Sony XDRF1HD HD Radio Tuner

Added this unit to a whole house audio installation - works great and picks up stations very well. It's hard to find a simple tuner to add to whole house systems without spending a fortune, but this one fits the bill just perfectly.
Only negative on the unit would be that I have not been able to get universal remotes to talk to it yet. Included remote works fine, but then the client has one more remote to deal with. Otherwise it works great.

Bought this item because I was tired of not getting decent radio reception from my office at work. I work about 12 miles from our local small town and reception has always been terrible. This little radio/tuner gives me great reception even from the smallest stations.

The only problem I had was that I initially didn't know what to do for speakers and didn't want to spend a bunch more $$ on speakers with RCA jacks. I ended up buying a decent pair of computer speakers and bought a RCA adapter for them so I could hook into the RCA jacks and it has worked out perfectly.

This unit reminds me of a class project in Electronics Lab 101. It's as if they just threw together some off the shelf parts to see if they could get an HD radio to work. It's definitely not a polished product ready for production. It has a standard tuner and data decoder module mounted on a small PC board with a large power transformer and 3 terminal regulator on a heatsink. Who still uses a large power transformer these days? All the components get so hot they will burn you but there shouldn't be any high power components producing a lot of heat on a radio, radio circuits are normally low power. The unit has a lot of other drawbacks besides overheating, the display won't turn off at night, it doesn't remember favorite channel settings more than a few minutes when power is lost and the time goes back to flashing 12:00 like an old VCR.
The software programming has a lot of problems. You can't enter the frequency for a radio station from the front panel or the remote, all you can do is step up or down through all the frequencies one at a time so it takes a long time to get up and down the dial. It has a search function for HD stations but doesn't remember them.
Once stations are programmed as favorites they can be accessed by the number pad on the remote but if power goes off those are lost.
There are no RF amplifiers, the antenna inputs go right to the tuner module. Reception was about average on FM but AM was totally useless with the supplied wire loop antenna and wouldn't pick up anything indoors besides hum and noise. It needs to have a shielded type F connector for AM in order to connect an outside antenna to get decent reception like it has for FM. I removed the two terminal connector from the PC board and installed an F connector, then with an outside antenna the AM reception was only fair. It still won't match a good car radio for reception but with an 8' CB whip installed on the roof I could get all the HD radio stations from Phoenix about 30 miles away in the daytime. The signal strength has to peg the little bar graph display in order to get HD so when the AM stations cut power at night none of them will come in with HD except the Disney channel. Another station would try to come in at night but HD cut in and out all the time which was very annoying. There is no way to stop it from trying to play in HD all the time as there is with the Sangean HDT-1X. The Sangean has an RF amplifier at the AM input so the reception is slightly better but the weaker AM stations still won't come in with HD at night on the Sangean either, except for Disney. If you want a decent HD radio get the Sangean HDT-1X. It's more expensive but not nearly as annoying and doesn't overheat.

This is my second HD tuner. My first was a JVC and I'd have to rate this well above the JVC even though I was pleased with the JVC.

First, the sensitivity of the Sony is excellent in SD FM. With the included antenna I am able to receive stations in adjacent markets (80-100 miles away) with no problem. In HD mode, pretty much only local market stations HD signals are received. This shouldn't be a problem for most users. While I haven't counted, yet, there is no shortage of HD broadcasters in my medium size market with a wide range of content, much of it not available through SD broadcasts. As best I can tell most all is commercial free!

Second as for AM, reception was quite poor with the included loop antenna. Even local stations were difficult to pick up and SD quality was poor. The unit did seem to suffer from digital noise generated within the unit itself. Reception could probably benefit from a long wire antenna but it wasn't worth my time and probably not yours either. In the end, I didn't buy the radio for AM reception so not a big deal. I bought it for the extra conent HD FM offers and I am pleased.

Finally, many users complain HD radio does NOT provide CD quality audio. Well in reality it does but it depends on a number of factors including how the broadcasters have their equipment set up and to what equipment the users have. Mine is normally connected to the aux input on a clock radio and the sound quality is good but not great. However when connected to my high end audio system, the sound quality is much better and is quite close to that of most CDs. I'm not an audiophile, yet I can tell the difference when connected to a good amplifier and set of speakers.

In summary, this product is well worth the price for SD FM performance alone. The HD capabilities of this radio are the sweet part of the deal and add greatly to the FM capabiliites of this tuner not to mention the additional content. Don't buy this product for it's AM performance. You will be disapointed. Do buy this product for it's FM and HD capabilities. Its a great deal!

First AM HD: I live 40 miles from Boston and this tuner, which BTW is supposed to be the most sensitive one on the market right now does not receive ANY AM HD stations with a 400' long wire antenna, with the enclosed loop or a C Crane Twin Coil Ferrite loop even though I'm less than 10 miles from a 5 KW AM IBOC station. WBZ is 40 miles away, a 50 KW AM IBOCer, forget it, receives NO AM HD.
FM is also almost as bad, with JUDICIOUS placement of the enclosed dipole I can get a lock on WGBH a 100KW NPR station about 40 miles away. Worcester HD FM's which I live ten miles from? Forget it, NONE come in, Boston's other HD FMer's? I can get WZLX 100.7 intermittently, which is very annoying, frequent drop outs do not make for pleasant listening.
I do not blame the radio, I have gotten similar results from other HD radios in stores, radios which are supposed to also be high end and very good. So I have bought a tuner for one station, great system huh?
The IBOC (HD) system is a terribly designed lead balloon of a system meant to mislead listeners into thinking they will get CD quality sound from a radio; the sound is better (not CD quality) I will grant them that BUT, what good is it if you can't receive anything? This radio gets loads of analog FM stations but in that mode of course it sounds the same as any other FM tuner.
Bottom line: If you're willing to put up a rooftop (higher the better) FM Yagi antenna with a rotator, you MAY be satisfied and get several IBOC stations, but If you want good sound and loads of stations get an Internet radio, HD isn't going anywhere except to the Salvation Army, expect to find great deals there very soon.