Customer Reviews

Sony XDRC706DBP DAB+/DAB Digital Clock Radio

This is probably the most stylish clock radio you can get at the moment. It looks a bit retro, quite minimalist, and is very nicely made. The unusual design means it's also easy to get hold of if you need to move it.
Its predecessor, the 705, had a bad reputation for waking you up at midnight. Fingers crossed, the 706 doesn't share this trait!
The main difference (if the styling around the display looks different in the photo - it isn't in reality) otherwise from the 705 is somewhat academic in the UK: the 706 can receive DAB+ transmissions. This potentially future-proofs your clock radio, but it's looking pretty unlikely that the UK will ever switch to the superior DAB+ format, even though the rest of the world is adopting it.
Never mind. That's not going to affect clock-radio users much.
This Sony does radio perfectly well. The sound is entirely adequate for a bedside radio: it's clear and crisp, which is the most you can ask from a small speaker. Setup was automatic and extremely quick. Reception has been fine until the recent humid weather when I had to fiddle with the wire aerial to get clear sound (oddly, the aerial needed to be below the radio rather than above it). You can use FM radio too, if you want, but there's no RDS, surprisingly.
I found the controls very simple and logical, and only had to refer to the instructions to see how to set radio presets. Setting the alarms means running through a sequence each time, which could be annoying if you wanted to change settings often. But in practice, you probably set the alarms once and forget them, especially when you can set four different alarms to come on every day, just weekdays, just weekends, or on one specific date (this is the advantage of DAB radios and extremely useful).
The display has three brightness settings. If you're like Goldilocks, and me, you'll probably choose the middle setting. The dimmest is almost too dim to actually see unless it's pitch black, but the brightest makes a great night light.
It's a nice clear, big display. Scrolling text doesn't blur, though as usual on DAB radios, it scrolls far too slowly.
The power supply is separate, in the plug, but for once it's small and neat, not a huge brick.
The Sony 706 isn't perfect though. If you're in bed you can't see the buttons on top of the machine because they're angled away from you. So you either have to get half out of bed or learn to do things by touch alone (there is a tactile dot next to the volume up button but otherwise the buttons all feel the same). And although you can (very usefully) set the volume of the radio for each alarm setting, you can't choose which radio station comes on - it defaults to the last used station.
These are small points though. The bottom line is that this is a very attractive clock radio with clear sound, many useful functions, and an excellent display.

Very happy with this radio. I had a little panic when I first turned it on as I could only get 10 DAB stations, none of them BBC which I listen to when I wake up. But after a full autoscan they all appeared. Now I get clear radio in the morning - bliss. It used to be so frustrating on some days to get poor intermittent sound just when someone said something crucial.

The unit is quite light and it is clear that there is little inside the base which is why the unit is slightly angled - all the innards are in the front and needed to be tilted slightly to prevent top heavy toppling. This does mean the buttons aren't visible, especially if you are lying in bed. But you don't need many controls when grappling for the on off or volume when lying flat in bed and they are relatively easy to locate once you know which one is which. The plus side of the buttons not being visible is a clean looking radio.

It's smaller than I expected (my last one had a built in CD player so was much larger), but pleasantly so.

The brightness controls are great - 3 levels (no dim, some and alot!). The lowest dim setting is almost completely off which is great for those who need virtual darkness.

The 4 alarm settings are great too. Finally I can have a different alarm for the weekend (settings are: weekdays, weekend, daily and...I think 'once').

The only thing I would have liked is an AUX-in socket, but I wanted DAB over a dock/aux so the DAB won when comparing the choices I had narrowed it to.

All in all, thumbs up. I would have given it 4 stars but have made it 5 becaue of one thing - the fact that the brightness is very dimmable - something so many manufacturers seem to ignore or take seriously.

[UPDATE: You can turn this unit off during the day and turn it back on in the evening and it remembers the alarm settings. I'm sure many wouldn't think of doing this but as that's an saving of over half its annual power consumption it's worth bearing in mind if you are watching your kilowats].

The reason for my heading to this review is that this clock radio is now described by Sony as a "previous model" - in other words, it appears to have been deleted. At this time there is no obvious replacement, in fact, there no longer appears to be a current Sony clock radio featuring DAB. This is a pity as this model, the XDRC706, is rather good.

In terms of design the Sony is compact with a footprint of less than the average paperback book, plus, it looks very well made and sounds good. Setup is easy, although, the clock did not automatically set via the DAB signal in my case. However, DAB reception is good via the built in wire antenna which hangs down behind the unit. FM is good too and stations are easy to tune plus are clearly indicated on the white on dark blue LCD display. In the case of DAB you can select the information display to show scrolling text or just the station/genre you are listening to. Although the feature set includes DAB+ this is not supported in the UK.

