Roberts Stream 83i Stereo DAB/FM/WiFi Internet Radio with 3 Way Speaker System

Internet radio is the future of radio, and this machine is a great way to enjoy it. The other reviews tell you most of the techie stuff. I'll just say it is really easy to use and has a really good sound. I am a musician and very fussy about sound quality -this is just the bees knees. I use it on the "Jazz" EQ preset -as a jazz bassist I am a bit biased and the sound from this small unit is really suprising and a delight. I have the wifiradio-frontier.com website (on which you register your favourites) open on my PC in the office, and play a favourite station in both the office and on the radio in the kitchen -the ground floor is filled with music! My daughter immediately figured out how to plug her iPod into it and it worked well for her.

The powerful bass and lack of distortion at high volumes means this will be great for music while entertaining -no more faffing around to put CDs on.

Apart from the superb sound quality, it's nice to use as it's designed as a traditional radio, with knobs and buttons. I like this -I can't be bothered to fiddle around with touchscreens. It's lovely to have the high-tech workings under the cover too. I still can't quite get my head round being able to access 10,000 radio stations and save favourites on a webpage which the radio accesses. As a newcomer to Internet radio I am delighted by the discovery of genres I had never really known.

This is a great radio and a bargain for its price. It might not have all the bells and whistles possible, but if you aren't bothered about rewinding regular transmission (though you can rewind podcasts) and want to enjoy all kinds of radio with a great sound, then get his machine.

Further comments:

Have now registered with Last.fm (30 days free subscription to the service on the radio though always free on a PC) and it really is amazing. It spookily chooses the music I like after I have told it (on my PC) a few of my favourite artists. If I key in to the radio the name of a favourite artist, it plays nothing but that artist and related music in that artist's genre. In the last few days I have discovered bands I have never heard of whose music I am quite in love with. It has kept me very happy during the long hours of cooking over the Christmas period in the last few days! I can't speak highly enough of this radio -so glad I bought it. I am hooked on the Last.fm service and will happily pay a subscription after the free month is up. I hope the artists get their replay royalties as I will be buying music very infrequently any other way.

UPDATE DECEMBER 2011

I'm still very very happy with this radio and all it offers. My major disappointment with it is the ease with which my daughter can clutter up the "recent channels" listing with her own music choices -not at the moment much like mine! Really a very good radio though and lasting well in looks and functionality.

Happy Christmas everyone!

AA

UPDATE MARCH 2012

I have recently upgraded my router from a several-years old one to a modern, top of the range Belkin Play Belkin N750 Dual Band Wireless Router and this has really improved my experience with the internet radio. This router is designed for media streaming -and I hadn't appreciated how much difference this could make. The radio tunes in to internet stations so much faster now, and doesn't hang like it sometimes did. There are no breaks in transmission now. I had tamely accepted these as features of the internet -but it's more about the quality of the router signal. I've also finally networked the radio to my PC so can now stream my music collection to the radio -all 4956 songs of them! Making a playlist on my PC and then running it when I am entertaining will be lots of fun -no getting up to change discs!

Still very happy indeed with my lovely Internet Radio, which just seems to grow and grow as I slowly become more IT-literate.

AA

I like this radio a lot. I bought it mainly to get BBC "Listen Again" on a radio that can also be carried between bedroom and kitchen etc. Fits the bill perfectly. I've had it for a couple of weeks now and think it's great. It has a good warm sound with good bass and, thankfully, bass and treble equalizer control (with some presets and personal option). It's the best sounding "portable" I've owned. It is a satisfyingly weighty object with good quality controls. Menu navigation, station selection and browsing/searching (for internet stations, podcasts, "listen again"s and the like) is fairly straightforward. The screen is fine as these things go.

Unlike some internet radios it has an ethernet socket in addition to wifi, which I thought I might need and is worth thinking about. As it happens wifi connects readily from everywhere in my house, even the bedroom from which my laptop's usb wifi adaptor struggles. (I'm still glad of the wired option as a standby but haven't needed it yet.)

The DAB reception is rock solid - I have a JVC mini hifi which struggles terribly with DAB in a corner of the house where the Stream83i just works. I only need to have the aerial pointing up, but not extended, to get a top reception. FM reception is not so good, but I've always struggled with FM in my house so cannot say whether the Stream83i is better or worse than other current similar models.

I have Townky media server (DLNA/UPnP) running on a NAS (Western Digital MyBook World Edition white light version) and it picked this up straight away. I was browsing and listening to my personal ripped music collection and archived podcasts with ease.

I find browsing internet stations quite easy and BBC Listen Again content all seems to be there. The controls are reasonably straightforward (again, as far as these things go on small screen/no mouse/no keyboard devices). In fact I found searching for things by name quick and easy.

I registered with the wifi radio frontier website (as per the instruction book). This is the site used as the internet radio/podcast database for the radio. Registering your radio on the site (which is free and very easy) lets you create a personalised menu of favourite radio stations and podcasts. It also allows you to add URLs for any internet radio not already on their database. You do all this from your PC, and the next time you use your radio, your personal menu shows up on the radio. Very good. (Do not confuse this side of things with the "last fm" functionality, which is entirely separate.)

I plugged my MP3 player into the Aux In and it worked very well as a pair of quality loudspeakers for it (for the money/size etc.).

I also plugged the MP3 into the USB socket and it started charging it, which was nice. The radio read my USB content and it worked fine playing USB content.

I haven't tried the "last.fm" stuff so cannot comment on that. I'll give it a spin one day, but it wasn't what I bought it for.

The only thing that I feel should be mentioned is that this unit lacks the ability to pause and rewind radio. The "Play/Pause/FF/Rewind" labels on the preset buttons are only for playback of Media Player/USB content. They do not control the playback of podcast/listen again or normal radio. I only mention this because I own another Roberts DAB radio that has something called "Pause Plus" - pause and rewind about 20 minutes of whatever station you are listening to - which is brilliant. The Stream83i does not have this feature and is the only thing I would add to make it a perfect device for me. I had a good play with this box in John Lewis before buying (from John Lewis - sorry Amazon!) and knew it did not have Pause Plus. I can live without it.

I converted from a Pure Evoke Flow to a Roberts Stream 83i. Ok, so this radio isn't going to win any style or beauty awards but it's inners are strong and it performs exceptionally well. I've had it running for about 2 months now and during that time it hasn't skipped a beat - this can't be said of many internet radios. Not one hiccup or reboot, I hope this continues!

The main part, the internet radio is driven by Frontier Silicon, and although their database is not as large as Reciva's it offers a wealth of good stations from every country and genre imaginable, with the option to suggest one, or if you have a valid URL, create your own station. The favourites option is handy, as it allows you to store the station you listen to often for easy access on the radio, instead of trawling threw lists running into their thousands. It is likely you will want to use this as the 83i only has 5 dedicated preset buttons.

Aside internet radio, you have a very capable DAB/FM radio, (which works for me with the aerial down - pulling in all the stations I should receive with no hassle) and the Media Player function which streams MP3/AAC tracks from my MyBook World Edition NAS with no trouble.

On the back we have a headphone socket, Line out and Audio In, an RJ45 ethernet socket and the power supply jack. A USB socket is on the back as well as front but the rear one is intended only for use by Roberts, or I imagine to update the firmware where an internet connection is not possible on the radio. The USB on the front is intended to be connected with a MP3 player (excluding an iPod) or memory stick and thus it will play the tracks from this.
I have had no trouble with the Stream 83i, and Amazon has it here for a very good price so I recommend getting it from here. Unlike the Evoke Flow, I can find no disadvantages besides the looks and can highly recommend the Roberts Stream 83i. Thank you.