, it does not work with Realplayer or Microsoft Media Player (not that I mind much, honestly, since the audio from any player still comes through. It's therefore quite irrelevant when I'm at my computer).
- When plugged in, all sound goes through the Lyra, and not the computer speakers. However, you can change this manually if you want to, so it's not a big deal.
- I'm not sure this is completely true, but I upgraded to a newer version of Musicmatch than came with the product, and the remote control seemed to not work with it except for skip forward/back. So I reinstalled the older version, and it worked. So I don't know if the newer version doesn't support the remote control as much, but I have to say, there's no reason to care. The newer version of Musicmatch doesn't offer anything really new.
- The remote control does not seem to do anything for Rhapsody other than turn it on. Which, naturally, isn't very helpful unless you're at your computer, and completely defeats the purpose.

Otherwise, I'm completely amazed by the quality of the audio for such a low price. I really don't understand the negative reviews of this product. All my negatives are so unimportant. Sound quality may be an issue for the extreme audiophiles, but I can't imagine that these same people would be happy with a direct wired connection between their computers and their stereos.

It runs on the same 900Mhz signal as most cordless phones, so if those signals cross...yeah, your gonna have problems. But other than that, if you keep it within it's recommended range, it performs beautifully. Some have written that the bass sounds terrible, etc. Don't listen to that! The bass response on my receiver coming out of my subwoofer in the living room is great, even better than a well tuned radio station. Granted, it is nothing compared to a 5.1 movie that has a seperate channel just for bass...but c'mon. These are MP3 files playing off of a computer in another room of my house...and they sound great!

Some have also said/implied that you need to use musicmatch software...not true. It will play any and all sounds that would normally be made by your computer. If you don't want it to play all the sounds coming out of your computer, musicmatch has a setting that tells the computer to send the music coming from music match to the wireless and any sounds made by any other software to the soundcard so it comes out of the computer speakers. Sadly, I have been unable to find a feature in iTunes that accomplishes this, however, I found a workaround. If you go into your "sounds and audio devices" in the control panel and go to the Audio tab, you can tell the computer what to use for sound playback, your computer's speakers (sound card) or the Lyra Wireless...this is how you switch back and forth with or without my workaround. So switch to Lyra Wireless, assuming you've done the other simple steps correctly, can open iTunes and enjoy the music coming out of whatever you've hooked up the Lyra wireless receiver to. Now...without closing iTunes, go back to that "sounds and audio devices" and change it to your computer speakers (sound card). Now you can enjoy the music coming from iTunes on the living room system, while watching youtube.com videos in the computer room and the annoying windows bleeps and chirps won't affect the music in the living room. Whatever the sound playback is set to when you open iTunes is what iTunes continues to play through as long as you don't shut it down, even if you change the playback choice. Conversely, if you want to switch it back to playing music in the computer room, you have to shut down iTunes, make the change of playback device, then re-open iTunes.

The only drawback is that you can't play the same song at the same time in the living room and the computer room. But for 20-some buck, this is really a great price for an amazing product.

Ok, my office and pc are deep in the basement on one side of the house. The stereo system and amp are on the first floor way over on the opposite side of the house. When the RCA Lyra arrived, I opened the box slowly, carefully preserving the packing material in case I needed to send this baby back. After all, there's no way a wireless device could work reliably under such difficult conditions, right? Wrong!

After installing and powering up both units, I was greeted by 4 green lights on the unit connected to the amp, indicating a strong signal was being received. Cautiously, I applied power to the amp and selected the line being feed by the Lyra. Clear, static free music from my pc began to play through the speakers. The quality of the music was disturbingly good with absolutely no dropouts.

Setup on the pc side was easy. Just select the Lyra as the active sound card device via control panel, (no need to install the junkware music software that's included on the cd/dvd).

This product is the real deal. If you need to feed live music wirelessly from one room to another, order this product this afternoon. You will not regret it. --6 Stars.

Why settle for less, when you can get a brand new original iPod nano 4GB for Free! I got mine from this web site: nocost4u.info/ipod-nano

I researched mp3 players for weeks before buying this one. I wanted a player that was not too expensive, easy to use, had good sound quality, and a decent voice recorder. This has been a hit on all counts. Downloads are a snap even for a technology-challenges person like me; the sound quality is outstanding, and the voice recorder works well enough (with the addition of an external microphone) to make reasonably good quality audition tapes for piano and voice. The earbuds aren't the most comfortable but that's the only minor negative I have found.

There is no MP3 Player out there that can boast ALL of the features of this player. From the equalizer, drag and drop ease, 50 hr battery life (haven't truly tested this but even if its 30 or 40 hrs, its better than a 20 hr rechargeable), recording capability and I could go on and on, hands down the best. Some MP3 players might have some of these features but not all. It is truly under rated. Yes, it feels a little light, the Cowon customer support can be challenging and the plastic case that it comes with does not do it justice, but hey folks, it does what it says it does. The 50 hr battery life was a key selling point because I'm tired already of having to charge everything everynight. Having to carry adapters or other items. It gets annoying but that really wasn't the only element of this great player. It was just a plus. It is easy to use and carry. The software it comes with is very good.
But beware, you probably won't feel like you are being spoonfed on some instructions of its functionality as you might like but once you figure this device out you won't regret you bought it. True, there might be some bad ones out there but you should be able to get a replacement (I haven't experienced that yet and I got 3 of these). Honestly, it beats the IPOD anyday. It shouldn't be called the G3 it should be called the IPOD Killer!
I would like to thank all the Amazon Customers and CNET Customers that reviewed this item because I bought it based on your reviews and the features that I was looking for.