| | |  | Small Appliances | Home » » » » Sangean RCR-3 Digital Atomic AM/FM Clock Radio | | | | | | | Product Promotions: | | | | | Description: | | ATOMIC AM/FM CLOCK RADIO | | | Features: | |
• Radio controlled clock
• Large lcd display
• 14 station preset
• 4 wake up timers
• Pll tuners
| | | Product Details: | | | Product Length:
| 6.5 inches | | Product Width:
| 4.0 inches | | Product Height:
| 6.5 inches | | Product Weight:
| 3.9 pounds | | Package Length:
| 10.7 inches | | Package Width:
| 9.2 inches | | Package Height:
| 6.4 inches | | Package Weight:
| 3.95 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 30 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
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 Decent clock radio, but don't lose the instructionsNov 17, 2009
There really seems to be a Sangean fan club on Amazon, but I took this clock radio back to the store. For the price, it just has too many quirks that bothered me, such as -
- Too difficult to set alarms. The poorly written manual has more than seven steps just to set a radio alarm. I'm afraid I'd need to look for the manual whenever I wanted to change a setting.
- Acceptable sound quality, but nothing special.
- Flashing display. Although you can dim the display to an acceptable level for bedside use, it increases to maximum brightness whenever you touch a control. And since the RCR3 has both the analog clock and the digital display, maximum brightness means BRIGHT. Do you wake up in the middle of the night and want to listen to the radio? Get ready for maximum brightness. Want to change the station? Maximum brightness again. I couldn't deal with it.
- No battery backup.
About the only thing I liked about the Sangean was the automatic clock setting, which worked well.
 A clock radio if you're serious about time and quality!Nov 09, 2009
I've owned about three Oregon Scientific Atomic clock managed alarm clocks over the years - just like to have accurate time. The latest one stopped receiving the signal so I decided it was time to get something better. I drive a BMW, use a Mac computer, have a Nikon SLR and a Sony HD video camera, so features don't usually impress me, but quality, design and intelligent use of features is important to me.
I chose the Sangean RCR-3 because I liked the combination of the analogue clock, the atomic clock time correction, the fact that it had more than one alarm (four to be precise!) and it seemed to have a reasonable radio with presets.
I'm 62 years old, so having a new toy to play with is not usually my normal behaviour. But this baby is definitely a fun new toy - although reading the awful instruction manual doesn't tell the whole story.
When you first plug it in, and it finds the signal from Colorado (after an hour or so, but could be up to six to twenty four hours) you watch the hands magically set themselves to the correct time! Once you realize that you can have a preset alarm for almost any time/day combination - you get up at 6am, your wife at 7am - no problem. You want yours to buzz and your wife's to play her favourite radio station - no problem. You want to get up at 8am on Saturday and 9am on Sunday, no problem. You want your wife's alarm to only work on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, but yours on Monday through Friday - no problem.
You want to instantly switch off or switch on one of the pre-set alarms - yes, you get it!
You can instantly turn the backlight to high or low, and adjust the level of low from low to extremely dim.
The radio itself can be auto or manually tuned to any of 7 FM and 7 AM presets. Sound quality is more than acceptable from a unit of this size.
If you want an alarm clock radio that "rocks" this is it!
Fix for lack of backup battery / Very impressedNov 07, 2009
I was torn between the venerable Proton/Sangean RS-330 and the RCR-3. The RS-330 has been the de-facto ultimate clock radio, one of the last great ones from the early 90s when Proton, Nakamichi, and others produced high-end alarm clocks. At the same time, the RS-330 hasn't been updated in nearly 20 years. No CD player, no atomic clock synchronization, uses vacuum fluorescent displays which fade over time and aren't all that energy efficient (~$20/year to run the RS-330 and RS-332). So, I hesitantly bought the RCR-3 with the atomic clock feature being my primary requirement, still wishing I could get all of these features PLUS the great sound & slave clock of the RS-330.
