PR-D15 Digital Portable Stereo RDS Receiver Gray

I use this radio with the A/C converter to preserve the batteries. I have noticed that when you plug the radio into the wall current, it gets slightly louder and clearer, than when running on the batteries, alone. Many portable radios have poor graduation in the decibel level desired.. In order to get adequate volume, the sound becomes irritating, yet, reducing the volume by only one step, causes the sound to become too low. This radio is nicely calibrated - you can get the perfect volume and pitch, hear it way across the room, and is not at all irritating to listen to. It's even better than a CC radio I have. It seems sturdily built and is a pleasure to listen to for hours on end. *UPDATE*: I feel a responsibility to the Amazon community folks who have posted so many questions about the batteries for powering this fine radio. I called the company today and was told that that whole page in the radio's manual (page GB 8) is a misprint. The radio was never meant to accommodate AA size batteries. You can either use alkaline or rechargeable size *C* batteries (6 of them), which fit very nicely into the battery compartment. I've also heard and found that rechargeable C batteries are hard to come by. Be that as it may, I realized how long my radio has been playing on alkaline C's (still on my first set after months of almost daily use). This radio must have a very efficient power useage. Rather than hunt around for rechargeable C's, and invest in a recharger for C's, I'm just going to continue using alkaline C's. Based on battery life, it's not that costly, and the radio is as wonderful as I originally reviewed as being. Hope this helps folks.

Great digital radio, good reception and sounds good.

We bought this radio primarily as a hurricane/bug-out type receiver for use during power outages associated with major weather events. We steered away from the hand-cranked type "emergency radios" because we shelter in a rural setting quite some distance from any major station and knew we would require a receiver in the "high performance" class. With the built-in 200 mm rod antenna, the radio is a solid performer on AM, and FM is equally impressive. This type of performance, we assume, may not be present in many of the lower cost, so called emergency radios. We opted for rechargeable batteries but do keep a set of alkaline c-cells on hand as back-up. After noting the excellent run-time of the rechargeable config, it's apparent the alkaline batteries may never be used. The audio quality of the radio is adequate for our purposes. Certainly loud enough without detectable distortion, but lacking in range compared to a high fidelity oriented design. For us that's a non-issue. We bought the radio to receive information, not listen to music. It performs admirably in its assigned role. A couple of little quirks are noted, but none are deal-breakers. When tuned to an RDS enabled station, it's impossible to adjust base and treble for some reason. It seems the RDS banner dominates and overrides the attempted adjustments. The radio will display the treble adjustment mode for a second, then snap back to the RDS banner. Simple solution - just tune off frequency and make the adjustments. Also, the RDS can't be turned off, so instead of reverting to a useful clock display a few seconds after a station is tuned-in, the RDS info runs forever. It's novel at first, but one soon realizes it's a distraction and knowing the time of day may be more relevant. These are minor issues. For the price paid, we've found a winner. It will easily meet our needs, and that's what it's all about. To summarize - if your needs are similar to ours, where the primary interest is news and information, don't hesitate to buy. But if room filling music is your top specification, you might want to pass on this one and look around a bit more. Probably pay more too for that matter. For news and information the rig is a "10". For music a "4" (unless you take advantage of the headphone jack).

Simple to operate and the reception is awesome on AM & FM. Comes with an AC adapter too! The display is very easy on the eyes and I like the ability to tweak treble and bass. Also, being able to use 6 C cell batteries that are alkaline or rechargeable is a bonus feature(it recharges too). Be aware that if you want to use this radio for AM listening, it is best to run it on batteries and not using the AC adapter. The AC adapter can cause some reception issues on AM. The only small issue i have is the audio on AM seems a little heavy on the lower tones. It helps to turn LOUD mode off, however AM radio still seems low and muffled. But then again, AM broadcasters aren't known for their high fidelity sound. FM seems to be very nice sounding. Overall I feel this radio will last many years because it feels like very good quality inside and out. Sangean did a great job with this one. A big shout out to todderbert's review on this radio!!! without his meticulous and extensive reviews on youtube, i never would have taken interest in this model from Sangean.

