Home > Consumer Reviews > Vita Audio R1-CHERRY Dab / Fm Radio In Cherry Wood Veneer

This radio is truly remarkable unit considering its small size. Even though it has a relatively small speaker, the sound it creates effortlessly fills a large room. The sound is rich and smooth and you would think that it can't possibly be coming from such a small box.

I can only think the quality of the sound is there because the case is designed like a proper HiFi speaker box - very solid and well built

OK it might be a bit more expensive than some but you will not be disappointed. I cannot recommend this enough

I listened to pretty much every table radio before I bought the R1, and there's nothing better out there (IMHO). I also listened to pretty much every iPod speaker system, and while there may be better (the Fatman for instance) there's nothing to beat the R1 at this price or close to this size.

The control system is simple, smooth and intuitive. Styling is discrete, and with the unit's diminutive size, blends effortlessly into any environment. Tuning to every DAB station is accomplished with one touch of a single button. The sound is refined and full, though with perhaps a touch of hardness in the upper vocal range when listened to directly on axis. Despite the small box size, bass control is good and extension reasonable. Volume is sufficient to fill a decent sized room, but look elsewhere if you need something suitable for a dance party. Unlike some other radios, the unit is solidly built, and will not rattle or buzz even with rock music at full volume.

Connecting the iPod via the auxiliary socket on the front panel likewise gives excellent results.

Highly recommended.

I agree with other buyers, this is a quality unit with great audio. Drawbacks?, well for me, the sleep setting is more button pushing than I need (a sony unit I replaced only required one button push, this requires 3 to set each night). Secondly, once the radio is on, the time disappears from the display until the radio is back off. Lastly, the standard display gives date and time in two lines. If the type size was made larger, it would be far easier to see the time at glance - I don't need the date. Oh, and it's quite a bright display at night!. Still, I would trade all those for the overall appearance and sound quality which are first class.

Given this is a bedside unit design (sleep setting....) with output for a second speaker, there would be a market for a second matching unit speaker only to provide sound on the other side of the bed. Yes, it's that good.

A solidly built radio with a beautiful full rich sound. The Vita has a reassuring warmth, but not to the detriment of detail and balance. Not only does it sound great with voice, but music of all kinds sounds surprisingly good as well. The only real competitor in this area is Tivoli, but the Vita is better value and has, in my opinion, rather richer sound - moving to closer to the sort of reproduction you would expect from a decent hi-fi system. No complaints about radio reception on both DAB and FM and the controls are neat and well designed.

Any negatives? It would be nice if there were more presets (there are only 5 for FM and 5 for DAB), and a re-chargeable battery option would be great, but I suspect the power requirements would make that latter impractical.