IRST LOOK

By Larry Van Horn, N5FPW MT Assistant/Technical Editor
The Tangent Quattro Table-Top Internet Radio

By Larry Van Horn

magine sitting in your den in United States and listening to a morning drive time program from Capital FM 98.4 in Nairobi, Kenya. Then, if you want to listen to the latest weather report from 2GB 873-AM in Sydney, Australia, you lean over to your radio on the bookshelf, press a button on the front of the cabinet and within seconds, audio from 2GB fills the room. Now any seasoned radio listener knows that if you were using a conventional radio receiver this could never happen. But in this technological age we live in, there is another way to listen to distant radio stations from all over the globe Internet Radio. Through this medium, the possibilities are nearly endless. I have been in the radio hobby for nearly 45 years and, while I enjoy chasing DX, I must admit I am more of a program content radio broadcast listener than a DXer. So anything that I can do to clean up the received signal from a radio is a plus in my book. Not to mention having an opportunity to listen to a distant station that I normally cant hear at all. And the Internet and a new receiver from Tangent give me that plus. The Tangent Quattro Internet radio is the first internetcapable member of the Tangent audio family of products, and it entered the marketplace in July 2007. Connecting to over 9,900 Internet radio stations is as simple as it is pleasurable with this tabletop radio. similar to other Tangent products. The unit we tested is housed inside a Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF) wood cabinet with real walnut veneer. It is available in four wood-like finishes white, red, walnut veneer, and black. This IRD measures 8.25-in W x 6.25-in H x 4.5-in D (210 x 111 x 145mm) and is an ideal size for a bookshelf, counter top, coffee table or night stand. And the unit is lightweight, only 4.5 pounds. While the radio itself looks good, the AC-DC 1500 mA power adapter (aka wall wart) is a monster. It might be a bit hard to conceal in certain setups. One of the more unusual aspects of the Quattros design is its topmounted speaker placement. The radio has a single, monophonic threeinch speaker, covered by a sturdy metal grille. The back of the unit features a oneinch rear fire speaker port that adds to the overall audio quality delivered by the unit. An alarm clock snooze button is located at the front of the top speaker. All of the control functions for the Quattro are on the front panel. These controls include a large volume knob (left), a tuning knob that doubles for Internet and FM radio reception (right), a two-line, 2.5 inch, light blue backlit LCD display (center top), ten pill-sized push buttons for radio menu functions and presets (center bottom underneath the LCD screen) and two additional pill-sized push buttons for

Whats Inside the Box

The Quattro was well packed in its display box. Our supplier C. Crane further packed the unit into a shipping container and a professional job was done to ensure the product arrived safe and undamaged. In addition to the Internet radio device (IRD), an AC-DC power wall wart, instruction book, and a 3.5mm audio cable was included. The instruction book was extremely well written and very easy to follow. The 330-page girth comes from its numerous languages (English, French, German, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese). The Quattro Internet radio receiver has a retro design look with distinctive Danish styling,
power and select operation functions (left and right bottom respectively). The LCD screen displays station, menu, and clock information. The screen was easy to read even in external light conditions, but things can get a bit cramped on station names received from the Reciva Internet portal. More on this service later. On the rear of the radio, there is an RG-45 jack (for wired connection to the Internet, a recent addition to this model), three 3.5 mm stereo audio jacks (auxiliary input for an MP3 or CD player, headphone output, and line output), and a collapsible telescoping whip antenna for FM radio reception.

Its what is under the hood that counts.
Once you flip through the pages of the Quattro manual, you begin to realize how capable this Internet radio really is. Not only can you listen to services streaming audio on the Internet with this unit, but it has a built-in FM tuner with RDS decoding capability for local area station reception. The radio has a menu option to change the display language on the LCD. Languages sup-

MT Rating [4-3/4 stars]

