Insignia HD Radio Tabletop Radio Black NS-HDRAD

Very nice portable radio. I was looking to replace an old battery powered FM radio and wanted to make sure the new one came with HD. The price and features were just right on this model. The HD radio works well and provides lots of high quality options to the normal FM stations without the service fee of satellite. The unit comes with a power adapter or you can use AA batteries to run the unit. I haven't tried running the unit long on batteries but it easily will run for an afternoon on them. There is a backlit display that is always on, even on batteries that can't be shut off. Other than that, the only issue I have is that when you power off and back on, if you are listening to anything other than HD1, the primary broadcast content, the unit forgets and falls back to the HD1. For example, I listen to my local station on HD2. When I power off and back on, it reverts to HD1 and I have to retune to the HD2 content. No big deal. The audio quality is good. The unit includes an AUX in, headphone jack and external antenna connector. HD Radio is a free alternative to pay Satellite radio. If you aren't familiar here is a good intro to HD Radio including a list of local stations: [...]

I had no previous experience with HD radio, so I bought this receiver not knowing what to expect. It's fabulous! It doubles the number of stations I can listen to, and the sound quality is so good it's comparable to a more expensive analog unit. The only issue is reception, but that's not a problem for me, because I live on a hill. Reception is more of a problem when I listen at work, but the enclosed pigtail "external" antenna has allowed me to find a sweet spot, and so it's not a problem now. If you're a jazz, or classical music fan and you live in the Philadelphia metro area, you MUST get an HD radio. You also get some AM stations without the snap, crackle, and pop. Some of the HD-station formats are silly, but that's not the radio's fault. I liked this unit so much that I bought another one.

The radio came well packaged and in fine condition. The set up was easy, and the FM stations were clear. Alas, the HD stations were too far away to be picked up. I live near the beach in Delaware, which is a difficult place to receive signals anyway. Even tv, to be seen and heard, must have cable reception, or else Direct or Satellite reception. I do have an old Realistic radio (Radio Shack stopped making them around 1990) and I am able to pick an HD station from Princeton, N.J. via smaller stations allingned with Princeton. But I cannot always get clear signals. So, while the radio is fine for our local FM stations, the HD pickup is a bust for me. Nevertheless, the Insignia will be used in the guest room and that pleases me at least partially. By the way, I did not use batteries, but plugged the radio into seve4ral different outlets, but even with the antenna supplied, I could not get an HD station. Sadly, it is not the fault of the radio, but rather the place I call home.

I have heard almost all HD radios have disappointing performance. This one is good.Pros:- Good dynamic range for a consumer receiver. I detected no intermod despite being close to some powerful transmitters.- AUX input port is nice because MP3 players are so common.- Despite HD subchannels being 20 dB down from the main carrier, I easily picked up many HD stations in my area, stations i couldn't get with another radio I tried.- It has an external antenna input port-- something unheard of in a consumer radio of this price range.- User Interface is straightforward and easy to navigate.- It's nice that you can scan for signals that have HD and automatically skip analog-only stations.Cons:- No AM coverage.- Audio level on AUX input is a bit low. I need to use full volume when I connect it to my MP3 player's output, even with the MP3 player set at full volume.- I need to turn up the volume when I come to a low-bandwidth HD subchannel. It will blast my ears if I don't turn it back down before changing to a high-bandwidth HD channel or an analog channel.- I takes a few seconds to lock on to an HD signalI would recommend this radio a good way to listen to FM HD Radio.

This little radio is attractive in design but it did not prove up to the task here. Our public radio station recently changed its classical music to HD only. We are 15 miles from the broadcast source and thought we might avoid the buffering problems that sometimes come from internet radio but I watched as the reception bars went 4,3,2,1 zero—and we had the pigtail antenna plugged in. In its best moments the sound was not a rich bass as advertised but fairly tinny, not good for classical music. Sorry. We returned it for the Amazon Echo at much greater price but affording us much greater satisfaction.

The Insignia HD Radio works very well and is currently tuned to one of our local hd radio stations in the Baton Rouge area. Although the speakers on the hd radio are small, they put out a really nice crystal clear pristine sound. I tried connecting my earbuds and they sound pristine as well. I find the telocopic antenna provides much better reception the pigtail antenna. when the pigtail antenna is connected, the hd radio can not receive any of the distent stations. When using the teloscopic antenna, the hd radio recieves all of the local stations and all of the distent stations from up to 63 miles away.Because the hd radio has a slim design it fits perfectly on my night table and takes up much less room.