Eton Sound 100 Review

When I saw the retro-modern prototype for the Eton Sound 100 over two years ago, I knew I had to buy one. A clock radio with remote control and available in a wide array of colors, the Eton Sound 100 was a good fit for my computer office. Experience has taught me that  you need to keep your radio a good 5 feet away from your computer to avoid reception interference, so if you wish to toggle your stations, get yourself a radio with remote control. I already enjoy my more solidly built Sangean WR-2 in my bedroom (for a comparison between the WR-2 and the Eton Sound 100, CLICK HERE), but I wanted a radio with a telescopic antenna. The Eton Sound 100 fit the bill quite nicely. However, it may not be a good fit for all buyers. Number one, if you're using the Eton Sound 100 as a bedside clock radio and you're manually toggling the stations with your hand, you have to go up the preset cycle. You can't move down. This is annoying because you have to go through all the stations. Of course, you can select the precise preset with your remote. But honestly, are you going to squint at your credit-card sized remote in your bed with the lights off or dimmed? I don't think so. Besides, the Eton Sound 100 is too light due to its plastic materials for a bedside radio. One inadvertent swipe of your arm, and your radio flies off the bedside table. On the other hand, the wimpy piggy tail FM antenna on the WR-2 can be problematic. For me, 89.3 KPCC can give the WR-2 problems while the Eton Sound 100 gets that station clearly. Overall, the FM on the Eton Sound 100 is well above average and quite excellent. AM is also above average. However, 710 ESPN radio has a little birdy hiss while my Tivoli PAL (retailed for $130 when I bought it in 2004; now it goes for a big tag of $199) gets 710 with less background noise. My best AM sound comes from my Boston Acoustics Recepter. As far as the speaker goes, it does not possess the Wow Factor like my BAR, but nor is the Eton Sound 100 weak or tinny by any means. It's full and rich enough but not as good as my Tivoli Model 3 or Boston Acoustics Recepter. I'd even say the WR-2 has a slightly richer speaker. But overall, I'm happy with the Eton Sound 100. My only complaint is its price tag of 150 dollars. No way. Considering the cheap plastic materials and the average speaker, this radio should retail for no more than 100 dollars. If you don't need a remote control and want even slightly better reception, check out the Sangean PR-D5 for about 75 dollars. A full review of the PR-D5 can be found by CLICKING HERE.

Update: Buying my first black Eton Sound 100 for $150, I have since bought my wife a burgundy red one for $99 and my father a silver one for $79. Then during a "hot sale" on Amazon, I couldn't resist getting one for $69. I got it in silver. The photos don't really let you know how the colors look in person. Having seen the Sound 100 in black, burgundy, and silver, I will say that the silver looks by far the best.

Comments

[Russell]

Just got a white ES100 from amazon for $34.99 with free shipping. Silver also at this price. Other colors cost more.

[Russell]

Just got a white ES100 from amazon for $34.99 with free shipping. Silver also at this price. Other colors cost more.

[Jeff McMahon]

It's amazing that Amazon will sell this between 34.99 and 150 dollars. Why such a great disparity? In any event, it's a fine radio. I have two. I can't say I'm in love with the plastic exterior, but you just got a steal.

[Mr_D]

This unit is very powerful for a clock radio.

The entire enclosure is acting as a bass reflex enclosure for the woofer. It's ported out the back meaning it's designed with an audio air vent out the back tuned to reinforce the bass at a frequency of around 100Hz.

This reinforces the bass and it has a very full sound.

The enclosure is a little small for the particular acoustic design that they are trying to do so it tends to accentuate the mid-bass notes too much which produces the full sound that people tend to like while others realize it's too much mid-bass.

Very few small radio's have an ideal design and this one doesn't either. I’d rather it could do a lower bass note rather than even more mid-bass. Even so, it still gives the impression and sound of a much larger system than it is.

Due to the small size it has a strong bass peak from 100-150Hz and can't hit any notes below that. For the technically inclined folks it's down -10dB at 90Hz, and it can't do any deep bass at 40-60Hz which is pretty much impossible in an enclosure this size anyway. Overall this unit does a good job and can crank out a full sound with more authority that most clock radio’s wouldn’t even try to do. This will have most people in the office looking where you hid the speakers or subwoofer since it sounds like a good set of computer speakers with a small subwoofer with it.

You could re-tune the enclosure to a deeper note by extending the rear bass port 50% by adding a small tube to effectively extend the length of the existing port. That would lower the amount of mid-bass and resolve some people's complaints of too much bass. This would redirect the energy going into producing too much mid bass down into making more low bass instead. A redesigned port would not be pretty but moving the resonant tuning point down to about 80Hz would cure the 120hz bass peak.

FM and AC reception seem average with no issues.
There is a battery backup option for the clock and alarm, good idea.

The amplifier itself is fairly strong with 7 watts rms,, not peak. It pulls up to 20 watts on the 120V AC input when maxed out (I measured it) so it really is 7 watts output and that is not overstated at all. The amp is impressive and is fairly quiet with no hiss in normal operation.

The line inputs work fine (it's mono of course) and it works fine as an amplified speaker, go ahead and plug in your MP3 player, etc.

Negatives:
It has no internal AC power supply. I suppose they just didn't have room for it while maintaining the small enclosure size, so it has a large, heavy, external AC wall transformer to plug in.
It’s not one of the newer “switching type” of lightweight power supplies either, those say 120-230V input on them due to using electronics to drop the voltage down to a usable level. This one is simply a wire wound transformer so it’s fairly large and heavy. Also, due to the design of the wall transformer it also draws 2 watts of power forever even when the radio is off. The energy is wasted as heat by the transformer itself.

Eventually low tech transformers like that will be phased out completely due to green energy requirements. That doesn’t detract from the amp itself but I wish they had selected a better wall transformer.

The case is all black plastic, and thick enough to not vibrate when turned up. Wood or metal would be better but maybe not at this price point ($39 when I got it).

The clock display is a nice blue color but it's pretty small and has limited contrast so it's hard to read from more than 5 feet away, it also has a limited viewing angle so unless you are in front of it, it's not much use as a clock.

The display has no brightness adjustment either. It has 2 levels and goes bright when you move a dial, then dims down by half.

It has very few controls and no way to adjust the sound. So hopefully you like the full sound because the only thing you can adjust is the volume. The small buttons all in a row with some writing above and below each button making it hard to know which writing goes with what button.

I got this for a tremendous sale at 80% off, so it's well worth it for a nice full sounding radio. The remote works fine too. It surprises people with the rich sound, but fails as a clock radio and they need to make the cabinet 10% larger to fix the unnatural boost of mid bass frequencies, and that would also allow them to move the AC transformer inside the cabinet for a more elegant and finished looking product.

[Gary]

Of course, energy-efficient, switching power supplies tend to cause undesirable buzzing noise on AM, which is too bad for those who still listen to this band.

[romilly]

The full black screen concept relates to this clock radio's display, as its limited brightness adjustment and small, low-contrast blue display can feel similar to a black screen in low-light environments, making it hard to read from a distance. A true black screen would eliminate visibility entirely, while this clock's dim display creates a similar challenge.https://blackscreen.onl