Made by Kyocera in Japan.
Real wood case and separate speaker.
I consider this that "last great audio piece" of the famous KLH brand. Henry Kloss has nothing to do with the design but it is certainly related to the great KLH 21 clock radio of the 1960s and 1970s.
That KLH 200 is a beautiful unit. I like it more than the comparable Tivoli models (excluding the new "audio music system" all digital model) because of the digital tuning, so you can have a variety of presets.
The Logitech Squeezebox is impressive, to say the least. On Amazon, an experienced audio hobbyist remarked his preference for it over his TOTL CD player (compared to listening to FLAC file format music on the SB). The one major drawback to the design is that it relies upon a wireless connection for streaming music--nothing can be attached directly it, not even a memory card or USB drive. Although it will stream music directly from websites like Pandora, apparently the clock function is run off the PC. So, if your computer is off, you can forget about using the SB as an alarm clock. The new "Squeezebox Touch" does have support for USB, which is very smart. And they've expanded on the whole offering with the Duet, which sports an intelligent remote with very usable LCD screen.
As for "Best", it's a little ambiguous. Best sound or best functionality? I think each have their own place. In my mind, you can have a small table top system to listen to, when not in your "main audio" room, and then have a separate alarm clock radio to get you up in the morning. The key is being able to wake you reliably and in a civilized way, while also presenting the time in a suitably readable form (bright enough during the day and dim enough at night). And of course, an independent battery source alarm is a good thing to have (most cellphones can serve this purpose).
GE made some truly excellent clock radios back in the 1980's, very solid and strong performers. Sound quality is usually decent. The 7-4885 is quite cool in having a numerical keypad for direct time entry and tuning, but unfortunately the buttons are known to develop problems over time (maybe there's a way to lube them to minimize wear). I've got the 7-4800A which has that numerical keypad, but the tuning is analog. The great thing is that time and alarm entry is super quick. It also has dual alarms, so one is something you leave set for weekdays and other for weekends/ad-hoc. It incorporates "grad-u-wake", which slowly raises the volume until you turn it off. And the easy to read green LED has a rheostat control for infinitely variable setting. Impossible to find a clock radio with these features today, because of all the cost cutting and emphasis on other things (like an iPod dock).
I ended up buying a used Proton 320 for general radio listening (wish it had an AUX-IN though) and as a secondary backup alarm (it has a 9V slot to handle power interruptions). A great buy for about $30 used in very good shape, considering the sound quality (the only real flaw is the dial tuning back light is out).
My cellphone also serves as another alarm, which has the wonderful dynamic capability of playing any MP3 loaded onto it. I've made a few MP3's specifically for that, which start out low and gradually get louder. The great thing is that you can also set more than one (select a low volume MP3 for the first, then a louder one for the second), and even tie an alarm sound file to a calendar entry. I also have the intro to Pink Floyd's "Time" loaded for when I
really need to get up.
Click "
here" to download it.
What is it with today's Emerson? I just bought a second Emerson because it looked cool...kind of a retro thing, but the clock on this one also loses two minutes a week like the Emerson cube!
