Radio looks pretty nice but it has some draw backs that is only volume control but no bass n treble more over it has no extra fm booster circuit in side with internal and external antenna switch to catch distant fm stations. And it should be like stereo type with left right speakers. MW SW performance should be improved to catch stations in remote areas. These radios work better only in open place but not inside the house where there are tv and led lights and tube lights. The manufactures must include noise reduction circuits for fm and other bands. More over it must be made available in indian market so that radio lovers will enjoy it at low price at 3000 rupes Or below
I really like the Retekess TR629. It does especially well on MW and FM but as you mention, SW is kind of a tossup. I get better shortwave reception by attaching an external antenna. Some minor issues I've found: • On MW, radio only scans in 9 kHz steps, which limits ATS use in the United States. • When manually tuning, about 1.5 seconds after stopping on an MW frequency, there's a brief annoying buzz. This happened on both the original unit I purchased as well as the replacement. • Recording on a micro SD card picks up a low-level rhythmic distortion from the radio. This digital artifact is less prominent on recordings made with a USB thumb drive, presumably since less of the device is inside the radio. I only use the recording function to log stations, so high fidelity isn't an issue. Overall, I enjoy the TR629.
Nice review. I've got the Retekess V115 myself, which is smaller, but does pretty much the same as the TR629. Short Wave isn't brilliant though. But I've also got a Tecsun PL660, which is much better for SW, and has sideband modes as well.
Thanks for the review. I just obtained it for $50.00 US, and it works well. It plays the recorded media, such as music in Stereo. However, FM reception is Mono, not Stereo.
@@volvo09 yes, I realize that of course, one speaker is mono, but with headphones using FM as the source, it's mono. It's only playing stereo on prerecorded music. So does it then record in stereo off the radio?
@@raymondmartin6737 ok, i've got you. Yeah so it does have a stereo reciever. Curious about recording also... I can't recall what is common in these sets, it might have to be tested. If you can record some audio, you can import it into an audio utility like audacity and see if it's stereo.
@@volvo09 I've got a Retekess V115, which is similar to the TR629, and that can definitely record FM in stereo. And so I presume this Retekess can as well. Of course you need to plug-in stereo headphones to hear it. :)
These little Chinese radios are quite good. I bought a Tecsun PL-330 recently. I'm finding that MW reception is excellent on it. Shortwave is a bit lacking in my location and due to unfavourable ionospheric conditions. I'll probably buy an external antenna for it, which should improve things
A bit pricey, but depends what you want in a radio I suppose. The Sihaudon R-108 is a solid performer in that price range and has features like bandwidth filters, different frequency steps, Airband/squelch etc No SD card option though and much smaller, although the audio is good. Thanks for the review Lewis 👍🏼
I've long been fascinated by these low(ish) cost multi band receivers. I wonder what do you receive with this radio using the built in antennae, not from the top of the highest hill in your area, but from your kitchen table? For my normal listening I use a mixture of DAB and internet radio. I wonder what I could receive with one of these that I couldn't by the other means at my disposal?
DSP radio has a significant improvement in signal selectivity, signal-to-noise ratio and anti-interference ability through digital processing of radio signals.
This looks like something from the 80's, except for the memory cards of course. Nice design. Unfortunately the year is 2022, we have DAB, there is hardly anything to hear on AM, and SW reception without an external antenna tends to be underwhelming. So, you have a mono radio that can't receive DAB, that isn't easy to operate, and that might just end up as a mp3 player. For those who enjoy mp3 in mono, that is. And only in mp3/wma format. Don't even think about flac, wav or aac. As always I thoroughly enjoyed your presentation, but I doubt this product could make me happy, not even if I received it for free.
I was thinking about DAB. This is a radio that's sold online from a Chinese website and is shipped directly from China. There is no DAB in China, and this brand is mostly sold there. No RDS in China either, and so most radios there don't have that either. DAB isn't used in the US, Canada, and many other countries. Even Ireland ceased DAB broadcasts. If one is in the UK and want to buy a DAB radio, probably best going to Argos or Currys, and buying it locally. Also the state of DAB in the UK is woeful, with horribly low bit-rates that sound worse than FM, and many music stations in MONO only.
@@michaelturner4457 Wikipedia mentions 112 kbit/s for stereo as the lowest bitrate people are willing to tolerate. In reality 32 kbit/s is what you get in UK, except for the BBC. This is your EU heritage. The Brussels sprouts first came up with DAB, which was technically very handicapped, they then made all early investors throw their radios out the window because of the switch to DAB+ . But they didn't think of the high energy cost to broadcast DAB+ (8 times higher energy use than FM) and the large number of local channels who cannot afford the cost of broadcasting in high quality, not to mention the fact that DAB+ is unsuitable for rural areas. I suppose the rollout of the 5G network will make DAB+ obsolete in less than 5 years from now. 5G Broadcast is going to take over.
@@jacquesmertens3369 I know they did experiment with DAB radio in Beijing, circa 2007. But on the other hand in China, domestic Short Wave stations are still very much a thing. And that's probably why there's such a proliferation of these cheap radios that have Short Wave, such as Retekess.
@@michaelturner4457 Correct. 2/3 of Amazon products are made in China. They come with a billion fake reviews to make you buy the cr*p they bombard us with, and they come under 100 different brand names. I have no intention of sponsoring that horrible regime. I stick to European products, if I can still find them.
My FM receiver is from the 80's. An old sony tape deck from a second hand store. It beats all these inexpensive modern receivers for sensitivity and it has stereo. Retro design of the case is one thing. Retro design of the functional performance is not available.
