Boston Acoustics HSOLOMDNT Horizon Solo Am/Fm Radio Wtih Auxiliary Input (Midnight) Review

I've been hunting for a good quality, dual alarm radio since my Polk Audio iSonic went out (good radio, bad build quality) a few months ago. I had to have dual alarms, given my schedule, and a gradual wake (progressive wake) function. I really wanted something that sounded decent as well, as the iSonic it is replacing had very good audio quality. If you've ever owned a Bose Wave Radio, it's that sort of form factor but with vastly superior sound quality.

I decided to take a slight chance on this radio as it was at a lower price than MSRP when I purchased it here from Amazon. I'm glad I did. Here's what I've found:

Pros:

-Sound quality is very good for a single-speaker radio. It won't compete with a dedicated home stereo, but it easily keeps up with a Bose Wave Radio for a fraction of the cost. This will fill a good sized bedroom without much effort and no distortion, even at higher volumes. You can get pretty good clarity/separation of the instruments, though being monaural, it's not going to give you much of a soundstage.
-Dual alarms are very handy for anyone whose schedule changes from day to day (college student, various work schedules, his/hers, etc.)
-Gradual wake/progressive wake alarm will slowly increase the volume of the radio to more gently wake you from sleep. It's a pretty rapid ramp up, but still gradual.
-Intuitive controls are very easy to figure out without the manual, but the manual is very short and easy to read with a couple of other things I would have missed at first glance. Menu system isn't deep or complex to navigate, and everything is pretty self-explanatory.
-Excellent Snooze feature. Just touch the chrome bezel that rings the unit on the front (the rectangular one, not the ring around the face) and it snoozes for 10 min, each additional touch adds 5 minutes. No need to fumble around for the snooze button when half awake. Works exceptionally well. It's not a button, just a sensor.
-Adjustable brightness (daytime only) with a built-in light sensor that dims the display to the minimum when the lights go down.
-Built heavy and solid with a nice grippy-touch enclosure on the sides and back making it easy to handle. This feels like a quality piece of work, which it is.
-Solid radio reception that pulls in more stations than I realized we had in the area. It tends to be sensitive to the placement of the included long antenna whether or not you get a lot of interference, but if you have room to stretch it out fairly straight, you're in good shape. No need to hang it on a wall or anything. It's about 4 ft. long anyway.
-Small footprint on the nightstand. Will sit vertically or horizontally with a rotating bezel (that takes a little more oomph than I expected to rotate).
-Has an AUX in and a headphone out if you need such things
-Has a sleep mode timer on it if you need this
-Won't lose the time if power goes out. I have not tested the length of this capability, but when you unplug it for a couple of minutes and plug it back in, it doesn't lose the time. This is great for those little brown-outs and brief power outages that often hit certain areas. I don't believe it will sound the alarm, though, if power is gone.

Cons:
-Bass is a little limited. At lower volumes, bass is adequate, but as you increase the volume, the mids and highs outpace the ability of the tiny speaker to output balanced bass. It never gets distorted, just out of balance in this regard.
-Multi-function knobs can be a little bit of a hassle. All three knobs are press-able as well as rotate. Sometimes you'll find yourself trying to press one and you turn it instead, or vice versa. Very minor complaint, but notable if you have clumsy fingers.
-Sleep function is not a priority. I include this b/c two other reviewers mentioned it. It's true that the sleep function is buried under the menu system, but it's only about 2 clicks away and is very easy to access. If you use the sleep function a lot, I could see this as a minor drawback. If you never use the sleep function, like 99% of the people I know, then you'll never notice.
-Brightness doesn't go quite low enough. Compared to most alarm clocks these days, this one is positively Cimmerian. However, I would have appreciated a few lower levels of brightness than what's provided. It doesn't light up the room like the others I've tried, but it's still brighter than I would prefer. Minor complaint that can be addressed with the cheap window tint film you purchase from a car parts store for $10 and a drop of water to seat it nicely.
-No battery backup alarm in case the power goes off in the middle of the night.
-I noticed that one of the other reviewers had some trouble with volume settings and time displays not matching up correctly. My guess is that he got a bad unit as mine has been perfect from the get go.

I'm so impressed with this unit that I'm considering either buying another or buying one of the up-model Horizon Duo units to get the stereo sound and using it in my office at work. I can't recommend this enough as the negatives are so slight and likely to be rare issues for most people.

If you're in the market for a good sounding, high-quality dual alarm clock but don't want to spend over $100 (or possibly less), this is a great buy, and I can't recommend it enough.

Note: I would add one more point regarding the information provided on the Amazon web page. Under "Technical Details" it lists that it includes a remote. It doesn't. It doesn't appear to be designed to operate with one, either, as no such function/item is mentioned in the manual, either.

Buy it here now!