The controls are sufficiently logical for you not to keep reverting to small instruction leaflet supplied, although, I agree with some other reviewers that you cannot see the control panel once lying down in bed, however, you quickly learn to feel your way around it. This Sony has all the usual clock radio features (including sleep etc) plus up to 10 preset channels. The display can usefully be dimmed - there are three settings, and, on the darkest one it seems unlikely to disturb even the most sensitive sleeper. If you select the buzzer it is "sympathetic" and incremental when waking you. My only gripe is that even on full volume, although not distorted, the sound is not particularly loud especially if you are going to use it as a radio during the day - it's just adequate but has no reserve of output. The radio has 30 volume steps - I am using it on 27 as a matter of routine, however, I suppose it must be seen in the context of being a clock radio (without Ipod compatibility etc.) rather than a hifi.

This product lives up to the usual Sony standards of design and performance - if you want a straightforward, quality clock radio snap it up while you can. Recommended.

The bad - the instructions are in small, gray, dense text. I almost lost the will to live trying to read the instructions, look at the display on the front of the radio and find the right buttons on the top of the unit. I hope I don't have to change any of the settings for a long time! Why do manufacturers think that small text and hardly any white space is a good thing? Yes, there are three different settings for the display (dim, not so dim and very bright) but the figures are dimmed, not the whole display - last night I was not able to see the time but I could see the pattern on the duvet quite clearly with no other lighting in the room!

The good - it keeps time, it sets itself up, reception is good, it looks quite neat and tidy, it is compact and once I gave up trying to read the instructions and just experimented with the buttons, I worked out how to set the alarm....

The display is too bright for a bedroom. Do manufacturers ever take any notice of customer feedback?

This is a great little clock radio, and the sound quality is quite good. It does however have some annoying aspects which make it less than perfect:

1. The display is too dim to see during the day, and too bright at night even on the dimmest setting. I had to put some dark window film across the display to stop it from illuminating the room at night.

2. The time and date are automatically updated from the DAB signal. If your DAB signal is poor like mine, the time updates can result in incorrect time setting. I have had the time set wrongly and the date updated to November 1948. I believe this problem can be worked around by setting the time and date manually to prevent automatic time updates.

3. The buttons are quite small, and difficult to find in the dark. The large snooze button and the volume control button do have tactile dots to help.

I brought this present for my mother for her birthday as she wanted a new alarm clock radio. I wanted to get her a dab clock radio and this present didn't dissapoint! From having a look at the other reviews, I wasn't too sure whether to purchase after some comments about the display light being too bright or buttons being too fiddly. After my mother using the radio for the first night she said the light is perfect and not bright at all. Even if it was there are 3 display light settings with the last one being very dim. The buttons are just right and the snooze button is big enough to find when you are just waking up from a sleep. It suits her pefectly that you can set the alarm to weekdays and to also weekends and there are 2 more other alarm settings. Being a girl I was dubious how easy I would find to set it up, but it is very simple with easy instructions on the manual. The size is also just right for your bedside table.

I have been using this radio for last 3 weeks. I really can't find anything seriously wrong with it. The sound is good it's easy to operate and well designed for bed side cabinet. It has all you can expect from a good clock radio. Some of the reviewer complained about instruction. Well I can tell you I didn't have to open the instruction leaflet even once to set up the radio, alarms or pre-set stations as the set-up is no different than any other clock radio you may have used in the past.

The reason that I gave four stars for this radio is the noise its button makes when you operate. If you operate the radio in the middle of night it will surely wake your partner and cause a mini war as soon as you switch the radio on, change station or set alarm on or off. You can control the volume of the radio very low but can't control the big sound it button makes.

So if you go to bed after your partner and want to listen to radio even at lowest volume, this radio is not for you.

After many years of owning the predecessor (Sony dream machine ICF-C113L) I wanted to replace with this Sony dream machine DAB. I'm totally Happy with it so far does everything like the previous one. It auto sets with the date and time. Controls through the menu take a while to get use to. Overall this clock radio looks stylish.

I purchased this DAB clock radio for my son as a gift and he & his wife are delighted with it.
They specially like the compact size, choice of brightness on clock display, ability to preset a number of different alarm times. Might get one for myself!

This is a great little Sony DAB Radio perfect for the bedroom easy to set up and use, would recommend to anyone.