Sangean DT-400W

PLUSES:

1. Good sensitivity.
2. Weather/emergency alert.
3. Back-lit screen.
4. Acceptable sound quality.
5. The unit feels sturdy and well-made.
6. Push buttons and volume control feel fairly well-made.
7. Earplug jack.
8. External flexible wire antenna (does not break).
9. The extra bass switch actually cuts the bass for preserving battery life, and the listener can enjoy relatively normal-level bass through the headphone jack with the bass turned on. Intelligent design, keeping sound quality in sight.
10. Fairly self-explanatory setup.
11. The built-in speaker emits fairly decent sound for its size.
12. The battery display is useful.

MINUSES:

1. The sound quality through my $300 earplugs falls behind the tuner built into the Sony SRF-S84 walkman radio (less bass, less clear treble, lower dynamics, and narrower sound stage). While the Sony beats the radio in my 120GB Zune, even the Zune is slightly better than the Sangean. However, this comparison is not quite fair because only the Sangean has built-in speakers.
2. The alert function drains the battery, yet there is no possibility to attach the radio to an external power supply.
3. The alert function should have a permanent setting but the maximum is 16 hours (I guess the battery drains down by the end of that, anyway)
4. The 90-minute auto-shut-off function cannot be adjusted or turned off.
5. An alarm function is strangely missing.
6. Only a 90-day warranty.
7. The sliding switches feel extremely cheap, obviously not made for being used a lot.
8. The attached headphones are of nominal quality (but nobody can expect more, manufacturers do not seem to compete on this, and I already own a pair of Westone’s $300 earplugs).
9. Discrepancy between the manual and the display: there is no TV sound on the unit but the manual shows that there is.
10. One might want to disable the 90-minute auto shutoff function but that is impossible.
11. The built-in speaker could be a lot better, considering the improvements in microspeaker technology in the last 5 years.
12. A weather radio should be at least partially weatherproof. This one does not even try.

EVALUATION:

While I cannot imagine that the sound quality can be improved in this price range but, sadly, this seems to be as good as it gets for FM at Sangean these days. Still better than the the same category (pocket radio with built-in speakers) in the competition but I wish Sangean hadn’t given up striving for perfection. This compromised product is still top-of-the-line but that only means that the competition is not manufacturing anything better either. When my friend bought his unit, Sangean was still competing with Sony and that must have become unnecessary by now.

I realize that, while I prefer to buy locally, therefore I paid $60 for the unit, Newegg sells it for $50, which means that the unit is a remarkably good value for what it is, assuming the user is not going to switch a lot between the internal speaker and headphones, will not fiddle with the expra bass or the lock switch.

POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENTS:

An external power supply socket and an alarm function could and should be added, that would still not raise the price substantially, although the setup ROM chip will have to include a permanent alarm function. The sliding switches should be improved or abandoned and replaced with pushbuttons. Improving the sound quality of the built-in speakers might be a breeze if Sangean cared to do it. The warranty is abysmal: Sangean should take more pride in its products than copying Sony’s most detestable feature, the 90-day warranty. This nominal warranty period suggests that Sangean has started manufacturing inferior products than it used to as Sony started doing that nearly 20 years ago.