SangeanSR-36 AM/FM Pocket Radio (Black)

I was a bit concerned after reading some of the reviews but decided to try one of these little radios anyway as the simplicity of the design, the claimed battery life, and the size was just to attractive for the price. Boy am I glad I gave it a chance - it's an awesome little unit!The reception on mine is fantastic for FM and AM with none of the issues other's have mentioned, no chirping etc, and the knobs have stayed reassuringly stiff after pretty much constant use since it showed up. I believe I saw somewhere that Sangean revised the chip/internals of this model recently which may be why others had different experiences.I also want to mention the battery life, it's very impressive. I use rechargeable batteries and expected to have to swap them out every couple days when the radio is kept on all shift at moderate volume - instead, it lasted the whole week on a single charge!If I had to find something negative to say about the SR-36, the piano black / shiny finish on the front is a bit prone to picking up scratches scuffs and fingerprints. Hardly a deal breaker, but perhaps a bit of an oversight for a radio this size that's going to be handled and moved around a lot.One interesting little quirk, when the batteries get low the radio begins behaving strangely - on rechargeable cells the audio will start cutting out every ~15 seconds, on alkaline it can start making a low muffled hum. The first time either of these happened I though the unit was bad! But no, just low voltage.Overall very happy with this little radio, wouldn't hesitate to buy another!

UPDATE: I was so annoyed by the noises on stronger FM stations that I didn't spend any time messing with any lower-powered stations. Most of them DO NOT COME IN AT ALL. One in particular, which I listen to somewhat regularly on other radios, sometimes requires me to move the antenna around to get a good signal. Not on this radio. It's so bad, if I find the most ideal antenna position possible, I can only just barely even tell that station exists through the storm of crackling noise. This is the absolute worst radio I have ever owned. Fully unusable. Original review below...Many complaints have been registered about the AM performance. I don't listen to anything on AM here, so I wasn't too worried about the bad AM performance (this is, unfortunately, not unique for DSP radios).Well, it's not very good for FM either, especially not for the absurd price they ask. There are two problems.First, it has some of those little click noises on FM too. Even on a station I don't normally have trouble with, it still does it occasionally. In the exact same location and time, when other radios have some mild static during weak signal moments, this radio prefers to make sharper noise. It's a lot like an old cheap digital-display radio.Second, it has a noticeable flutter when adjusting the tuner. Like all analog DSP radios, the tuning adjusts the frequency in tiny steps. Good DSP analog tuners work fine and you almost don't even notice. This is not a good one. The sound cuts in and out as much as 4 times as you adjust the tuner within the range where you can hear one station. In the empty static range between stations, the static has this flutter effect and it makes it hard to slide along to the next station by ear because it constantly sounds like you are drifting past signals. It's not as bad as some of the generic radios, but it's there. The tuner is not very accurate, so it's kind of annoying process.If you are looking at this radio because it has a good speaker (especially based on the reputation of the SR35), consider the Retekess v117. It has tuner flutter too, but not as much annoying pops and it also has a very good speaker for half the price.The Panasonic RF-P150d has a speaker which is a little above average if not as good as the Retekess or Sangean. Less annoying tuner than the others. Not perfect, but again half the price of the Sangean.I hope this product is not some new future for Sangean, because it's one of the worst deals out there. I don't have the current version of the SR35, but I do have the really old non-stepped pure analog version, and it works better than this.

The Sangean SE-36 is a DSP radio that offers excellent sound quality on FM. The reason this radio is rated at 3 stars is that on AM the DSP chip cannot handle strong signals well and produces an annoying clicking sound. At first I thought it was the specific radio delivered so it was exchanged. The replacement was the same. See expert review by Todderbert. He agrees that the DSP chip is annoying. But for FM local stations the sound quality is remarkable.This radio is not recommended for AM.