Ira Internet Radio

 

Myine's Ira Internet Radio is portable in the easy-to-lug, sense; smallish and light like a paperback, except not quite the same shape. That's not very helpful, is it? Well, picture a misshapen paperback made of high-gloss plastic, slap a quaint little backlit, monochrome LED screen on the cover and there you have it. Or close enough, anyway.

Oh, and jacks in the back for an AC/DC adapter (included, though not truly "portable" because of it) and a pair of RCAs, the standard white and red audio-outputs from which the stereo audio signal emanates, ideally connecting to a sound system of some sort, one accepting RCA audio-in (or even standard phono/headphone-in as an adapter for just such adaptation is included).

As it happens, you likely have a broken iPod dock kicking around. You know, one of those terrific little toaster-sized boom boxes designed to play iPod songs out loud by way of that lovely little proprietary iPod plug that only fits an iPod and nothing else. The kind that laughs at you when the iPlug chips or snaps right off because you didn't nestle the iPod just exactly so. The thing that could thereafter be considered a deco boat anchor were it not for the fact that iPod docks usually accommodate secondary audio sources in the form of standardized auxiliary/phono inputs. Plug an Ira in there and you've just saved some space in the landfill that Apple hopes to fill with all that other antediluvian iPod paraphernalia from last year.

Also, the Ira Internet Radio stands on edge like a paperback doesn't, and comes with a itty bitty remote control - the only way to interface with the thing - additionally unlike a paperback.

As a Wi-fi device, the Ira presumes there's a Wi-Fi connection in the vicinity. If you don't have a wi-fi system at home or in the office, then you can always chisel a fifty dollar bill out of a spare stone tablet and go buy one. Mind the Velociraptors along the way.

Setting up the Ira is a clunky but easy affair. During initial set-up, it will search out and list all wireless internet connections in the area. You then pick yours (or your neighbor's, as you wish) and input the security key code (if required/known) by selecting characters using the navigation buttons on the remote to pick from the gambit of characters all crammed together on the aforementioned LED screen. That's it for set up.

After that, the screen also houses the system's menu, where you select from more than 11,000 pre-programmed internet radio stations and podcasts, divvied up by genre, location, popularity, etc. If you have a favorite internet station in mind, you can also search the entire index for it using a foreshortened alphanumeric cram. Unfortunately, it's not a particularly effective search system. Worse, you cannot manually add stations to Ira's huge but finite index.

You can, however, earmark up to forty favorites, so you're not rifling through a massive list of obscure stations just to find your mood music de jour.

But that's where Ira's biggest shortcoming rears its head.

These days, when listening to radio - or music from most any source, for that matter - you can generally skip disliked songs, commercials or bad DJ patter with the flick of a "next" button of some sort. Oddly, the Ira accommodates no such easy-of-surf. Instead, picking a new station, favorite or otherwise, is ridiculously cumbersome. Assuming you're close enough to read the unit's diminutive LED screen, changing stations requires you navigate the system menu anew, then select and scroll through its categorized listings. All told, that's at least 2 button presses and up to maybe a hundred presses just to "flick the dial." In real life, so to speak, changing or cycling through channels should only require one button press at a time - "next!" - and the task shouldn't require you to go snuggle with the source just to read its display screen. Hello, remote? What is your point?

On the other hand, you're likely to find at least one favorite in the Ira's list of thousands that you can stick to and rarely change - WNEW out of New York is an exceptional example. When you power down the Ira and boot it up again the next day or whenever, it has the decency to remain set at the last station played.

Now, while internet radio audio in and of itself isn't as pristine as the real thing (i.e. a CD played on a decent stereo), and a poor broadcast or poor connection can make for a slightly tinny, warpy experience - "flanged," if technical terms are your thing - it's certainly up to snuff with all those 99 cent i-flavored tunes of convenience-before-quality. But seeing as only ardent audiophiles seem to care about the degradation of audio standards, then internet radio listening is certainly up to par with the expectations of the masses.

Besides, internet radio is free, wildly diverse, often ear-pleasing if not mind-opening. With only the odd commercial interruption hoping to attracted your saved cents and many commercial free broadcasts available, you could do worse that the navigationally challenged Ira Internet Radio. You could have last year's iPod and a broken iDock longing silently for Calypso on the patio.

Details
Reviewed: Sep. 08, 2009
Type: Hardware, Wi-Fi/Wireless
From: Myine


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