The RCR-3 is quite simply the best alarm clock I've ever had. Totally exceeded all of my expectations. The more you use this clock radio the more you realize just how much thought was put into it. I'm planning on buying two more, one for the other side of the bed and one for my office. Might even get one for the kitchen.
Pros:
4 alarms, programmable by day-of-week. Each alarm has a separate button on the face of the clock and the actual buttons illuminate to signal which alarm(s) are turned on. The alarm button currently going off blinks to indicate such. I also appreciate that the backlighting fades up to 100% when the alarm is going off. To show the level of thought put into the alarm clock, the alarm's beeper will sound instead of the radio if the radio station's signal is low/off-air. Alarm volume (beeper and wake-to-radio) is separate from radio playback (sleep) volume. Programming the alarms is quite simple as well. Push the alarm button, then push SET and just arrow up/down. No finger gymnastics of trying to hold multiple buttons down or having to go all the way around the dial because you missed the time you wanted.
The digital radio tuner is rather good. I'm picking up FM stations from ~80 miles away crystal clear. AM reception is clear, full-range audio, and rejects interference well.
Sound quality is good, great for its size. It's been many years since I've heard a Proton clock radio, but this sounds very close. Bass depth is impressive and balanced, particularly for a radio of this size. It doesn't suffer from the boxy exaggerated mid-bass many small speakers suffer from. I've heard worse sound out of much larger speakers. I work with and own many pieces of professional (Meyer) & audiophile (Bowers & Wilkins) sound equipment yet am still impressed by this little radio. It's not at the same level by any means as the sound is heavily coloured, particularly the midrange, but it's quite enjoyable.
Large analogue clock: I'm terribly near-sighted. Digital clocks usually require that I put on my glasses to read them. The clock is also very quiet when advancing to the next minute. Even the lightest sleeper wouldn't be bothered by it. No second hand ticking either.
Dimmer: Full range dimmer. From bright enough to read by to 0% brightness, only going to 100% momentarily when you push any button. There's even a night-light button on the front of the clock that will turn the backlighting up to 100%.
Energy efficient: Uses less than 1 watt on standby, even with backlighting at 100%. Compare this to my old typical alarm clock which used 8 watts on standby. I know this sounds insignificant, but considering it's using this 24/7, it adds up over time. Figure 1 watt * 24 hrs * 365 days = 8.76kWh/year , 8 watts =70kWh/year. Multiply this by the # of clocks you have plugged into the house and you're starting to talk about decent money.
Thin plug/power cord. I know some people dislike power transformers (wall warts), but I'd much rather thread a small DC power connector through things than try to fit a full-size AC plug through an already-too-crowded wire hole in furniture. It also is safer and easily replaced if it gets pinched between the bedframe & wall, etc.
The negatives?
Lack of a backup battery. See my solution below. Sure, it has that backup capacitor AND it does show the time on the digital screen while the power is out, BUT the alarm won't sound if the power's out when the alarm is supposed to start.
No line out. I've not hooked this radio up to my bedroom's Bowers & Wilkins stereo yet, but I would prefer to do so via line out rather than headphone jack.
No HD tuner / CD player. Okay, there's a line-in for this, but I wanted just one piece of equipment on the nightstand. MP3 playback via SD card would be awesome.
No remote control. Why a remote control for a clock radio? Because the sound quality on this clock radio is better than many mini stereos!
No Stereo/slave unit. Not that it's entirely needed with atomic clocks that can sync themselves, I'd love to have the master/slave clock setup that the RS-330 had, if just for the stereo sound alone. I might just buy a 2nd one for the other side of the bed. All that I'd be missing over the RS-330/332 setup would be stereo audio.
As others have mentioned, the manual is lacking in detail. Where detail is provided it over-complicates what is really a well thought-out, logical to operate clock radio.
A few useful bits missing from the manual:
When you first power up the radio:
1) The analog clock will advance until it reaches 12:00 and the radio will scan through the stations and automatically set pre-sets the strongest ones.
2) The digital clock will show a flashing -:- and the antenna symbol.
