Best Table Radios

Features, aesthetics and value separate the top choices

If high-end luxury and excellent sound are your top priorities and if price and a long list of built-in features are not a big concern, the Bose Wave Music System (*Est. $500) is hard to beat. Bose helped define this luxury radio market segment with its original Wave Radio. The Wave Music System is similar, but adds a front-loading CD player to the package. To achieve the sleekest possible look, designers of the Bose Wave Music System left off all buttons. The unit is controlled entirely through the remote. Many reviewers suggest purchasing an extra remote just in case one gets misplaced. The Wave Music System has 12 AM/FM station presents and the alarm can be set to wake up to radio or CD. The tuner is much better than average, with reviewers saying it can pull in stations that elude other radios.

If you leave value out of the picture, the Bose Wave Music System does well with reviewers and owners. For example, many of the nearly 200 owners altogether (reviews for the three color varieties of the Bose Wave Music System are listed separately) posting at Amazon.com grant the Bose Music System a grade of 4 or 5 stars out of 5, with sound quality and ease of use the most often cited pluses. However, a significant number of owners are less happy. The most frequent complaints from consumers are about only being able to access controls through the remote and problems with the CD player over time. Reviewers also seem puzzled over the fact that the Music System doesn't include treble and bass controls. And there is a spate of complaints about the system being overpriced.

Among the pros, CNET's evaluation seems typical. John Falcone gives the Bose Wave Music System high scores for performance and design and says it has improved sound over earlier Bose models. Falcone says the Bose Wave system, despite its compact size, "can fill fairly large rooms with sound," and the AM/FM tuner was able to pull in even hard-to-reach stations.

The Cambridge SoundWorks i765 (*Est. $250) is a somewhat less expensive alternative to the Bose system. Reviews say the Cambridge i765 boasts comparable sound quality to the Bose Wave and offers a front-loading CD/MP3/DVD player, iPod dock, 32-character radio station/CD/MP3 display for song titles and artists, automatic nighttime dimmer and 24 station presets at a price tag that is $250 lower. If you don't need a CD/DVD player, the Cambridge SoundWorks i755 (*Est. $160) is the same radio minus that feature.

We've seen several reviews of the Cambridge SoundWorks i765, and experts at CNET and iLounge.com give it generally good grades. User reviews are more mixed, however. To be sure, many are quite pleased with the sound quality and the value, but a large number of owners complain about questionable build quality, reliability and a balky CD/DVD player mechanism. Reviews for the i755 are more limited, but users posting at Amazon.com give it nearly as many 1- and 2- star ratings as 4 or 5 stars.

The Polk Audio I-Sonic ES2 (*Est. $300) is another option in this price range. The I-Sonic ES2 has excellent sound quality, a built-in iPod dock and support for HD radio, but no CD player. An iTunes tagging feature allows users to "tag" a song playing on the radio and later have the option to purchase it from the iTunes store when they log in to their iTunes account.

While some reviews say the original I-Sonic had unintuitive controls, CNET reviewer John Falcone says the ES2 has an improved design and better control layout. Polk Audio continues to receive high marks for excellent sound quality. The ES2 has virtually the same four-speaker design -- two front and two rear -- and PowerPort venting technology as the original I-Sonic, which reviewers say is a good thing. Falcone notes, "The combined result is a powerful, room-filling stereo sound with palpable bass that far exceeds what you'd expect from the I-Sonic's diminutive housing."

Some warts do pop up in reviews. ILounge.com reviewer Jeremy Horwitz says HD radio reception isn't optimal. That also impacts the performance of the iTunes tagging feature since the data for the tags comes through the HD signal. He also points out that the tagging feature only works on newer iPods and not on the iPod Touch. Several consumers posting reviews on Amazon.com also note issues with HD reception.

At the very high end of the table-radio spectrum, at least in terms of price, is the all-in-one Tivoli Audio Music System (*Est. $1,000). The system features an AM/FM radio with digital tuning and a CD player. The radio can hold 12 presets, and the unit has two 3-inch speakers on the front and a down-facing subwoofer with bass ports in the back. CNET's Falcone says the unit has a beautiful design but the sound quality is not quite as good as should be expected at this price point. Falcone adds that the feature set is limited without HD or satellite capability and no iPod dock, although an iPod can be connected through an auxiliary port. CNET says the Tivoli Audio Music System is probably best suited for that segment of the population "who prefers elegant simplicity over a bullet list of features they'll never use."

At the other end of the spectrum, the Cambridge SoundWorks i525 (*Est. $150) has a built-in iPod dock and digital AM/FM tuning with 16 presets for each band but no CD player. The model also features "Smart Volume" technology that automatically adjusts system volume based on the broadcast signal. One interesting plus is the Creative brand X-Fi feature, which is designed to enhance audio through different settings. CNET calls this the "spotlight feature". Writing about that feature's Crystallize setting, which is designed to improve compressed files by restoring information lost in the compression process, Jeff Bakalar says "We certainly could hear an immediate difference using the setting, and, for the most part, we enjoyed the change." Other settings available with X-Fi are Virtual Surround and Smart Volume. Bakalar likes that features can be turned on and off, mixed and matched.

ILounge.com's Horwitz finds pluses and minuses. He says the i525 provides better sound than some popular table radios with an iPod dock, yet its footprint is smaller. The clock features come in for some criticism, and while the FM reception is pretty good, the "AM radio performance is nothing to write home about."

The Boston Acoustics Duo-i plus (*Est. $200) is a full-featured table radio that scores well on sound quality, usability and value. The Duo-i plus is a direct descendant of the much acclaimed Boston Acoustics Receptor radio, now discontinued. The Duo-i plus adds stereo speakers, an iPod dock with video output capability and some new audio technology. It also has some nice features that work especially well for a bedside radio. The clear, easy to read, LCD screen automatically adjusts to ambient light and you can adjust the starting brightness on a scale of zero to 20. Another nice feature on the dual-alarm clock is the strip of metal that runs along the top of the unit that acts as the snooze bar. Macworld reviewer Dan Frakes says the two alarms, one of which can be set for weekdays and the other for the weekend, "aren't as full-featured as those on some iPod clock radios we've tested -- for example, you can't set each alarm to sound at different times on weekdays and weekends -- but you can choose to wake up to an alarm tone, the radio, or your iPod."

FM radio reception on the Duo-i rates high with reviewers. Frakes calls it "excellent" and says he was "able to receive both distant stations and weak local stations clearly, rarely hearing hiss or static." CNET's Bakalar says the Duo-i sets itself apart from its competitors with its "incredible ease-of-use." Frakes calls the Duo-i his "favorite iPod alarm clock" and says the excellent audio quality and ease of use are worth the relatively high price.