Sangean HD 16

Sangean released their latest radio last month, The HD 16, AM FM and HD capabilities. Most of the reviews have been positive and I ordered it. It's quite a receiver with great AM and FM reception and HD on AM and FM and RDS. Listening to an HD station on AM is amazing. Anybody have this unit?

With HD radios becoming standard in new cars and the new HD portable Sangean radio, it would be nice if there was a little more diversity on the HD channels. Boston and Philly have some unique subchannels. New York has only two that aren't available elsewhere..active rock on 92.3 and Smooth Jazz on 102.7. 101.1 WCBS FM has three HD channels, one is WCBSAM news and the other two are Sports. Why? There are enough Sports and Religious stations on regular AM and FM. It would be nice to have formats that are no longer on terrestrial radio(Standards50's60'oldies,Smooth Jazz,Comedyt

This is the first I heard of it. Where'd you get it, and how much did it cost?

I got it through Amazon and it costs $100.

It looks to be a PR-D15 (or PR-D5) with HD capability, and a few different functions. Same case, and according to a few reviews I saw on Amazon, works just as well on AM and FM.

RE: HD2 channels: they do that here in Seattle also. Sports talk AMers on FM HD channels, etc.. It makes sense. FM is where a lot of the listeners are. Not much different than using FM translators to increase availability.

benale said:

New York has only two that aren't available elsewhere..active rock on 92.3 and Smooth Jazz on 102.7.

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Wrong!
I am not in the Apple, but I think I could find a few others:
------------------------------------
_88.3 WBGO-HD2 The Jazz Bee
_89.1 WFDU-HD2 Eclectic
_89.1 WFDU-HD3 Classical, New Song & Gospel
_89.9 WKCR-HD2 WWFM, Trenton, "The Classical Network"
_90.7 WFUV-HD2 FUV All Music
_94.7 WNSH-HD4 The Bridge Christian (No HD2\3)
103.5 WKTU-HD2 Pride Radio
105.1 WWPR-HD2 Danu Radio (Russian)
105.9 WQXR-HD2 Q2 Music
106.7 WLTW-HD2 Classic Lite
------------------------------------
My list shows a bunch more in various languages,
but I do not know how accurate (current) the list is.

Quite a few non commercial stations do have decent HD offerings. It would be nice to see 94.7 do a Classic Country format. There are many religious/Cont. Christian stations on the regular bands. WLTW's HD2 is the IHeart 80's feed. More than enough 80's music elsewhere. 50's and 60's would be a welcome addition. WHQT in Miami has a great Classic Soul station on their HD2 channel. Would love to see it in New York on WWPR or WQHT's HD channels. I think HD radio may be turning a corner. More and more new cars are being equipped with them. If there is a unique format on the subchannels, hopefully listeners will come.

Look to Boston and Philly. Both cities have great HD channels.

benale said:

...the regular bands.

Click to expand...

¿What are they?

I meant the AM and FM bands.In New York there are quite a few religious/Christian stations. WMCA,WFME,WLIB and a few Spanish language stations. Also WAWZ,WLIE WNYH,96.7 nearby in Connecticut(don't know the calls)and a translator on 101.5 on Long Island. All these stations are quite audible in the New York area.

I got this radio for xmas and it is overall a great performer. I am in Los Angeles and am able to hear all HD stations on FM - including those with HD3 sub stations. However this radio has one disppointing flaw. I use it as a bedside radio and fall asleep to it using the sleep timer. The problem is the LCD backlight is extremely bright and there is no way to turn it off while the radio is on! I have spoken to Sangean USA and they told me the engineers in Taiwan are aware of the issue but as of now there is no solution. I have had similar Sangean radios and these all had backlights on the display which would automatically turn off a few seconds after changing stations. Not sure why they didn't design this one the same way...

Please explain those two mystery features listed as:
1) Automatic Multicast Re-Configuration
2) Automatic Simulcast Re-Configuration

Not sure but my guess is when you preset an "HD2" or "HD3" station, the preset goes back to that automatically without you having to retune. Previous HD radios I have owned did not do this - they would only let you preset "HD1". This is a good feature of the HDR-16.