I love this radio for how good it works. I am not going to complain about the physical design because I have worked in electronic engineering and I know about cost. If it was built how other reviewers have suggested it would be a $200 dollar radio. Sangean has built an outstanding radio for less. Far away AM stations come in at night like they are local. It seems like the stations are in the next town. The FM is good but my Sangean MMR-88 picks up distant or weak FM stations better. You can also use AA rechargeable batteries with size C adapters if you cant find genuine rechargeable C batteries. I already had a bunch of AA rechargeable batteries so it was better for me to buy the cheap size C adapters. The radio alarm is very smart. If you select to wake to a radio station and it is off the air or does not detect music or voice, The smart alarm will default to beep alarm mode. I found this out when my favorite local independent radio station is not always open for business at 5 AM. This default beep alarm was only happening when the station was silent now and then. I ran a test and set the alarm one minute ahead for radio mode on a white noise station. Sure enough in one minute the alarm went off and in a second detected no radio signal and defaulted to beep alarm mode. Very sharp indeed!

Good sturdy design and cosmetically pleasing. I get great AM/FM reception. (I can’t say if it is exceptional reception because I don’t live in a fringe area.) Very good sound for the size and electronically this radio has everything I want. I would recommend to a friend with one caveat. I CAN'T BELIEVE THERE IS NO LOCK feature to prevent accidentally tuner changes. (If I am wrong I will update my review.) It is easy to accidentally brush the tuning knob and lost reception. If you like to listen to the radio while outside gardening or keep bedside when you cant sleep this radio may not be for you. It may be too frustrating having to re-tune the radio every time you accidentally nudge the tuner button. Example: I like to use “Auto Seek Station” feature to find new stations. As radio enthusiasts know depending on the weather, time of year and time of day you can get different stations. After a scan finds a interesting station it would be nice to “LOCK” the radio to preserve the settings. If the tuner knob gets nudged I don’t want to fish around for the preset or re-scan. This could be a problem for the visually impaired or people who move the radio a lot as they work

