- Easy-to-read 0.9 green LED clock display
- Variable brightness control
- AM/FM stereo tuner
- Dual Alarm
- Nap timer
What it lacks is a remote control for this price, a battery back-up, the annoyance of waking you up if there is a short power shortage, the inconvenient place the button is for DST it can easily be hit when you wake up, and the inconvenience of setting anything on this when is dark room.
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I reviewed the Sony ICF-CD820 model and was disappointed (see review). So I upgraded to the ICF-CD873. Now I am happy. This unit is sooo much better engineered. The Mega Bass port produces a very good, rich, Bose-like sound for its size. The AM/FM Tuner has digital tuning which is worth the upgrade. You can tell it is a recent design because AM goes to 1710 KHz. Both AM and FM are sensitive. It is definitely a high-end clock radio. You can either choose a voice synthesized message with display or just the display. When you touch the button, it will TELL you the time. And, in the morning, it will announce the time and then begin the radio or CD. It also has dual alarms and a sound generator. You can awake to a river sound, birds, CD or radio. (Trick: Since it has two alarms, you can set one to go to sleep and one to awake, because the alarms last for one hour... go to sleep with the river or birds.) It also has a Sleep mode (15, 30, 60, etc.), but it does not work with the river and birds sounds (unless you do the above trick). I wish it had more than five AM-FM presets. You can also choose which CD track to awake, instead of just the first track on the CD. It even has a DST Adjustment button for Daylight Savings Time, but be careful not to hit it, you may wake up an hour later! (It DOES have a small sun as an indicator on the display for DST and the small button is toward the back.) The display is a yellowish color, which may make the numerals hard for some to see in the dark without glasses. My wife and I are very pleased with the unit. Ron in CA
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This product would have been excellent, except for two MAJOR flaws.
1. The radio reception is terrible, it barely pulls in stations that work great on several other radios I have. Thus, this unit is more of a CD player than a radio.
2. When I turn the radio or CD on there is a noticable background hum. I do not know if this is because this unit is defective, or what. I tried doing some troubleshooting (tried other locations, sockets, let it burn in a bit) but no luck.
Rating (Terrible) 0 100 (Excellent) Sound quality: 90 Looks: 90 Conectivity: 10 Radio reception: 10 Features: 94 Usability: 93 Performance: 10 Overall: 19
Summary: Even if this unit did not hum, the radio reception is not good enough to make me want to keep the unit. It only pullin in really strong stations without static. Otherwise the reception is just too poor.
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I've had this unit for several years and it has performed flawlessly. Only wish the clock display was a little larger as i have it about 12 feet away and it's a little hard to read when you first get up and your eyes are adjusting.
I purchased the Sony clock-radio ICF-CD803 several years ago, and was quite pleased with it overall until the button that turned on the radio started not to work. In order to turn on the radio, I would have to set the alarm to the radio mode and then advance the alarm until the radio came on. It was not a major drawback for me, but the one feature of that clock-radio that used to annoy me, (apart from the fact it had only 6 pre-sets,) was the fact that one could not select just the radio to wake up to. One could wake up to the CD, the CD and then the radio, or a beeper alarm. I never understood this, but it wasn't a major drawback for me. I bought the clock-radio for sale here, the ICF-CD873 in November 2002, and it does not have this problem. I can wake up to the CD, the radio, a beeper alarm, or some fairly ersatz birdsong or a running river. Like its predecessor, the sound on the ICF-CD873 is very respectable for a clock-radio. Of course, the sound from its little speakers is not as good as that from my 16" JBLs, but it is not that far behind, and as bright and bassy as any little clock-radio by your bed would need to be. I like the "voice-plus" feature where a (slightly Japanese-accented,) woman's voice tells you the time, because, as is common with every digital clock I've ever encountered, the display is too bright at night for me, and so I cover the display with a CD cover, and if I need to know the time I reach out and tap the button which activates the "voice-plus" feature. The voice also speaks before the alarm goes off, saying "Good morning, it is 6 o'clock A.M." (Or whatever.) I wish it didn't do this. It startled me the first couple of times it did it. But it is not a major drawback for me, and if it was there is a button that switches the "voice-plus" off. ("Plus what?" one wonders.) A more serious annoyance is that there are only 5 pre-sets, one less than the ICF-CD803. It's not a disqualifier, but one wonders "Why only 5?" All-in-all, I'm very pleased with my ICF-CD873, especially if the buttons continue to function past 2008.
