Found this beautiful looking clock / radio at a flea market.
I do have a clock / radio, but it sits too low on the night table. Most of the times there is a console, phones charging, tablet that are piled up in front of it, hard to see the time at night. Since the Sony was sold very cheap, I decided to buy it.
Problems
This radio had some problems though. I tried to take out the coin battery holder, but it was difficult – I really had to pull on it. And it was impossible to put it back. Second, the AM/FM switch was difficult to move .. and similar, the A alarm switch.
Thus, I had to open up to figure out how to fix the battery clip and see if I can oil the AM/FM switch.
It is very easy to take it apart. However, it is rather tight to pull the board out. Ifixit has a nicely documented process here.
Not all is well though.
I applied contact cleaner on the AM / FM slide switch. Even added a drop o sewing machine oil. The switch is still hard to slide when pulled from top of the handle (the bit that sticks out of the radio). Hard to describe it in words, it feels more like it wants to rotate around its anchor point, instead of sliding:
If I stick the screwdriver to reach the base of the slider, then it moves easy. But if I try to move it from bit that sticks out, impossible to move in one direction.
I did fix the coin holder blades though – but I had to pay attention when sliding the case back in – to make sure they don’t get caught:
The radio in general is nice, but I have a hard time adjusting to the mirror like finish. If there’s anything bright / colorful in front of the radio, it will be reflected and you have to focus to read the time. Too contrast-y.
Second issue I have is with the spacing between the digits. They seem to crammed one into each-other – I would have liked a bit more spacing, since it is hard to discern if I see the clock from afar.
Third issue is that the audio amp is always on. Not sure if this is a defect or on purpose ? Putting the ear to the speaker, one can hear hissing / white noise. It is very low volume though, you can hear it only if you stick your ear against the case. It goes away only if radio is unplugged. I tend to believe it was a design choice. The old radio didn’t have many buttons, but it did have one for Audio, with Off / Radio / Alarm. You could not set the Alarm unless the button was on Alarm mode. This Sony though has plenty buttons, adding one more just to cut the Audio probably was one too many. Maybe people would get confused or forget it off ? Who knows. But thankfully I don’t hear the white-noise from normal distance.
Speaking of buttons, a nice touch is the DST button. With the simpler clock radio I had before, I had to manually change the time during DST change. Now it is a button push.
I do like the adjustable brightness and its height, thus, I decided to keep it.
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