Home > Consumer Reviews > Sanyo R227 WiFi Internet Radio (Black)

This Sanyo Radio is a technological marvel. It is easy to setup, sounds great, and when a rare glitch occurs (due to my slow DSL) it automatically returns to the station in seconds.
My reason for four instead of five stars is due to the content provider. Reciva ([...]) is both the chipset manufacturer and the content provider with about 17,000 internet radio stations. The organization of this giant catalog of stations is rudimentary to say the least. You can look under the 'Genre' classification and find a thousand stations listed under 'Oldies' with little else to guide you. Is a particular station playing big bands of the 40's, or music of the 50's, or old radio shows, or old standards? You have to listen to each and then find the big bands you were looking for are actually under the Jazz section.
Also poorly explained is the registration of your radio with Reciva. The serial # required is found under 'Registration' in the 'Configure' Menue. Because many of the stations you may find in the Reciva Catalog are not listed in your radios menu of stations you must place these desired stations into "My Stations' at the Reciva internet site and in a day or so it will become available on your radio.
It takes a while to get used to jumping thru these hoops, but when you finally get your stations on the presets, it was well worthwhile the effort. All in all this radio comes highly recommended.

Setting up the radio was fairly easy (once I remembered my password for my router!). The website ([...]) is easy to use and I have requested additional radio stations (which was done in a few days). Good sound. Now a few pain in the rear things -- when listening to music, the clock display almost disappears into small numbers in the bottom of the screen so it is hard to actually tell what time it is! This makes it difficult when waking to music to actually tell what time it is! (I wish Sanyo would update their firmware so after maybe 30 - 45 seconds of showing the station and connection speed, the display would revert back to the time). Also if you wish to turn on the alarm (or turn it off before it goes off so you don't wake anyone else if you're up early) you actually have to turn the radio on to turn on / off the alarm clock. No little button to do this!

Would I buy this model again? I'm not sure -- the clock not being displayed in large numbers when playing music and having to turn the radio on to turn the alarm on / off is a big draw back. I'd have to take a look at other manufacturers and models first.

This radio does EVERYTHING it says it would. It connected to my WEP encrypted wifi network as soon as I dialed in the code with absolutely no problem, or you can connect it directly to your router with an ethernet cable. You've got 16,000 world wide stations to listen to immediately, AND in STEREO (I was amazed at how many of these Internet radios were mono only, AND cost alot more.) [...].
[...].

I can't say enough about this radio. Many times I've bought something and then had "buyer's remorse." Not this time!! Enjoy

The Sanyo R227 is my first experience with a free-standing, dedicated Internet radio, and I am astounded at how good the experience has been.
Let me note that I am a radio nut -- a licensed "ham" for more than 50 years who as a kid preferred listening to radio drama/comedy to watching TV. I have owned countless AM-FM, shortwave, ham, scanner, and other kinds of radios. This one has been an entirely new and downright "exciting" experience.
I thought I would have troubles with Internet radio dropping transmissions, hanging up, blanking out, etc. Hardly ever. The flow of the "signal" is invariably interruption-free. Maybe it's my DSL provider, but it's like having cable radio. In fact, the reliability is better than our cable TV signals.
The sound is very good -- no Bose, but the radio costs much less than the pricey, great-sound models. And it has an audio output provision (which I plugged into a Kloss Model 88 for fun and got some super sound).
Set-up was easy (but I have an open wi-fi system and have used it only on open systems so I can't comment on how much trouble it is to set up on a "protected" wi-fi).
The ability to customize stations via Reciva on the Web is cool and, though doing podcasts requires a bit more effort and understanding, the ability set your radio up to listen to podcasts is a real extra treat.
I don't much like the front panel controls, but I don't like the controls on a lot of modern radios I've owned. The ring of preset and volume buttons is very weird to a geezer like me who loves good, old-fashioned buttons and potentiometer (volume, tone, etc.) controls. However, as usual, you get accustomed to them and the controls become second-nature after a while.
A tone control would be nice on the set, but the sound is pretty darn good for the price and features.
What I like best is variety of stations, reliability of the reception, and the decent sound. I am an old-time radio nut, and I have found a couple of channels that broadcast great old mystery, comedy and drama shows non-stop, commercial-free. I have been relying on XM satellite radio to provide my OTR fix, but now, heck, folks are giving it away free on Internet radio.... I also like classical music and jazz, and there are countless outlets of near HD quality sound.
I may rethink my XM-Sirius renewal....

Hello,

I bought this so that my wife could listen to our iTunes library from the kitchen. It was VERY difficult to set up and then she said it was 'just too difficult to navigate' and would not use it. It did do what it said it would, but not easily enough to be convenient. It needs to boot up and scan each time and then finding the specific file (or playlist, podast, etc.) you want can be quite onerous.

It played the internet radio stations quite well though. Those were pretty easy to find because the call letters are unique and numeric.

Oh well. I will have to find something else.

Hope this helps,

Mark