Sony XDR-S16DBP, A DAB+ Radio With Elegant Retro Look

GADGETS

With so many other gadgets providing our fill of music, it’s hard to come up with a reason to get a standalone radio.   The Sony XDR-A16DBP makes an impassioned case to take space on your desk by virtue of just being so damn good-looking.

Meant for portable use, the radio measures a compact 270 × 140 × 112 mm and weighs a light 1.7 kg.  Design is clean and uncluttered, with a retro-looking wooden cabinet housing the electronics.

The Sony XDR-S16DBP can receive DAB, DAB+ and FM broadcasts, complete with an old-school antenna that flips out from the top rear side.  Controls sit at the top end of the front face, along with a two-line, 16-character monochrome LCD in the center.   Below them sits the speaker grill, which hides two 0.8W stereo speakers.

Features include 10 DAB/DAB+ presets, 10 FM presets, four alarms and a 3.5mm headphone jack.   There’s also a sleep timer, so it turns off automatically after the soothing sounds of your favorite station lulls you to bed.

Of course, there’s going to need to be DAB transmissions flying over your locale if you’re going to put the Sony XDR-S16DBP to good use.  It’s now available in Europe for £79 (around $127).

[Sony]

Related Posts

4 Responses

  1. A big ‘hats off’ to those behind the concept of the Sony XDR-A16DBP. It must have taken a lot of deliberation on the part of the product design team to finalize the retro radio concept. Truly, with so much of audio equipment cluttering the store shelves in the market, there needs to be a real shift from the beaten track to grab the consumer’s attention. A radio that takes then close to 2 decades back is something seriously past the run of the mill. How about spending a good part of a rainy night in the golden hues of the night-bulb and the soothing sounds of some ling forgotten band emanating out of this new age retro radio! I’m already feeling the warmth of it all.

  2. A standalone radio at almost 130$ sounds absolutely crazy to begin with. The association of Sony with the idea does bring some sanity into it though. And when you look deeper, you realize that it does make some sense to appeal to the old man inside everybody. It might not be a lost battle after all. The sweet slumber design of the Sony XDR-A16DBP is bound to make people stop and stare, and ask, and maybe even purchase! The poster hits the nail on the head by commenting that this radio is ‘so damn good looking.’

  3. This seems to be straight out of the sets of some old Hollywood classic. I can already imagine this old school radio playing the dying notes of Hotel California and coaxing me to sleep. The design of the Sony XDR-A16DBP is its USP. It is very difficult for salespeople to sell a simple radio for an amount well over a hundred dollars. I guess it is a bit of a liberty to be calling this portable with a weight of almost 2 kilograms. I wonder if that was necessary, or was a part of the plan in leaving no stone unturned in recreating the radio of the yester years.

  4. With all the iPods and fanciful audio devices around, the radio has lost its charm completely. The Sony XDR-A16DBP appears to be a step in the right direction. I just love to listen to radio, purely because of the fact that the radio stations can shape your mood in an unpredictable sort of manner. It is very different from controlling your songs and libraries yourself. I had to stop by and read this post when I saw the mage of the adorable retro styled radio from the corner of my eye.

Comments are closed.