The way it is worded, I wonder if maybe that feature will allow the user to program it so that when a sub-channel drops out,
the radio will switch to another frequency that the station is also on.
For example, a Miami station is on 610 AM and 105.9-HD2, and
it would be really super-duper kewl if when 105.9-HD2 is lost, the radio would go to 610 AM instead of defaulting to 105.9-FM.
Please, figure out what both functions do, I could see myself buying a Sangean HDR-16.

Astronut said:

Not sure but my guess is when you preset an "HD2" or "HD3" station, the preset goes back to that automatically without you having to retune. Previous HD radios I have owned did not do this - they would only let you preset "HD1". This is a good feature of the HDR-16.

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That's strange. Every radio I've been able to get my hands on has allowed me to save an HD2/3 as a preset. Granted, this has been limited to just a few models (Insignia portables, VW and Mazda car stereo units.) But they did go straight to the HD2/3 if that preset was selected prior to shutting the radio off. Just takes a while to buffer before sound comes out.

As to the bright light problem, I can definitely see where that would be super annoying when you're trying to fall asleep. Surprised it doesn't have a high/low light setting buried somewhere. My (ghetto) solution to this with various electronics has been to use some of the painter's tape that's blue and doesn't leave a sticky residue on stuff to cover up bright lights. Maybe a piece of that could be gentle layered over the screen to block out most of the light? It is slightly transparent, so some light will still get through but it shouldn't hurt the plastic display cover. I know it's a poor solution, but it works. I have tape over my PC's monitor and power lights, the HDD light, the lights on the wireless router and probably some more things I've forgotten about in my bedroom!

From what I am reading, this could be the best portable HD radio thus far.
My Radiosophy HD-100 table radio had terrible audio and eventually failed,
and my Insignia Narrator had great sound, but for lack of content at the time,
I gave it to a blind radiophilic friend.

This owner's manual says nothing about my question,
and DavidEdwardo can confirm that "Tuning Region D" for Brazil is not correct.

Just ordered one from Adorama after reading
Radio Jay Allen's Review.
Will report back.

I have the Insignia NS-HDRAD2. Got it for $27 from eBay, primarily for my elderly dad. But I also found the pre-sets only go to the HD1 signal. The stations he prefers are HD2, 3 or 4. If it gets turned off, and back on again, he'll get an FM station he doesn't want, and lose the All-News or Talk station he had wanted. If he's listening to WINS All-News on WNEW-FM's HD3 channel, he'll get Lady Gaga or Beyonce if the radio goes off, then back on again, or he switches between pre-set channels.

I think that is too complicated for him.

Gregg. said:

I have the Insignia NS-HDRAD2....But I also found the pre-sets only go to the HD1 signal...
If it gets turned off, and back on again, he'll get an FM station he doesn't want...
or he switches between pre-set channels.

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What you describe should never happen.
My three radios would mute until they could lock onto the desired digital preset,
they were the two I listed above plus an aftermaeket car deck.

I have spent some time with the hdr-16. My original thoughts about this radio remain. A nice feature is, if you program the HD signal in the pre-sets, they stay saved. Works nicely. There is one strange issue with this radio. The headset doesn't mute all the time. If you wait a few minutes after plugging it in, it will then mute. Headphone listening is fabulous when it works. So, the muting issue is a sort of inconvenience, but not a game changer. The AM is above average in sensitivity and captures AM HD very good within a strong local signal. The FM performance is also very good. All available HD signals come in and stay locked. The line output is very hot. I went to radio shack and got a cord with a volume control. That shunted the hot output. My thoughts so far regarding this radio. I like it a lot. Its the best unit currently available on the market. Now... just wish the HD stations would embrace some creative programming instead of a simulcast of their AMs. Lots of format holes can be filled with this technology that is over a DECADE old. Time does fly. (and i still have my zune for FM HD, lol)

radiowizard101 said:

...just wish the HD stations would embrace some creative programming instead of a simulcast of their AMs.
Lots of format holes can be filled with this technology that is over a DECADE old...

Click to expand...

I think that is only happening in markets such as the first.

Almost two years since I posted in this thread. The Sangean HD-16 has an aux input. I found a Bluetooth adapter that will plug into the aux input at Walmart. It's a Black Web product and works well. At only &8.95, it's a bargain. My HD radio is complete. Still enjoying it for OTA HD broadcasts and now internet radio from my ipad. Life is great.