Home > Consumer Reviews > Tivoli Audio Platinum Series Model One AM-FM Table Radio, Dark Walnut/Beige

This radio has 3 things that make it outshine other brands I tried: 1) it has very good audio for its size, 2) it looks great, and 3) it has a very good tuner able to pull in weak stations.

I got this for my wife's birthday as a third attempt to provide her with a kitchen radio that can receive the weak PBS stations in our town. Two others (Sony and GE) were completely unable to pick up PBS. This radio can receive them, provided I place the external antenna in the right position. On strong stations, of course, it has no problem, even with its internal antenna. It is just that when the signal is very weak, even the best possible radio design must be given a chance by providing a good antenna (This is actually an expert opinion since I teach radio design at a state university. The problem has to do with what is called the thermal-noise-floor and the FM detector's sensitivity. Limits of physics and engineering - yada, yada, yada ;-)

Another problem radios have with weak signals is receiving them when there are strong signals around (called intermod and blocking problems). This radio does a pretty good job dealing with those problems too. There is a hip-hop station in our area which is so strong that other radios like the Sony and GE kitchen models I tried had the entire bottom of the FM band unusable. The strong station came in everywhere on the dial with those radios. The Tivoli does have a few instances of receiving this annoying station at places on the dial where stations were weak or absent, but it was much improved over the other brands, and it was able to dig out the weak PBS signals. The only radios that might do a better job are car radios which are designed to deal with the problem. But a comparison of the Tivoli with my Pioneer car radio and its "Supertuner" showed them to be about on a par - except that the Tivoli actually sounded better!

On the subject of sound, the Tivoli is very good - amazing for the small speaker. Midrange and highs are very pleasing, but I feel the bass is a bit colored and maybe too strong. But that's another place where the design of the radio is probably about as good as physics will allow, given the size - so I'm very happy.

Finally, the looks... I got the platinum version of the Model-One for the polished wood, and boy is it polished. They even throw in a pair of white gloves so you don't get finger prints on the finish when you take it out of the box ! Nice touch...

I recently purchased this radio and have been extremely pleased with the quality. The reception is quite outstanding. I have had other table radios with external antennas and they could barely receive the local NPR and college stations. The Tivoli, with its external FM antenna, receives these stations beautifully. The dark walnut cabinet is beautiful. The ease of use is great, too! Sometimes all you want is to tune into a station, not play with controls and this model of radio satisfies that need perfectly!

I bought this product for a specific purpose: I wanted to be able to listen to NPR in one area of the house. All of my other radios, including my Bose, made NPR sound like it was being broadcast from the bottom of a deep well. I have zero knowledge about electronics, so I made my selection based on the other reviews that showed the people who bought this product were really happy with it. I took it out of the box, plugged it in, turned it on to the NPR station without using the extra antenna thingy, and it sounded just great. Call me: Very Pleased.

This is the best radio we have ever bought. The sound quality is very clear. The wood exterior is easy to clean and look great. My husband wants one for every room in the house.

I got this Radio for my brother. He loves to listen radio with a good quality voice. He loved this radio and he told me that he can treasure this radio for a long time.