Nathan's Mini Review of the Meloson M7 Radio

  

 

I picked up a Meloson M7 off Amazon as a Christmas gift for my mother-in-law. She's been wanting a speaker to hook up to her smart phone to listen to podcasts with, and she's also a sports radio fan, so this seemed like a good match.

I had to play-- I mean test it out first to make sure it wasn't total crap. I used it for several hours at work today and then made this video.

Overall it is a decent little radio with a good sounding speaker but less than excellent, but not terrible, tuner reception. As I mention in my video, my building is challenging for signals but I had a hard time getting a good lock on both FM and AM frequencies without some distortion. My Sony ICF-S10MK2 picks up these more clearly.

 

Feel free to share with your readers, and I'll try to answer any questions they have.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1V640YihQY&feature=plcp

 

-Nathan

Comments

[Drive-In-Freak]

Will it cue/review..in other words scan though a track, or does it only skip back the the last track forward to the next track and folder?
Also does it remember where you stopped if it's in the middle of a track, or does it just start at the beginning of the last track played?

Why such questions? I listen to a lot of podcasts, and players that don't have those functions (especially cue/review) can be a bit of a a pain to use.
However if you divide the tracks (shows) up into 2 minute tracks it's not as much of a problem.

I absolutely love the idea of having a radio with a built in mp3 player, but nobody seems to have gotten it right just yet.

[nathanjr]

Good question, it will resume in middle of a track but there is no cue/review function.
I agree with your assessment of radios with mp3 players, especially for portable radios. No radio maker has committed to adding a more expensive mp3 controller and DAC to a decent radio. On the other side, most non-Apple mp3 players come with a weak FM radio chip that uses the headphone cable as an antenna. It's mainly just for marketing so they can say it has the extra function.

One of the nice things about the Meloson is that you could buy a cheap but still decent Sandisk Sansa Clip mp3 player and plug it into the aux-in. Maybe clip it to the lanyard, although your wife/girlfriend/children/general public might laugh at that.

[Keith Beesley]

Thanks for the review, Nathan.

[Bob C.]

It's been pointed out here on many occasions as to why radio services such as BBC, VOA, RCI and others are being incredibly short-sighted with respect to their cuts in shortwave broadcasting services. Most people access their programming via the internet seems to be the standard justification.

Well, here is yet another example of something that I have been saying since day 1; namely, that the internet is easily eliminated as an information source. How would you like to be Syrian and have this happen: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/29/syria-blocks-internet

This just illustrates the point (yet again) that the internet is NOT an adequate substitute for shortwave radio. Sadly, what's happening in Syria can happen in other parts of the world as well. The internet is actually a very fragile platform, while old-fashioned shortwave broadcasting is much more robust. While the former is there at your convenience, the latter is there when you need it.

[nathanjr]

You're welcome, I picked up a Sony SRF-18 to compare the two once I saw the Sony had line-in as well. So far I would say the Meloson's sound is much better.

And I agree with the OT comment about SW radios. Maybe it is no coincidence that most SW radios are now made in China, where they can censor the internet!