Tangent - Refurbished Duo AM/FM Clock Radio - Black

This is a clock radio from the Tangent Loudspeaker people, in Denmark. While we may not all agree that their food is all that good, the Danes have a wonderful sense of design and tend to make solid, directly useful yet beautiful products without the fluff we get from the Far East. You know you have a well executed item immediately upon receiving it. It weighs something! So much of what is on the market today is ersatz looks-like product. Picture of wood... Metal-like finish... This is different. The outer cabinet is actually cabinet: it's lacquered wood, assembled as a box should be, with a rich smooth finish. About that finish: bear in mind this is a high-gloss piano-black lacquer. Very classy, very at home in a far east motif room and would look nice in your piano studio. But it is black lacquer. That means it is fragile: lacquer is both durable and fragile. It likes gentle temperature and humidity changes. You can't clean it easily with anything but water. It shows fingerprints. But it's a nice, rich genuine luxury finish. At BB, you have the same choice that Henry Ford sold bajillions of Model As and Ts: Black. This glossy delicious black. This radio has an interesting history: close to ten years ago, there was a craze for high quality table radios that the hifi companies fed. It had been a LONG time since the fabled KLH table radio and later, by Henry Kloss, the Advent table radio in the late 70s to early 80s. Those were rich, fat and phat sounding radios with decent tuners that filled rooms with pleasant sound. Not hifi, but not a crummy plastic buzzy radio, either. This was released originally as the Uno, simply a terrific table radio, and years later, updated as the Duo Clock Radio (get it?). The price was a heart-stopping $429 (or Euros) in choice of several rich wet colors and it sold well. Very well, even though it was a good bit more expensive than some of the competing "hot new" table radios coming out in the middle of last decade. This model debuted in 2008 iirc. This is a little different than the old classics. It sounds different than those and than the newer ones. Most of these radios either try to sound much bigger than they are or to play it straight. People don't care about "flat" response from a radio. They want a pleasant rich experience. Tangent have contoured the sound of this radio quite well. It has some low end and a bit of kick. The highs are good enough for FM, for the most part, and at moderate volume, the distortion is pretty much all reception induced. The throwback telescopic whip works as one would expect a monopole to work, but the F Connector on the back will let you use anything from a flat dipole to a Terk or similar Mandelbrot technology disc to an outdoor yagi or even cable, if they provide local FM. You could even try DXing with a long wire and ground, though FM is rarely successfully received that way. The tuner is a geared, old-fashioned vernier dial with numbers. There is AM and FM. It is simplicity itself. Like the Advent 400 table radio of 30 years ago, you tune until the LED is brightest and fine tune by ear. How easy is that? It's as easy as an old Magic-Eye was on table and console radios. The sound here is not really quite tube-like, by the way. There is a bit of clarity or hardness fresh from the box that tubes didn't usually have because of their very high (in this application) THD smearing the highs... an attribute many people like. From that came the criticism of solid state radios and hifis as "tinny" by your grandparents. This sound rich, full, a little kick, but not boomy. It has reasonable but not extended highs, and that's how it should be for a table radio. Additionally, since the speaker faces upward, it cannot deliver great highs in front, but will deliver even sound while filling a room nicely. It's good enough to use in a busy office and will play loud enough. For some, this may be a negative, but there is NO TONE CONTROL. However, you can "tune" the bass, which is what most people intend with a tone control anyway, by moving the unit closer or further from a wall at it's back, which is where there is a bass vent in the well designed, non-buzzy, non-rattly cabinet. Move closer, get more bass. There is your tone control. An inch in either direction can make a real difference. The Amplifier is listed oddly for spec. The truth is that it is 5WRMS/ch, which is a buttload of power for a tabletop clockradio. To drive the single long-throw large-magnet 3" cloth-surround speaker in the unit, it sounds like the output of what is likely a car-stereo IC-amp (5wpc is SUPER common) has been bridged into the driver OR it's a dual voice coil driver. This makes the radio have its "oomph." But wait, there's more! I was wondering when ordering if the headphone jack in back for stereo phones, as described, was going to provide stereo output. Why yes it does, thanks for asking! The Unit is actually running in stereo all the time! That is downside number two: you cannot force the tuner into Mono unless you unplug the headphones, which is not quite the same thing. I'm in a high multipath area, and that explains the noise I still get. However, the Duo acquits itself with a stereo Aux In jack, so you can hook up your iPod or HD radio tuner or XM/Sirius tuner or cassette walkman (huh?) or whatever and either get snappy mono sound from the built in speaker or get the fullness contoured into the amp delivered to your headphones or aux upgrade speakers, maybe from your computer setup, plugged into the headphone jack. Thus, it's a teensie mini-receiver. Nice, huh? The one drawback that is a real issue is that the clock is hard to read. It's small, has no backlighting and so it tough at night if your vision is not hawk-like. Then entire clock face IS rechargeable luminous, which works better with sunlight than a flashlight. A CFL bulb would probably work well charging it, but it only is visible for a couple hours. That's a problem if you tend to wake up often in the night. The alarm is easy to use and well thought out with the annunciator on the back, so it doesn't make you jump out of your skin. The snooze function is thoughtful and the button is big and rignt on top with nothing else to confuse with it, kind of a no-brainer that nobody seems to do. If this had a backlit clock, it would be terrific, but at this price, if you ignore the clock, it's just a stupidly great deal on a really awesome looking and sounding table radio that plays loud enough, is full and rich, has just enough basic features, can be lived with without the few omitted and if you think of the clock as a bonus, not as a focus, it's just plain a mad bargain. I'd like to send you to Tangent's website to read what they have to say about this lovely clock radio, but that's against BB rules. Obviously they like it, but it just gives you a maker's perspective and a clearer look at the specs. Go buy one before this refurb, which looked brand new, btw, is sold out. It's an unbelievable value. I was in the high end audio business for decades, have hearing well beyond that of most teens even now, and education in music and EE, Biomed Eng and Neuropsych. I actually know what I'm talking about. This is a killer deal. Just buy it, put it in your bedroom, office, den, kitchen. So what. It's black. It's awesome. Just buy it. Oh, and hey... a TWO YEAR WARRANTY. Nice.

The clock stopped working after the 30-day return window, and the radio will now only turn on in sleep mode. The US phone number for the manufacturer is incorrect and is somebody else's residential phone (number was given to me by Best Buy and is on Tangent website). The sound quality and design are great, but it simply doesn't work as a clock radio. This "refurbished" unit was apparently skipped over during refurbishment. FM reception could be better.

This is a very good radio as far as the look and feel. It has outstanding base sounds but it is not well balanced sound. Because of its heavy base, you can miss the conversation or certain sound effects on the opposite side of the frequency spectrum. I also use it to watch movies from my tablet and I need another set of speakers to make sure I can capture the voices clearly. In that case, the base is good for the background sound mostly. Otherwise it is great. I also can't seem to get a good reception which i think it's a function of antenna quality. Nevertheless, I love it and I would recommend it.

I use this in my office waiting room, so patients I am talking to feel more privacy in my office. The bezel dial is easy to turn, the sound is superior with great balance between treble and bass. The price is fantastic through the online store. Plan to order one for my bedside table!