- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 11 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
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2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
2.0 stars
"Great sound, lousy clock radio"
Pros: Sounds great; treble, bass, and volume are infinitely adjustable. Radio reception is also superb, even on low-power stations.
Cons: Lacks many basic clock radio features. You can't pick the radio station or the playlist you want to wake to. You can't set the alarm volume. Manual is poorly written. Turning the "mode" knob makes music turn off. It's hard to seat an iPod 2 properly.
Summary: I had (still have) an iHome iH9. It was a pretty good clock radio, but had thin sound, not tremendously adjustable volume, and a noticeable hiss on my favorite FM station. So, after a couple weeks' research, I bought a Boston Acoustics Horizon Duo-i. What a mistake!
As an iPod dock, the Horizon Duo-i succeeds admirably. The sound is rich and full. The default setting is a little too bass-heavy, but that is very easily adjusted. Radio reception is outstanding. No hiss on radio stations, even weak ones. The volume seemed infinitely adjustable, from almost inaudible to VERY loud. It goes to 50, and I never played it louder than 21.
But Jeez, this the clock radio seems as if it was designed by someone who had never even seen a clock radio. With even my old, old mono RCA clock radio, you could set the alarm to wake you to any of the preset radio stations. This is a BASIC feature. With the Horizon Duo-i, you can choose to wake to music, but you cannot choose a station. You are limited to the last radio station you were playing before you turned it off for the night. Compare this with the iHome iH9 or Logitech's Pure-Fi Dream, both of which let you choose what preset radio station you want to wake to.
Likewise, with the Horizon Duo-i, if you want to wake to music from your iPod, you must have the mode set to iPod and you can only wake up to the last song you played. Compare this with iHome, where you can only use a playlist you create called iHome, but obviously, you can change the contents of that playlist whenever you want to. Slicker yet is the Logitech Pure-Fi Dream, where there are presets for both radio and iPod playlists. Set Led Zeppelin as the preset playlist you wake to and you'll never oversleep again! Or Miles Davis if you want something mellower. Or both. You get several choices.
Now, I'm a guy who likes to sometimes go to sleep listening to soft music: string quartets, Chopin nocturnes, Kind of Blue, whatever. But I like to wake up to a jazz station that also gives news and weather reports. The radio doeasn't have to be loud, but I want it to be a good deal louder than the music I went to sleep by. This is impossible with a Horizon Duo-i for 2 reasons: first, you can't nod off listening to your iPod and wake up to the radio, and second, the volume you fall asleep to is the volume you wake to. Like the music, no choices. (Actually, if you listen to NPR at night, and want to wake up to traffic radio in the morning, you have to remember to change stations before you turn the light out!) In contrast, iHome lets you set a separate sleep mode volume and Logitech lets you set a separate volume for the alarm.
All the obvious dunderheaded design flaws in this product are clearly the fault of Boston Acoustics. But I also blame CNET for my problems. They care so much about sound and so little about alarm functions. Why does the review above not alert readers to these shortcomings? Think about this, editors. When reviewing a clock radio, test all its functions thoroughly and report on them in detail. Please.
NOTE: A little shout out here to amazon.com, who cheerfully returned this beast and refunded my money. I'm going to buy my Logitech Pure-Fi Dream from them.
This gets two stars: one for sound, one for radio reception. But if you're looking for a working clock radio, avoid this like the plague.
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