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(More customer reviews)I have one if these that I purchased on ebay and I also have an RCA RIR200. This radio seems to have better wifi connectivity than the RCA since it has an external antenna but I had to buy a new WRT54G wireless router to get the RCA working so that might be the reason it works well. If you still have an old 802.11B wireless router plan on getting a new G router for best performance. The IR-168 can play not only internet stations but also MP3's from an SD card plugged into the front, sort of like a big amplified iPod. They also claim it's a media player that can play files such as MP3's stored on your local computer using Upnp but I couldn't get that to work at all with Windows XP Pro or Vista. Even thought Upnp was enabled and the file folder was shared the radio said it couldn't find any Upnp devices or shared files even though the PC's could see the radio and access it's webpage to program in favorite stations. It worked great using Windows 7 Beta though and all I had to do was put the files to be played in My Documents in the Music folder and make sure it was shared. I didn't need to use Windows Media Player 11 like they say and don't see any need for that at all.
It only has one speaker but it's large and gives good sound whereas the RCA has two smaller speakers for stereo but the RCA is not as loud. The IR-168 can play stereo using amplified speakers plugged into the back or with headphones and Kaito has a second optional speaker available. The sound is much better using the second speaker but it's expensive at $30 but any 8 ohm speaker similar in size to the first one will work. The IR-168 comes with a tiny credit card size remote that's nearly useless but all the functions can be accessed using the front panel buttons. It uses a website called iradio168 dot com to find the 10,000 or 11,000 radio stations from around the world while most other internet radios use Vtuner or Reciva. Vtuner and Reciva let you go to the website to find stations and try playing them to see how they work but iradio168 does not although they claim to be working on that. The RCA can also play music from Slacker Radio and get weather forecasts but the IR-168 does not do that, only plays internet stations. Although I haven't found one there might be some stations out there streaming weather since there are some stations streaming police and airport radio scanners. Iradio168 dot com is a new site that doesn't have many US radio stations yet although they have lots of stations listed for China, Germany and other countries in Europe and a lot of stations in Canada since the radio is sold in Germany and Canada also. You can log on to the iradio168 dot com forum and have stations added if you want but you can also store favorites right into the radio's memory using a web browser so you don't have to browse through thousands of stations on the website to find them, which is a lot easier. There is also a list of 500 Top stations stored in the radio's memory but that seems to be just a bunch of random stations with names like Top40 or Golden Oldies so it's impossible to tell what they really are and there doesn't seem to be any way to edit them to add more or fix ones that don't work. There are a lot of different kinds of stations out there streaming different kinds of formats but this radio can play most of them. It does have trouble with some Clear Channel stations in the US such as KFI 640 AM that want to open a webpage for ads and send down an .asx file that only plays in Windows Media Player but it can play BBC stations that are hard to play on a PC unless you install the Real player then you might still get an error saying you can't play it because you aren't in the U.K. but that doesn't bother the IR-168. I found the gray on blue text hard to read so I replaced the blue LEDs that light the front panel with white ones to make the display clearer and easier to read.
They don't list many specs listed here so I have them below:
Specifications:
* Audio Streaming Formats Supported : MP3, WMA, Real Audio and OGG
* Firmware upgradeable through Internet without PC
* Support for ID3 & WMA tags (Album, Song and Artist)
* 4 line display, (128 x 64 pixels) for radio data with auto off backlight
* Automatic WiFi network scanning
* Support WiFi Security standard (WEP, WPA, WPA2)
* Speaker Power 3W RMS 4 ohm
* Supports Summer Time adjustment
* Display cities along GMT timings
* Auto-upgrade with the use of PC
* Compatible to 54Mbps IEEE 802.11 b/g
* Fireware upgradable via WLAN / Ethernet
* 3.5mm Headphone Jack / Audio Line out
* Power 110v - 240V, 9V, 1.3A DC input
* AC Adapter with CUL approved
The IR168 forum seems to be getting overrun with spam so I've started a new ir168 group without spam on Google Groups called iradio168-internet-radio-group. All messages are moderated. I'm going to have all the fimware on file, links to BBC station work-arounds, internal photos, lists of stations in the ir168 file, etc.
iradio168-internet-radio-group at googlegroups dot com
Update, the iradio168 dot com web site that was provided by the radio manufacturer is now down so the radio is not able to get the big file with the list of all the world wide stations when it's turned on. That's not really a big loss since they haven't updated it for over a year but it means that stations have to be added manually now by browsing to the radio's web page and entering the station URL by hand like they say to do in the manual for adding Favorites.
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Kaito Electronics Inc. KAIR168 Wireless WiFi Internet RadioThe Kaito IR-168 internet radio allows you easy access to more than 11,000 radio stations around the world with no subscription fees, just turn on the unit and it will automatically connect to a wireless network giving you a whole new world of entertainment. You also can connect it to a local network with an ethernet cable using the RJ45 jack if you prefer. Search for radio programs geographically by continent/country/state or by more than 30 different available categories including news, sports, music weather or even traffic information throughout the world. Once you find a favorite station simply add it to your favorite stations for easy access in the future, storing up to 255 favorite stations. The radio is housed in a solid wood cabinet casing that provides clear and rich sound. The unit comes with a SD/MMC memory card slot for playing your favorite MP3 music, and supports multiple languages including English, Chinese, French, Spanish and German.
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