3) The upper right corner of the screen will show L:0, representing signal strength of the time signal. Signal scale is 0 (weak) to 9 (strong).
This clock uses WWVB for time, located in Fort Collins, Colorado, on long-wave radio frequencies. For those unfamiliar with shortwave radio, it's basically AM radio that bounces off the earth's atmosphere and the ground. As you can imagine, reception of this signal is highly variable.
Don't worry if your radio shows a signal strength of 0, especially during the day. Most locations will get the best signal between 1-4am. Keep in mind this clock uses the atomic clock signal to sync its clock so it doesn't need to see it all the time. Once a day is more than enough.
4) Once the clock is receiving WWVB, the seconds display on the screen will start to tick, verifying that it is indeed seeing a signal. After a few minutes of this the clock will set itself and you're good to go. Keep in mind that under IDEAL conditions it would take the clock 3 minutes to acquire a signal. It took my clock about 15 minutes for its first sync.
Mislabeled controls department:
Light button: Should be Night Light. Turns backlighting up to 100% until pressed again when it'll return to the level you've set with the dimmer dial underneath the radio.
Tone control: Should be Loudness control. It's a bass and treble boost/cut control, similar to some car stereos and some smaller home stereos. Both bass & treble are boosted / cut at the same time with this dial.
**Back-up battery fix:**
Since I live in Florida, complete with an electrical grid only a 3rd world country could be proud of, Sangean's capacitor trick isn't going to cut it with our extended outages. Here's how I fixed this problem. I bought:
1) Ademco AD12612 alarm system 16VAC -> 12vDC power supply/charger board. (~$10-$20)
2) generic 16VAC/40VA transformer for the AD12612 (~$5-$10)
3) generic 12v 4amp-hour alarm battery (~$5-$15)
4) A spare DC power cord since I didn't want to hack apart the Sangean's power supply.
5) Some spare wire to connect the transformer to the AD12612.
So I connected all of this together, sticking the battery and Ademco board underneath the bed. Even an electrical novice can't really screw this up. The Ademco board is well-labeled (AC in, DC out, color coded battery leads). For reference, the clock is expecting 12vDC, positive tip, negative shield.
By my estimates, the clock will run for about 4 days with the backlighting on 100% 24/7. Much longer with the backlighting dimmed or off. If I bump it up to a 7AH battery that'll be 7 days, maybe 10-14 days with the backlighting dimmed. This beats out any off-the-shelf battery backup (APC et al) since everything stays in the DC domain. Those off-the-shelf UPSs won't last more than a few hours with no load connected. With the alarm system power supply there's no DC(battery)->AC(inverter)->DC(12vDC transformer) conversion and no DC->AC inverter loss. Dead silent when running too.
As a side benefit, this will be a nice hurricane/emergency setup down the road. The backlighting on the clock is bright enough to read by and certainly more than enough light for emergencies. 7+ day runtime is just icing on the cake. Want more functionality out of this setup? Hook a car cell phone charger up to the 12v output on the power supply.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
 What is going on?Sep 30, 2009
The manual is very poor, many things on the display are not explained. The analog clock would sync up with the digital, then a few hours later the hands would be spinning. I spent a weekend with this thing moving the antenna, trying manual settings, no luck. I really wanted a radio with good reception, and Sangean is known for that. As much as I tried this thing had to be returned.
Superb Clock RadioSep 22, 2009
Extremely versatile with 4 different alarm settings that can be set by day of the week. So if you need to wake up at a different time on the weekend, rather than the weekday, you just set another alarm to on go off on weekends. You never have to change your settings.
Read the instructions. Everyone complains about the instructions being unclear, but if you follow them exactly as they are written.....set up is a breeze.
Some complain about no battery back up, but you don't need it as it saves your settings to memory (even when you lose power). And since it is an atomic clock, it automatically searches for the time when the power comes back on.
It is a very attractive and sleek design. Well worth the price. You will be blown away by the sound quality and its ability to tune in stations that other radios cannot.
Amazon shipped it fast (as always).
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