I'm taking a different tack with this review compared to the other reviews of the PR-D15 here. I'm going to do a direct side by side comparison to the radio it succeeded and replaced, the PR-D5, which I also own and reviewed almost two years ago: http://www.amazon.com/review/R20OHQ1QCHCTQ8/ Here are the feature differences between the PR-D15 over and above the PR-D5: * Digital signal processing on both AM and FM * A seven-position signal strength meter * The ability to adjust treble and bass, done electronically * The ability to recharge NiMH C-size batteries * The ability to fine tune the frequency to 1 kHz increments in AM and 0.01 MHz increments in FM, and to change between European and American coarse frequency steps on both AM and FM * A handle (which I expect to last about as long as a snowball in hell) * A different color (D15 is gray only, D5 gives you a choice between black or white) * Different audio power outputs for different power sources. On electricity, you get 2W/ch. On alkaline batteries, you get 1W/ch. On NiMH rechargeable batteries, you get 0.7W/ch. Contrast to the D5 which gives you 0.8 W/ch no matter what power source you use. * The ability to set the month, day and year along with the time * The ability, using the Menu-Info button, (the name of that button has changed from CT-Display on the D5), while you're in FM, and if the station you're listening to does RDS, to choose among many modes of either RDS display, date, time, or frequency. Other than that, it and the PR-D5 are the same, including the same 200 mm AM ferrite bar antenna, and the same 70 hours of battery life for a good new brand name set of alkaline batteries. All the new features make the PR-D15 a little bit more difficult to grok than the PR-D5. Keep the manual, that's all I'm saying. Also, I suggest finding whatever treble/bass setting you like and leaving it there, because the way to adjust treble and bass isn't done with their own separate wheels, but electronically by holding down the volume button and waiting for the menus for treble then bass to appear, then you can adjust each anywhere from -5 to +5. You cannot charge rechargeable batteries (NiMH is the only permissible chemistry) and listen to the unit at the same time with batteries in and adapter plugged in to the wall. My suggestion is to load up the batteries, make sure the internal switch is set to NiMH instead of alkaline, plug it in and let it charge. I estimate the internal charger charges at a rate of 500 mAh/hour, because my 5000 mAh rechargeables took 10 hours to charge from empty to full. Also, the printed manual I got made a mistake by telling you to use AA-size rechargeable batteries, when C is the only size that it can take. While it lasts about 70 hours on alkalines, it will only last about 45 hours on rechargeables. Now, here's the biggie. How is the reception compared to the great PR-D5? A comparison that is easy for me because I have both and can and have run both at the same time in the same place under the same conditions. And by "reception," I mean fringe daytime AM reception and fringe FM reception at any time. Answer: Slightly less sensitive but just as selective on AM, and slightly more sensitive but just as selective on FM. The difference between the D15 and the D5 on AM sensitivity takes a really trained ear to hear, and it's hardly so much that you should cry if you can no longer buy the D5, which at the time of this writing you still can. One more note: Since I reviewed the D5, a local St. Louis AM whose TX is not far from my QTH, that being 1430 KZQZ, got daytime authorization for 50kW up from 5kw, though it remains 5 at night. It causes +/- 30 kHz adjacent channel slop on the D5, but the D15 is better at rejecting it. UPDATE The more I use the D15, especially next to the D5, the more I realize that the difference in daytime AM sensitivity is more pronounced than I first thought. Doing the acid test I wrote about in my D5 review, fishing out WVLN between KWRE and WEW, the D15 can do it, but not quite as well as the D5. And in order for WVLN to be intelligible, you have to crank the volume to the max. Another acid test I have is daytime reading WGGH (1150 AM, 5kw, Marion IL) when good ole KMOX is right there at 1120. Again, the D15 can do it, but not quite as well as the D5. WGGH's TX is 95 miles from my QTH, but it's not quite in the direction of its daytime directional signal. By contrast, KMOX's TX is 16 miles away. According to Radio Locator's theoretical map of WGGH's signal, I'm just beyond fringe. Yet, the D5 can give me WGGH moderately intelligibly with some KMOX splatter, but not too bad. The D15 gives me WGGH less intelligibly but with no KMOX splatter. Yet another relatively mild acid test I have for almost all non-junk radios I own, I call the "Part of Nines." Scanning between 900-990 khz for the non-locals (WGNU is the only local in that range). Except for 910 and 990, there is a receivable station at every spot on the dial in that range. Here is Radio Locator's results for my QTH: http://goo.gl/39o2Ga How good the radio is is incumbent on whether it can receive the signal and how well it can. In addition, receiving 930 when 920 is right there is a great test of the radio's selectivity and nulling ability. Again, comparing the D15 to the D5, the D5 is just plain hotter. The D15 can receive them all, but the D5 receives them better. Even though the D15's nulling ability is better, probably for the DSP. By all rights, the D15 should be just as sensitive as the D5. I'm logically thinking, ceteris paribus, DSP makes AM daytime sensitivity less good but overall selectivity and spurious signal rejection and sideband slop a lot better. (Since the now 50kw daytime KZQZ TX is only 4.9 miles from my QTH, good thing.) I'm conspiratorially thinking that Sangean did something else to make the D15 less sensitive so that it doesn't undercut the market for the much more expensive CCRadio, which Sangean also makes. That said, I hope my D5 lasts a very long time. Perhaps I should add another D5 to my Amazon shopping cart now just in case, while I can still get one?

This radio is EXACTLY what we were looking for (and found nothing else comparable for the price): AM/FM with digital display, stereo, excellent reception and sound, portable with carrying-handle & lightweight & relatively small, AC adapter, also will run on batteries if desired, Bass/Treble adjustments, plus other amenities we weren't shopping for but it has without being too junked up with too many features. As to the volume (and tuning) dials, they're a bit of an awkward shape to grasp securely so should either have some type of "scoring" on the plastic or not such a smooth (slippery) surface. But it's not a big deal - I got some small adhesive Velcro/"hook & loop" dots and put a few of the fuzzy sides of the pairs around the volume knob so it's easily grasped. (Tuner knob doesn't matter as much as we pre-set our stations so don't use it often.) In fact, we like this radio SO MUCH we bought a second one for another part of the house!