Derg
Awesome little radio!
I was a bit concerned after reading some of the reviews but decided to try one of these little radios anyway as the simplicity of the design, the claimed battery life, and the size was just to attractive for the price. Boy am I glad I gave it a chance - it's an awesome little unit! The reception on mine is fantastic for FM and AM with none of the issues other's have mentioned, no chirping etc, and the knobs have stayed reassuringly stiff after pretty much constant use since it showed up. I believe I saw somewhere that Sangean revised the chip/internals of this model recently which may be why others had different experiences. I also want to mention the battery life, it's very impressive. I use rechargeable batteries and expected to have to swap them out every couple days when the radio is kept on all shift at moderate volume - instead, it lasted the whole week on a single charge! If I had to find something negative to say about the SR-36, the piano black / shiny finish on the front is a bit prone to picking up scratches scuffs and fingerprints. Hardly a deal breaker, but perhaps a bit of an oversight for a radio this size that's going to be handled and moved around a lot. One interesting little quirk, when the batteries get low the radio begins behaving strangely - on rechargeable cells the audio will start cutting out every ~15 seconds, on alkaline it can start making a low muffled hum. The first time either of these happened I though the unit was bad! But no, just low voltage. Overall very happy with this little radio, wouldn't hesitate to buy another!