Boston Acoustics Needs a New Radio

I bought a Boston Acoustics Recepter about 10 months ago and love its small size and huge sound. I love its FM/AM reception in spite of its lack of a telescopic FM antenna. It's easy to toggle through the presets. The clock and alarm functions are super easy. It has an auxiliary for my iPod. However, it cannot sit by my bedside because it has no headphone jack. I started exploring other Boston radios and came across the promising Boston Microsystem. It goes for about $350 on Amazon. But I don't need a CD player as like most people I rely on an iPod. Also reviewers complain about glitches with the CD function, which seems common on CD players. Why can't Boston Acoustics make their award-winning Microsystem without the CD player and sell it for $200? I would love to see Boston Acoustics sound with stereo speakers and a headphone jack, which would be, like the Microsystem, in the front panel. That would rival and perhaps dethrone the current clock radio king the Sangean WR-2.  I'd be in the market for that.  A favorable review of the Microsystem can be found at CNET Editor's Review. For an even more thorough review, see Audioholics.

Comments

[Michael Walsh]

Jeff, we think so much alike on radios that it's a little uncanny.

I just shipped out my S350DL to an eBay buyer this morning because it had been idle since I got my PR-D5.

Lately I have been getting impatient with waiting for three pending SW models, the Redsun 3100/3000 and the Tecsun S-2000.

Worthwhile SW programming being scarcer than ever, I am looking at AM/FM tabletops.

So yesterday I was on Boston Acoustics' site looking at the MicroSystem and thinking...

"I'd consider buying this thing
if they'd take out the CD and bring the price down."

It's got a headphone jack. On the front, where any sensible person would want it. And an input on the front for MP3, satellite radio, whatever. Line in/out on back if you prefer the clean, hidden-wires look, as I do.

It also shares with the Recep(ter/tor) a tough-to-find feature - the internal AM antenna
disconnects when you hook up an external antenna - the only way an external antenna can be put to full use. I know you hate those pigtails they ship them out with but the bottom line on FM is, as long as it has an F connector and an int/ext switch, the antenna is as good as you want it to be. Just
run some cable to a window.

Also, the MicroSystem is LCD, not LED like the Recepter. While I'm not quite ready to join the tinfoil hat brigade, I have read some medical opinion to the effect that sleeping near LED's is not a good idea.

If I do get a table radio, I'll probably try the WR-2 first, hook a good FM antenna up to it, and maybe augment the AM with a C. Crane twin coil ferrite active antenna.

Of course, then I'd start thinking
about some other gadget...

[Jeff McMahon]

You've done your homework for sure. The Microsystem is overpriced and too many things could go wrong with it. The Sangean WR-2, while having a complicated alarm system (which I don't use), is your best best for a bedside clock radio. Bests,

Jeff