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Road test: internet radios

Road test: internet radios



David Flynn SMH
April 14, 2008
Bush TR2015R

Bush TR2015R
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Give local radio stations the flick as you broaden your horizons,
writes David Flynn.

Last week, Icon revealed the treasure trove of radio stations that
broadcast over the internet. It's the perfect solution for anyone
who's bored with the local AM and FM stations, wants to study a
foreign tongue or just keep up with the latest in the old home town.

But there's a catch: to listen to internet radio stations you need to
be connected to the internet.

That usually means sitting in front of your computer and you probably
do enough of that already. What if you want to listen to your
favourite online station while relaxing on the couch, preparing dinner
in the kitchen or reading a book in bed?

The answer is in two parts. First, you need a wireless or Wi-Fi
network to beam the internet around your home. If you've got broadband
and at least one laptop in the house, that box may already be ticked.

Then you add a compact internet radio receiver that taps into your
wireless network in order to tune into the online radio stations. It's
pretty much like a conventional AM-FM radio (indeed, some also tune
into those local broadcasts) but is also a lot more sophisticated.

For starters, there are typically about 10,000 stations pre-set into
the radio. Rather than aimlessly twiddle a dial, you make your
selection by browsing menus that sort the stations into genre or
country of origin.

The radios have buttons to store and jump to your favourite stations.
Changing stations requires more patience than with a regular radio as
it takes longer to establish a connection and start downloading the
audio over an internet connection.

You can add your own stations to the radio's extensive roster but the
process is complicated: sometimes you need to enter a long and
cumbersome web address using just a few buttons, or you must submit
the station's details to a website that acts as an online directory
from which the radio downloads its list of stations.

One disappointment noticed during our testing was that none of the
radios worked with the highest level of security that can be applied
to a wireless network.

Most home networks are secured against freeloaders and hackers by
using a wireless security setting called WPA2 but we had to downgrade
our home network to older and slightly less secure WPA or WEP
standards before the radios could log on.

Because these radios all use the most basic 802.11b wireless standard,
which is ample for the task of playing music, they'll run on a home
network using any wireless router.

There's no need to worry about compatibility issues with any specific
version of Windows or even the Apple Mac because the radio doesn't
interact with your computers in any way - it simply picks up the
wireless signal from your router.

The exception to this are units that can also play music tracks stored
on your PC - either sitting in a shared drive or through your existing
music library in iTunes or Windows Media Player.

If that has strong appeal to you, we'd suggest you're better off
investing in a "media extender" to pipe that music through the
superior speakers of your hi-fi system. What internet radios do best
is tune into internet radio stations and anything else is a bonus at
best.

THE CONTENDERS

GRUNDIG IR6114
Price $399
Rating 4 put of 5
http://www.grundig.net.au

This small cube-shaped box has an ultra-modern look, with a bright
"bubblegum blue" display but buttons that are a bit small and fiddly.
The Grundig can also play MP3 and WMA music tracks stored on any
Windows PC on your home wireless network. It took twice as long as the
Asus radio to connect to internet radio stations (20 seconds compared
to 10) and was more prone to drop out.

BUSH TR2015R
Price $299
Rating 4 out of 5
http://www.grundig.net.au

This slim radio uses identical software and circuitry to the Grundig
IR6114, so it shares that unit's features (such as music playback from
your Windows PC) and flaws (a long delay when loading the list of
stations and switching between stations). The large front-facing
speaker is flat and a little "bassy".

Cheapest isn't always the best but in this instance the Asus Internet
Radio fits the bill without busting the budget. It delivers the best
online radio experience of the models we tested and was easily the
most simple set-and-forget device.

ASUS INTERNET RADIO
Price $299
Rating 4.5 out of 5
http://www.au.asus.com

Don't let the funky retro styling fool you. This compact bookshelf
radio can store up to 250 favourite online stations for fast recall
(with your top five assigned to buttons on the front panel) and has a
large inbuilt memory buffer to smooth temporary connection drop-outs.
You can also connect it to your stereo.

PINNACLE SOUNDBRIDGE RADIO
Price $750
Rating 3.5 out of 5
http://www.lakopacific.com

This big boombox boasts plenty of features but consistently falls
short of the mark. Lack of control over the inbuilt subwoofer makes
spoken word programs too bottom-heavy. The SoundBridge supports the
old and weak WEP wireless network security.

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