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I live in an area near several broadcast towers, and most radios are swamped by their signal and are unable to tune in most stations. The controls are very easy to use. The ICFC705 manages to tune in most stations clearly and with decent sound.Regretfully, if you want to wake to something other than radio, this is not the unit for you. The buttons are large, the design is intuitive, and there are directions on the clock itself.The entire clock display is illuminated, which is a minus if you prefer a dark bedroom at night. On the plus side, it can easily be set to one of three brightness levels at a push of a button, and it's not too annoying at night on the lowest level.The radio in the Sony ICFC705 is top notch. Both the buzzer and melodies are at a preset volume that cannot be adjusted by the volume control (a very strange design decision that ruins the usefulness of this clock radio).This wouldn't be too bad if they were loud or if they built up to a loud volume over time. But both the buzzer and melodies are rather quiet and will not wake a sound sleeper.As a result of this design flaw, what would have otherwise been a rating of 4 or 5 stars (depending on how you felt about the display light) drops to 3 stars at best.
There's a lot to like about this radio. However, listen to the other reviewers: if you or anyone in your bedroom needs it to be very dark to get to sleep, this clock radio is not the way to go. The display is simply too bright, even at the lowest brightness level.
What a great little radio. It's not super in its sound, but the convenience is fantastic. It's small in size, but big in features.Pros: Digital tuning, large digits make it easy to see, alarms are easy to set and change.Cons: Annoying beep when you turn on the radio, doesn't set clock to atomic time, just keeps up time when the power goes out.Above all - a super clock radio for the money.
But for this much money, I want something that doesn't make me sigh with regret whenever I hear it. Note that it's the speaker, not the antenna, that's the problem.
So much for putting my furniture directly against the wall.- The sticker requires serious elbow grease and/or special cleaners to remove (instead of peeling away cleanly)- Said sticker includes 6 sentences of instructions on how to set the alarm. If the alarm requires that much in the way of instructions, something's wrong.- The 'audio in' isn't a port; it's a hardwired cord that's about a foot long.
Pros:- It's compact- It looks greatCons:- It's a little too bright- It has a power brick; how cheesy is that. But this was unlistenable; drums sounded like firecrackers.
So if you, for whatever reason, don't want to use their cord, you're going to be buying an adaptor.- The sound quality is astonishingly bad. I'm hardly an audiophile--I'm perfectly happy listening to highly-compressed MP3s on my laptop's built-in speakers.
And I tried 2 units, so it's either a common defect, or else it's a design problem.Even after all that, I almost kept it; it does look good. Mornings are bad enough without a scratchy-sounding alarm clock
This is everything I wanted. Easy to use, small in size, digital tuner, easy to read, Ipod hookup 2 alarms & reasonable sound.The brightness has 3 levels and the lowest is good for seeing the detail & not too bright for sleeping. Strongly recommended.
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