ICFP26 Portable AM/FM Radio,Black, Sony ICF-P26

Mu buena

Love this little gadget! Got a couple in used-like new condition for half the price of new and they were just that, like new. My late grandmother's most priced possession was a cherry red radio very like this one, I remember scheming and plotting to steal it away from her as a little kid :D (never did succeed at that), it went everywhere with her. I got this to listen to the radio while cooking, gardening or soaking in the bathtub. I like to have some background noise on all the time and this is the most portable, cost effective and power efficient option! Good reception where I live, very sturdy plastic construction w/ no creaks or flexing. Appreciate the robust attachment of the antenna to the back of the radio (it can also be unscrewed and replaced if ever damaged), and the hinged battery compartment. The speaker output is loud and clear and even more amazing through headphones (I use really good audiophile grade headphones with them, so ymmv). They're particularly useful on my frequent trips to the drive-in theatre, with headphones plugged-in I can completely drown out all ambient noise. Update: Took these to the drive-in last night, at full blast the sound out of the speakers was surprisingly rich and clear with zero distortion!

Très satisfait de ce "petit" poste radio qui réponds parfaitement à ce que j'en attendais. Je me permets de le recommander.

Crisp audio which helps with those with high frequency hearing loss. Sensitivity is good on fm and am. Beautiful looking radio with wide dials which I prefer to those on the s10mk2. Ok, now for notes on performance. Here is just a synopsis of my radio credentials so to speak as people might be interested in that as I will go against the grain as far as other owners of this radio have not properly addressed one VERY IMPORTANT issue regarding the am performance versus the s10mk2. I am almost 70 years old and started to listen avidly to shortwave and am radio when I was 7 years old. I am an Extra class amateur radio operator going on 35 years. I did military communications for the U.S. Army and also served in the U.S. Navy. Ok, here is the area of gross neglect by some other reviewers who compared this little radio's am performance unfavorably with the s10mk2. SIGNAL to NOISE RATIO! I live in a terrible area for both am and fm reception as my town is surrounded on all 4 sides by hills and mountains. Yesterday afternoon I did a direct comparison using WBZ am 1030 in Boston and WGAN am 560 in Portland, Me as two benchmarks. The noise floor on the s10 mk2 is so incredibly high that even though they came in louder on the s10 both signals were unusable as it was a battle between noise and the signal itself which means, even with headphones it would be no dice. I then put the s10 by my Tecsun passive loop antenna and all that happened was that everything got far louder but unlistenable for all intents and purposes. You see, the signal to noise ratio didn't change one iota. Now for the test with the new p26. Again, same time in the afternoon the p26 has such a low noise floor that both stations came in pretty much clearly but not loudly. However, putting a good pair of earbuds or headphones you get about a 20 decibel improvement in perceived signal quality and this is true no matter if it is fm, am, shortwave, radiotelegraph or any other radio mode of transmission. On the p26 I could listen to both of these stations with headphones for hours if I wanted. I then put on headphones with the s10 and both stations were coming in very loudly but with totally unusable signals due to the high noise level. In fact the s10 is absolutely the worst I have ever encountered with regards to the noise floor on am. At night the s10 did better with stronger signals as the signal to noise ratio seemed better but with weaker am signals I couldn't tolerate listening to those for very long. The sensitivity on the p26 is not as high but the low noise floor make weaker signals come with more clarity. I recommend using headphones when hunting for distant am signals at night no matter which radio you use but the p26 is better than the s10 for the reasons stated above. I tested both radios out in my back yard near where miles of forest begin and the results for both radios were roughly equivalent. If anything the p26's am reception got better but the horrendous noise floor on the s10 didn't change. The s10 has warmer audio and has great fm performance which is my primary use. The p26 is roughly equivalent in fm performance but I prefer the crisper audio as it increases intelligibility for me on both bands. On any inexpensive radio one may experience overloading due to stronger fm signals swamping weaker ones that you might want to hear. Collapse the whip to one or two sections and that may render the radio more selective. On both the s10 and the p26 try this and you might be impressed with the improvement. I love my s10 for fm but in the am band the p26 wins hands down. If you want to really capture am stations far away at night time with the p26 use good earbuds and even spend around 25 bucks for a Tecsun AN-200 loop aerial which makes an unbeatable combination. Also, I like the p26 having the audio jack feed both sides of a stereo pair of earbuds etc. even though the fm output is monaural which is actually better for weak fm signals. More expensive radios have a stereo monaural switch for fm but, for weaker fm signals monaural is better. The s10 only feeds audio to one side which forces me to have to use an adaptor if wanting audio on both sides. All radios can vary in alignment from the factory so results may vary from radio to radio. I hope to check the alignment of the p26 in the future and optomize it if needed. Do not attempt this unless you have the proper alignment tools and know what you are doing! On the s10 I doubt there is any way to reduce the horrendous noise but I love it for fm and use it every day. I am sure others can benefit from my insights here. As far as the p26 goes I have a radio friend for life! WBZ in Boston, about 135 miles by air. WGAN in Portland, ME about 55 miles by air. Even using the speaker on the p26 daytime reception on both stations fairly good but not great amounts of volume but listenable. The s10 is totally useless on both stations. All electronic products can have a certain percentage of defects. Instead of giving a simplistic 1 star review consider that Amazon is good about returns and refunds or a replacement if so desired. The p26 is a great little radio for the price. I know what I am talking about.

This is a great little radio for it's size and sound. Picks up stations well but I wished the headphone jack was on the top. Well worth the money.