SPARC HD Radio SHD-TX2 Portable Radio with AM/FM & HD Radio Tuners, Built-in Speaker and Emergency Alerts

There aren't many compact HD radios on the market, so I decided to get this Sparc SHD-TX2 to compare it to my Sangean HDR-14, which is a similar size. (Actually the Sangean is a bit smaller, mainly owing to the design of the Sparc, which features ruggedized plastic top and bottom edges, as well as rounded left and right sides. But they're roughly the same size - less than an inch of difference in any dimension.) I also own the larger Sangean HDR-16, and an Insignia HD radio. This little Sparc gets the best FM HD reception out of all of them. (The HDR-16 gets the best AM reception. The Insignia is FM only.)When I first put 3 AA batteries in the Sparc and powered it up (an AC adapter is also provided) I was impressed. Turn it up and you'll enjoy very powerful audio for a small radio, with full, warm tone quality you don't expect from a radio this size. And, the back of the radio features a passive radiator that makes it sound even better if you place it so that there's a wall or other hard surface an inch to a few inches behind the radio, as this will allow the sound from the passive radiator to reverberate off of the object behind the radio and toward you where you can appreciate it.Audio through the headphone jack is very clear and full-range, so if you like to have some control over the bass and treble you can easily plug in an external speaker with those controls or use the Sparc as an HD tuner for a home audio system. Headphone audio is also pleasingly loud so you can drive a decent set of headphones with it without having to use any kind of external amp.(Note: Consider rechargeable batteries. My first set of batteries were a low-cost brand of alkalines and they only lasted for about 25 hours of playing time. Undoubtedly this is due to this radio's room-filling audio output - claimed in the specs to be 1.85 watts - which is massive for a radio this size that runs on AA cells. And you'll be tempted to use that power, too, because this radio sounds great all the way up to full blast. Higher-grade alkalines would last longer, but I put in a set of NiMH rechargeable batteries and at 25 hours they're still going strong. Clearly that would be the most cost-effective way to keep this powerful little radio playing on the go for the lowest battery cost. On rechargeable batteries, the radio's battery indicator will only show about 1/2 or 2/3 full even with freshly charged batteries but that that's just due to the lower voltage of these compared to alkalines, and does not equate to shorter playing time. If near an outlet you can also opt to use the provided AC adapter, of course.)The Sparc's control layout couldn't be more different from that of the other HD radios I have. While the Insignia and the Sangeans use a row of buttons to control most things, the Sparc places most buttons in two circular-patterned arrays that make the Sparc resemble an old small table radio with conventional knobs, or maybe an old car radio. At first I thought the button layout was essentially a nod to this retro styling, but that's actually not the whole story. What Sparc has done here is arrange the buttons so they can be operated by touch and position alone. That, combined with the availability of voice prompts that can be turned on or off, would make this radio ideal for someone who is blind or has weak eyesight (and that applies to many of us who need to grab our reading glasses to work with many electronic devices). One controversial control, based on other reviewers' comments, is the AM - FM band control that doubles as the power button. You long press the button to turn the radio on or off and short press it to switch bands. I have no problem with this setup and it works fine, but I could see where someone might prefer a separate power button. Just remember that "long press" doesn't mean "hard press." All you have to do is hold the button down, not bear down on it.One operational tip: This and many similar devices put their controls into a sleep mode when you don't press them for a while. So, on this radio for example, the display stays lit for about a minute after you press a control. During this time the controls are awake and will respond with a single press. However if you press a button when the display is dark, the first brief press will bring the controls out of sleep mode and activate the display. At this point, you need to release the button and press it again to take the action you want to take, such as adjusting the volume, station, or turning the unit off. People who have complained about the unresponsiveness of the power button might not be realizing this. To turn the radio off when the display is off, briefly press the power button to light up the display, then long press the button to turn the radio off. Same thing to change the volume: Press the up or down volume button briefly to illuminate display, release, then use the volume up or down button to adjust the volume.I am very happy with the separate buttons for the two tuning modes. With some radios' pushbutton controls, you have to hold down a combined seek/tuning button to move from one end of the dial to the other, and the radio will nonetheless stop at strong signals, at which time you have to release the button and push it again, which makes it a slow process to move from one end of the dial to the other. Not so with this Sparc, which is far more convenient and works more like a car radio where you have both up/down tuning buttons and up/down seek buttons. The presets are also nicely implemented in that you just push a button to move to the next preset. I like this better than having a bunch of separate preset buttons because I can never remember what's on what button anyhow. With the Sparc you pick out 5 or 10 favorite stations in each band to use as presets and then just use the preset button to cycle among them. I don't think there is any limit to the number of presets you can have - theoretically you could put every single frequency in a preset - but doing that would make the presets pointless. Also, you can preset the HD subchannels of stations and the radio will go straight to the subchannel (HD2, HD3, etc.) when you get to that preset.Note that when listening to an HD subchannel, if you power the unit off and back on again, it will revert to the main channel of the same station. Possibly this is because the main analog channel is much stronger than the digital subchannels; if the radio were simply to sit there silently owing to not being able to receive the digital subchannel, some users might conclude that the radio isn't working. In any case, moving back to the subchannel simply involves a quick press off the tuning+ or seek+ button (or preset+ if the subchannel is set as a preset) so this is at most a very minor issue.The clear, well-illuminated display has a nice feature in that you can scroll down and see how many HD sub-channels are present with any HD station, and it will even tell what song or other program is playing on the different channels while you're tuned to another one from the same station. (This occurs if the station provides this info. If not it will just say HD2, HD3, HD4.) That brings up the point that this radio does get all the HD subchannels that stations offer. I had read in another review that it might not, but I can verify that this Sparc radio does in fact receive all available subchannels. Note that only FM stations can have subchannels; on AM the main channel simply switches to HD if it's available.When you push the menu button, the display shows instructions that remind you of what each button does when you're in menu mode. This is an intelligent feature, preventing the need to dig out the owner's manual to do things like set the clock. While I read the manual later, I think this is the first HD radio I've ever owned that did not require even looking at the instructions to figure anything at all out. Take it out of the box, put batteries in it, and it all makes sense. Perfect design.FM reception is quite sensitive. I compared this radio side-by-side to the Sangean HDR-14, HDR-16 and the Insignia, and there were a couple of FM HD channels that the Sparc had an easier time getting than any of the others. Also the selectivity of the Sparc's FM tuner seems slightly better than that of the others, as it was able to resolve a distant FM signal right next to a local one, which the others did not do quite as well. (A larger analog-only portable I have, the Sangean PR-D19, does a little better with very weak FM signals than any of the HD radios.) But if you're outside of a major city and want the best possible FM HD sensitivity, this Sparc gets the nod.On AM the Sparc is similarly laudable. You have the warm sound quality earlier mentioned, which quiets background noise on weaker AM stations, too. I was even able to get some distant AM stations occasionally to go into HD mode at night; most HD radios cannot do that. A nearby (75 miles away) 50 kW AM HD station reliably goes into HD.As mentioned earlier I really like the retro design of the radio, which is functional and attractive. It would be nice if the base, or bottom edge, of the radio were a bit larger, however, because the radio tips over easily if you have it standing on a table. A feature similar to the extendable flap on the bottom on the Sangean HDR-14, or a fold-out "kickstand" on the back, would be other options for correcting this issue. If you can place the radio where there is a wall or a decent-sized object behind it, you won't have to worry about it tipping over and you'll also be able to take advantage of the passive radiator, which does noticeably improve the sound, especially at higher volume settings, by creating somewhat of a surround-sound effect.When you add everything up and factor in the price, I believe the Sparc SHD-TX2 is the best value among compact HD radios. Because it gets praiseworthy analog reception plus HD reception that's a notch better than any other HD radio I've ever used, you have here a radio that performs well for any kind of listening. It also sounds fantastic for its size and offers well-designed controls and cool retro looks. Consider buying this radio before you spend more on something else, because the performance you get here equals or exceeds that of radios costing more.

