C. Crane CCRadio 3 Long Range Reception AM, FM, NOAA Weather Plus Alert and 2-Meter Ham Band Portable Digital Radio with Bluetooth

This would be the one radio I would have if allowed to only have one radio. First, let me mention a couple things I like about the company. One, I like the fact I can go to the C. Crane website and actually order radios and parts from them; no having to mess around with third-party sellers. Second, I like the fact that I got quick responses from C. Crane when i asked them questions. My impressions regarding the radio. I can't speak to lasting quality because I have had this radio two months only. But, i was so impressed with the first one I bought that I bought a second one before the price increased. The radio is easy to use, has best reception (both AM and FM) of any radio I have, especially if I use it with the TERK loop antenna for AM. At night, with the radio sitting on a table in the living room) I am able to get AM stations from Cleveland, Boston, etc (and I am in northern Michigan). For FM the radio brings in two stations I like to listen to but am unable to bring in using other radios. I feel the CC Radio 3 brings in these hard to capture FM stations on a par with Qodosen DX-286. Sound quality is good, especially when taking into consideration this is still a portable radio. Sometimes hard rock/heavy metal songs sound "bunched" or the instrumentation sounds "squished together", but that could be a result of the station or the song's original recording because Jazz sounds very good. Classical sounds very good. Pop sounds very good too. Talk radio is excellent with no "ear fatigue" after listening for several hours. This is my best sounding radio after my Sangean WR-55 tabletop radio. Build quality, although is made of plastic, feels like a "good plastic", not a cheap, brittle feeling plastic. All the buttons on the radio are clearly labelled as to function and easy to figure out even without consulting the manual. Other things I like: the fact the AC power input isn't a wall wart; that I can use battery power if there is a power outage; that I can listen to weather radio (because if there is a power outage, that probably means bad weather). I feel at this point in my purchase, that buying this radio was money well-spent.

An excellent radio. Excellent AM reception, not to mention FM. Connecting via Bluetooth is easy, with just one touch. It's suitable for both music and talk radio. I prefer talk radio; my ears don't get tired-). The batteries last a long time. The best radio I've ever owned, bringing back fond memories-).

For those of you thinking of using this as a Bluetooth speaker, forget it!!! Audio output is only 900mw on battery and 1.8 watts on A/C. You're probably thinking, "hey, that's not so bad". Well, those are with 10% THD. Yes!!! 10% total harmonic distortion. Distortion is very audible on Bluetooth music, so keep that in mind. The radio is tuned for voice, not music. For low listening environments, its fine, but don't expect it to be room filling loud. There is also a delay on Bluetooth as well. Watching streaming and/or YouTube, so expect audio to be at least 100-200ms behind. I'm still working on the AM band, but at this time, it's not as good as a vintage Panasonic RF-2200. It's nice having a twin-coil 200mm antenna, but I'm not sure if this radio can dig out the distant stations, like it's little brother ( CC radio EP pro ). The AGC can be a bit finicky, and so some stations might be hard to hear. Slightly tuning off frequency and tuning back can resolve this in most cases. I still prefer the manual control of the CC radio EP pro. FM is quite good. Still, the KING is the Eton field, but the CC radio 3 can hear distant stations. One issue I have is how short (@22") the FM antenna is. This radio might hear better with a longer dipole, like the Eton field (@46"). It's nice that it tucks away, but I bought this radio for DXing all the bands, and we like big antennas. Even the little brother (EP pro) has a longer FM antenna (@36"). Come on C Crane, give the next CC radio 4 a longer FM antenna. For those looking for good FM, this radio is very sensitive and selective, but it needs a longer antenna. Battery usage is quite good, so no complaints there. If I had to nit pick, drop the D cell battery's and move to C cells, to reduce weight. Better yet, add the feature of running on a single 18650 battery This brings me to my next minor gripe. No built in handle. You get a notch in the back, for carrying the radio. A dedicated handle would help and be more secure in moving this portable unit around. It's not light with battery's (over 4 lb's) Weather channels are nice. A+ in this department. The 5" speaker is very nice. It is rated at 4 Ohm, 6 watts. Unfortunately, it is tuned for voice (not music), and the amplifier that drives this speaker is very weak. C Crane, this is area that needs attention. 2 meter band is nice to have, but not really required on such a radio. Keep in mind, this is not a shortwave radio. 2 meter band only covers Ham/VHF in the 144 to 148 MHz. For the price ( $210 as of this writing ) is a bit hard to swallow. I have many radios, and this is a 4 out 5 stars for me, but the price is just to high. Even at $169.99, this might be still a bit overpriced, but more reasonable. The EP pro is $90, and well worth it, but you give up Bluetooth (so what), weather, ham/2 meter band, sleep, radio presets, and digital tuning display. Are these worth $120 extra? That depends on your needs. If "all" you're looking for an AM/FM radio for DXing, then the EP pro is perfect. I hope this helps some of you sitting on the fence of which CC radio to get. This isn't a bad radio, but minor improvements need to be made to justify the price.

Nice radio. A little pricey but radio sounds great.

I have no complaints about this radio. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area where there are about 70 radio stations (AM and FM) scattered throughout nine counties. Being located about half-way between San Francisco and San Jose I receive signals from both cities about equally. Nice tunability with both FM and AM reception. It picks up and locks in on a few of the low power (college / non-profit) stations in the area pretty well. Getting good reception on the SW band as well. Don't even need the 15 dollar extra external antenna in this area. Although it might be interesting to see the difference it would make. I get 5 of the 7 weather service stations it is pre-programmed with. Works well for me. The bluetooth set-up is really cool with the feature of using 3 of the pre-set buttons as controls for the bluetooth player. Although when I connect my Blueray player to it the "pause/play" button does not function. I can't say I have a complaint about that because it really doesn't bother me. The sound quality is great for a radio of its size. Having the bass and treble adjustments available is just icing on the cake for me. It's a decent little radio. No regrets here.