The Best Radios We Tested (2024): Portable, Bluetooth, for Emergencies | WIRED

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The radio makes for a great background companion. My grandmother always had her favorite station on when she cooked, and my mom tuned into NPR whenever we were on the road. I've been continuing the tradition, listening to my favorite radio station from my teenage years now that I live within its range again.

I’ve tried a lot of radios over the years. Most reviews of audio products focus on the performance of the speaker, but for radios it doesn’t matter how great the speaker sounds if it only picks up static. I've compiled a list of the best radios that can deliver great sound with great reception. Design also has a part to play; what’s the point of buying an ugly radio when a smart speaker or phone can do the job just as easily?

These radios will not only look good in your home, but have all been tested with how well they can pick up a signal, speaker quality, ease of use, and any other feature the radio might offer.

If you're shopping for more audiophile gear, don't miss our guides to the Best Soundbars, Best Bookshelf Speakers, Best Bluetooth Speakers, and Best Smart Speakers. Looking for more analog gear in your life? We've got guides to the Best Record Players, a Beginner's Guide to Film Cameras, and even an Analog Gift Guide.

Updated September 2024: We've added the Lumie Bodyclock Luxe 700FM and the Studebaker SB2135BT as picks, and notes on Yoto's kid radio stations.

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Sangean has been my favorite radio for a few years now. I love a few different models from the brand, but the WR-15 is my personal favorite. Not only did it do fantastic in my testing, picking up a good amount of stations and playing those stations more clearly than other, cheaper radios.

Dial radios are gorgeous to look at, but can be a little frustrating to land on your preferred station compared to digital radios. But the WR-15 has a nice, large dial and easy to read numbers that make it easy to find the station you're looking for, and the green light at the top lights up to confirm you've locked onto a station. The dial isn't the only design choice I like—the size and shape of this radio is reminiscent of a bookshelf speaker, and the small footprint makes it easy to add to any tabletop. It also comes in a handful of really nice finishes that make for a stylish addition to a bookshelf, kitchen counter, or desk. It doesn’t have a Bluetooth connection, but it does have an auxiliary input.

★ Same radio, horizontal form: The Sangean WR-11 ($89) is nearly the same radio, just sideways. If you like the longer body style, it performs similarly to the WR-15 and comes in a gold anniversary finish ($92).

This radio looks and sounds quite nice for the price. It’s cheaper than most, and while it’s fully portable, it still looks at home on a desk or bookshelf. (Something about its design just says “garage workshop” to me.) Unlike the Tivoli, it doesn’t have any weatherproofing for the outdoors, so keep it out of the rain.

The display is large, so it's easy to see which channel you’re on, at least for an analog radio, and the dials are easy to use. It requires three AA batteries for portable mode, but you can use the included AC adapter instead to keep it powered on if you don't need it to be portable. I only wish the volume dial was above the tuning dial—it's easy to grab the wrong one!—but that might not bother you.

I was a little surprised how much I liked Lumie's Bodylock Luxe 700FM as a radio. It's one of our recommendations in the Best Sunrise Alarm Clocks guide, but it performed similarly to Studebaker's radios in my side-by-side radio signal tests. It also has a nice speaker, so your favorite radio station will sound nice both due to the reception and the speaker quality.

The design of the Luxe 700FM reminds me of a 2000's car radio, with five buttons to save your stations and two dials on either side. One dial is for volume, while the other is for the sunrise lamp. The digital screen looks pretty basic, but it was really easy to read and channel surf to find my favorite stations (and check which of my local stations the radio was and wasn't getting). You can set up an alarm to wake you with the radio, and you can also add a sunrise experience to it if you want. It also doubles nicely as a bright bedside lamp.

Tivoli’s adorable, portable radio has a lot of pros. The Tivoli Pal BT (7/10, WIRED Recommends) has a vertical body like the Sangean WR-15, but since it's battery-powered, you can place it anywhere in your house and tote it around whether you’re jamming to the radio or your Spotify Wrapped via Bluetooth. It comes in a ton of colors, making it a fun decor accessory, and the IPX4 rating means it'll be OK in some light rain (though I'd still keep it sheltered). The battery lasts about 12 hours, and it comes with a proprietary charger.

The sticking point is the price—it's nearly twice what you’ll pay for Sangean’s radios. It's also not as good at picking up a radio station as the Sangean, but since it’s portable you have an easier time moving it around to get the best signal indoors.

Physical media is making a comeback, so why not pick a radio that can play the cassettes and CDs you're buying again? The Sangean SB2135BT has it all in one device. It's a good radio, too, with good reception and robust sounding speakers. I picked up stations easily and it was easy to turn the control knob to find my station. The station numbers are on the small side, so you'll probably have to lean in to find a specific station. But for searching for any station playing a song you like, it's easy to use.