Great little radio! Very sensitive on AM and FM. Automatically lowers bandwidth to reduce noise on distant stations, making them easier to listen to. HD functions are fantastic! Most FM in my area run HD and the quality is outstanding! Only one AM runs HD, but that station sounds clear and clean as FM under HD. I would highly recommend this to anyone. Complaints about battery life are probably related to the emergency alerts feature on the radio, it must stay somewhat on all the time for that. I disabled it and battery life is fine. It does not seem to be available in my area, anyway.

At the time of writing, I've owned this radio for about a week. 3.5 is probably a more appropriate choice for my rating of the radio. AM performance is quite good. For the size, I find it to be sensitive on AM and very selective. Though we don't have AM HD stations here, at night, I have managed to pull in distant AM stations in HD. The radio is noisy on AM, as are most HD radios I've seen. FM performance is pretty good, as well. It's very selective on FM. Its ability to reject strong station splatter on FM is outstanding. I wish the radio was just a bit more sensitive on FM. However, the HD does work quite well. On strong AM and FM HD stations, the speaker really sounds nice for the size of the radio. The down sides to this radio are: Plugging in AC adapter increases the noise on the AM band. Plugging in a set of headphones decreases sensitivity on FM. The radio has enough hash/noise on FM that weak stations don't sound so clear. This radio seems to be a battery muncher. Finally, if you are blind, and read the description on Sparc's Website, it claims that the radio has voice prompts for the visually impaired. And it does, but the voice prompts only speak frequency, preset/volume/tuning/scan up and down. It also speaks that alerts are on or off, but doesn't speak the alerts or other information on the screen. The voice prompts lagged too much for me and I turned them off. Menus don't speak, so if you press the menu button, it's easy to change something and not realize your mistake until it's done. In spite of my perceived short comings of the radio, I plan to keep it, and I do like it. It's worth the $59.95.Update 07/11/2015: Another Amazon reviewer suggested turning off alerts to preserve battery life. This definitely worked! Thank you.I'm not sure what plugging in headphones or external speaker does to this radio. I still think that sensitivity is a bit less on FM w/headphones. If I have the radio on an HD2 station and plug in headphones, the radio returns me to the HD1 channel.Finally, others have told me this radio without warning changes some of its settings E.G. going from 10KHZ AM to 9KHZ. This happened to me once the second day I had the radio but I haven't had problems since.