Can someone recommend a good internet wifi fm radio

XanderG

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Hi all,

Can anyone recommend an internet fm radio with wifi capability and good sound for under £150?

I store all my music on a NAS which uses TwonkyMedia to stream mp3s to my MacBook, AppleTV and XBOX 360. What I'm looking for is an internet wifi radio with alarm clock/sleep timer functions which can connect to my NAS using wifi via my router (using WPA2) and play mp3s stored on the NAS or listen to internet radio stations. I also need the device to be capable of receiving FM stations for occasions when my network is not available.

The device needs to be portable too as I want to listen to music in any room in my house for example in the kitchen when I'm cooking or in the bedroom to wake me up in the morning, etc.

If anyone can recommend a device which ticks most if not all the boxes and has a good sound quality I would be very grateful.

Thanks in advance,

Xander
 
You might want to take a look at the Pure Evoke Flow. It's got FM, DAB & wifi (for internet radio & streaming).

It says you can play MP3's (and many other formats) from a pc running UPnP software - as you've got Twonky on your NAS I think that would be fine.

It's got alarm clock features and supports WPA2.

Pure radios are generally considered to have good sound quality and I believe this one is no exception.

I don't know if you require it when you say 'portable' but you can also get an additional battery pack if you don't want to plug it into the mains.

Amazon have got it new for about £118, or if you're not bothered about it being refurbished Bigpockets have them for about £89 (+delivery).

I think it pretty much ticks all your boxes! :thumbsup:
 
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Thanks I was looking at the Pure today on amazon.co.uk but the reviews were not very good.
 
Please consider the Squeezebox "Boom" or "Radio", doesn't tick all your boxes but what it does it does superbly and the sound is to die for.
 
Thanks I was looking at the Pure today on amazon.co.uk but the reviews were not very good.


Well I may get shot down in flames for it but What-Hifi seemed to like it! There also seems to be a few other good reviews (according to their own site).

Hmm, just had a quick look and a lot of the bad reviews on amazon seem to be about the interface. Maybe it would be worth getting the seperate remote to help with that?

This is where something like the Squeezebox radio would be better - it's more suited for streaming your own music (using Squeezebox server running on a PC or NAS) but doesn't have FM, which is why I discounted it.

I guess that's the problem with these things is one is more primarily a radio (the pure) and the other is more a music streamer (squeezebox) so you miss out on something with either of them (depending on what you want of course!).

If your NAS is capable of running squeezebox server (formerly called squeezecenter) then it would work with the squeezebox devices. You'd just have to give up the FM capability.
 
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"You'd just have to give up the FM capability. "

All the squeezebox famly and other similar devices can access most radio stations, they just access them over the internet. Obviously if your favourite radio station doesn't broadcast over the internet you won't be able to play it.
Check here to see if you would be losing out.
UK and Irish Radio Stations broadcasting on the Internet

There are also literally thousands of other non-UK stations available , plus custom music services such as Napster and LastFM..
Squeezeboxes don't need a server/pc/nas running to access these, they can connect directly via your router.

Personally I prefer this route over DAB or FM due to my location and poor reception.
 
Personally I like the look of the squeezebox radio but my wife has the requirement for FM, I don't think the station she listens to the most (real radio) streams over the internet.

If anyone has the Pure Evoke Flow, I'd be interested in your thoughts. I may try to find a review of it in action on youetube.
 
Personally I like the look of the squeezebox radio but my wife has the requirement for FM, I don't think the station she listens to the most (real radio) streams over the internet.

If anyone has the Pure Evoke Flow, I'd be interested in your thoughts. I may try to find a review of it in action on youetube.

I have the Pure Avanti Flow and find it very good indeed, probably an ideal solution for you but the cheapest I've found it £215 + £10 delivery at Car Audio Giant (Uptons) . I had some teething problems with Media Streaming because I use Windows 7 64 bit and apparently the Flow Server software isn't compatible yet (according to Pure). Got over this eventually using WMP12 but I have to say the navigation is dreadful compared to my Roku Soundbridge. It does it all though, the only thing missing is an SD slot for recording.

BTW, using 'The Lounge' software for Internet radio (which is very easy to set up and very good) there are 6x stations called Real Radio of which 5 are UK (North East, North West, Scotland, Wales & Yorkshire)
 
I was close to buying a Roberts Stream 83i at the weekend, but decided to go in a slightly different direction (Sonos) after a lot of thought.

The Roberts seems to tick all the boxes and you can check out the instructions on the Roberts website. Though I haven't heard one, it should sound good, being a large(ish) box, made of real wood. It has the advantage of being able to access last.fm, which I like to use on the PC. It's also got a remote which will help navigate most of the functions (extra cost on the Pure Evoke) and it's stereo out of the box (no need to buy the extra Evoke speaker). Alarms are stored in a way that retains them after a power cut. Only downside is that it really isn't pretty.

Tony
 
I rate the Roku Soundbridge Radio, good quality sound and wifi connection.
Only problem is the dodgy design of the PSU and a lot of them go...

Had the BT Internet Radio and found that pretty poor but for the price it was competitive, I just wanted more.

Nigel.
 
I don't think the station she listens to the most (real radio) streams over the internet.

They certainly do, my wife was listening to Real Radio Northwest in the kitchen this morning on my boom. It's a 128k stream too so as good as FM.

Actually Real Radio is a 32kb stream, but it is as good as FM to me
 
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Hi,

I've got one of these Revo Blik WiFi, mine was a refurb direct from Revo so a bit cheaper at £60. Sound is okay, admittedly I have mine plugged into the stereo hifi, so don't really use it's builtin speaker. If I was buying again I'd probably go for this Revi iBlik WiFi as it adds a wired connection as an option as well as the iPod dock.

Just remembered you want it portable (but I've already typed the above), this can be moved but does require the mains...

Also, meant to say it'll stream from either windows shares (SMB) or a Upnp server and plays .mp4 not just .mp3

HTH,
Tony
 
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