There's different controls for the CD player, tape player, and radio, and a few switches to select which one you're using. All are easy enough to use, though the cassette switches take some effort to push into place. (Were cassette players always this way and I just don't remember?) The buttons and dials are clearly plastic to the touch, but don't feel flimsy when I'm spinning the dial or hitting play on a cassette. The SB2135BT is deeper than other radios we recommend, which makes sense since it needs room for a CD player, but it still fit on a small shelf.

The Studebaker SB2000 feels like a toy and is priced like one, so you won't be bummed if the kids break it. The tiny channel dial also feels made for small hands. The hardware is plasticky, but the colors are fun and bright. It’s a solid radio otherwise, with good reception and fine enough sound considering how cheap it is. The handle and battery power source makes the SB2000 easy for kids to carry from room to room, though there's no weatherproofing, so make sure there's no chance of rain if they take it outside.

★ For Internet Tunes: The Yoto Player (7/10, WIRED Recommends) and Yoto Mini ($70) both have an option to play a handful of digital kids radio stations. Yoto has three exclusive stations, including a sleep radio, or you can choose from kid-friendly stations from partners like BBC. You need a smartphone and the app to find and play these stations, though, rather than your kid selecting them on the device on their own.

For better or worse, I had the perfect stress test for this radio—when Hurricane Hilary hit southern California. It was mild where I live, but we lost power for several hours. During the outage, we turned on the FosPower A6 to stay in the loop. This radio can pick up National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration channels for local weather info, along with FM and AM signals. The dials are responsive, and the radio did a solid job picking up stations from a variety of towers. I was getting Los Angeles and Tijuana-based radio stations as easily as local San Diego ones, though the signals weren’t as clear as tabletop radios I’ve used. The speaker quality isn't as nice as the above models either, but it’s designed for emergency preparedness rather than jam sessions.

It has a long-lasting battery you can charge via USB-C, solar, or the hand crank—you can also add your own AA batteries. The battery can double as a power bank for your smartphone, which is great in a pinch, and there's a powerful flashlight too that I often grab for nighttime walks. Don't buy it for the attached compass—mine seems to think every direction is north.

If you know the station, you can also ask your smart speaker to turn on your radio station of choice. Alexa is easy to command with the exact station number, or even just asking it to “play NPR." (You might need to specify your zip code to get connected to your local NPR station, which was quick to do over voice command as well). Google Assistant, on the other hand, responded only when I could give it a specific radio channel number and used iHeartRadio to play it.

Tivoli Model Three BT for $300: This radio looks nice and comes with a lit-up analog clock. It's great for bedside tables since it has an alarm you can set, and a sleep button to turn the radio off after 20 minutes if you want to be lulled to sleep. Reception struggled more than I expected with such a high price, and setting the clock is frustrating.

Tivoli Model One for $149: I wasn’t impressed by this radio for the price. It’s perfectly fine, but you can get better reception and sound from other radios in this guide at a lower price.

Victrola Willow for $60: The dial on this one didn’t match the station for me at all. But it looks nice and has a wire antenna if you want to place it somewhere that a real antenna can’t fit.

Buy a radio and only picking up static? There's a few things that could be at play.

Radio signals travel miles and miles to reach your home and radio of choice, but depending on the distance or the placement of your radio, you could be picking up a worse angle on the frequency. Radio signals bounce around and are reflected back and forth by obstacles, including objects in your home and even your own body. There's no way to guarantee which spot in your house will get the best signal for the station you love best, but even moving a radio over a couple of inches can suddenly improve your signal.

I test areas on the same tabletop in my home, but sometimes find a different antenna picks up signal a little better an inch to the left versus another radio. Each radio has a different antenna design, and each radio shape will come into play too: how tall is the radio itself? and how much higher does the antenna go past it?

Some antennas seem to just be better than others: Sangean and Studebaker radios, for example, have consistently performed well in my reception tests. Telescoping antennas, which all the radios we recommend have, are often best for picking up a signal, but soft wire ones can work great if you get them in the right position. I usually get the best results by running a wire antenna up a wall to replicate my telescoping antenna testing, and they're easy to run up the back of some shelves if you want something discreet.

You also have to ask yourself about the station you're trying to pick up. How far away is it, and what kind of setup do they have? You can check Radio Locator to see what stations your area should pick up and how far away those stations are broadcasting from. From my testing in San Diego County, I found major stations in Los Angeles and Tijuana could be easier to pick up—likely from a better antenna system, since the height and design of an antenna relates to how well it projects a signal—than some local stations that were much closer to me. With every radio I tested, I found my local Christian Contemporary station that's merely ten miles away was harder to pick up than major radio stations based twice as far.

My testing is based on consistency, so I didn't hunt around to get a better signal for that local station beyond adjusting each radio a few inches on my testing tabletop. But you can, and you might have to try a few different parts on a bookshelf or a room to find where you can best get the radio signal for your station of choice. Portable radios make this a little easier since you don't need to worry about a cord while finding that perfect spot, but I often found that even a couple of inches can make a world of difference in a radio signal.

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