MONITORING TIMES

April 2008

SPECIFICATIONS
Connection: Wired RJ45 Ethernet input jack for direct connection to a router WiFi: 802.11b and 802.11g compatible Security: Works with both unsecured and secured networks. Offers 128bit (max) WEP Security and also supports WPA encryption (WPA1 and WPA2). Speaker:Builtin full range 3inch dynamic speaker System Output: 5 Watt RMS Audio Frequency Range: 8020,000 Hz Audio Formats: Supports Real Audio, MP3, Windows media streams, OGG vorbis, AAC, WAV, AIFF or AU File formats Radio Tuner: Builtin FM tuner with RDS capability Connections: 3.5mm jack for stereo analog audio headphone output 3.5mm jack for stereo analog audio AUX input for MP3 devices. 3.5mm jack for stereo analog audio Line output Power Supply: 12 VDC 1500 mA (via supplied AC-DC adapter) Weight: 4.5 lbs Size: 8.25 W x 6.25 H x 4.5 D. (210 x 111 x 145mm) List price: US$349.95. Designed and developed in Denmark. Made in China.
your PC or Mac. Via the Reciva portal, the Quattro radio can browse radio stations by location and genre to find your favorite radio stations that can then be added to one of the six presets. The Quattro takes full advantage of the Reciva.com portal features. There is no subscription fee and you dont even have to turn on your computer to use this IRD. The Tangent Quattro works with both open and encrypted WiFi networks, and has no difficulty remembering WEP and WPA security passwords. If you dont expect to be moving the radio between multiple wireless networks, setting up the radio for wireless operation is quite easy and well documented in the manual. Configuring the Tangent Quattro to stream music from another computer is a little more involved. While I was successful in getting that function to work, it does require that you use the manuals instruction precisely in order to stream your favorite music. I found an excellent instruction page on the C. Crane website at www. ccrane.com/radios/wifiradios/tangentquattrowifiinternetradio.aspx that helped enable this feature. As of this writing, the Tangent Quattro will not stream DRMprotected AAC and WMA files, so dont expect your iTunes or Rhapsody music purchases to be compatible.

An Updated Version

The early release of the radio had some issues and lack of features that initial reviewers took exception to. Fortunately most of those issues have now been addressed by the manufacturer and are included in the unit that I purchased. One of the major complaints of the early units was no capability for wired interface with the internet. You had to have a wireless network to use the radio. Tangent has now added an RG45 jack so that the unit can be connected to the internet via a router or modem. You still have the wireless interface capability if you want to monitor your favorite stations via this type of connection. The Quattro now has six preset buttons instead of the original five. This is a very useful feature to get you connected quickly to your favorite stations on the net. Beyond those six favorites, an unlimited number of favorite stations and internet audio streams can be set up through the Reciva portal. These include not only broadcast stations, but I also have several public safety and air traffic control audio streams listed in my favorite list that I can call up when the mood hits me. It is fun listening to various public safety agencies from around the country any time day or night.

ported by Quattro include English (GB), English (US), French, Spanish, Dutch, German, Danish, Italian, Portuguese, Finnish (Suomi), Swedish, and Norwegian. Quattro has a built-in media player that allows you to play audio files (AAC, AIFF, AU, MP3, RM, WAV and WMA formats) stored on a networked PC. You can use the Quattro to wirelessly stream your music and audio from your computer (PC and Mac), or connect your MP3 player to the audioin and use the Quattro as a stand alone speaker. It has been verified to work on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The firmware package that runs the Quattro radio can be updated through the receivers menu system from the Reciva portal.
fill up a room with loud, rich-sounding audio. Most reviewers and users agree that the Quattro has the best audio of any Internet Radio in the marketplace today. We found the alarm clock function on the Tangent Quattro to be useful and easy to program; however, I dont recommend it as a viable alarm clock solution. Casually listening to Internet radio broadcasts is one thing, but depending on your WiFi connection to wake you up for work could be a bit problematic, especially in areas where power generation is questionable. Our only real frustration with the Tangent Quattro occurred when Internet radio streams dropped out momentarily in order to rebuffer the audio. While the radio stream dropouts have more to do with the speed of our Internet connection and the reliability of our WiFi router, its a problem that all Internet radio receivers are plagued with and that potential customers should be aware of. Bottom line, the Tangent Quattros small size, audio quality, and design quality more than make up for any shortcomings that I have listed above. The real payoff using this unit was the gratification of exploring the worlds Internet radio broadcasts. If youre a radio nut whose idea of heaven is listening to a live broadcast from BBC World Service or the Cook Islands, then the Tangent Quattro is just the right device for you. So if you have a highspeed Internet connection and an insatiable appetite for radio, make sure youve got a real comfortable chair, because you may end up listening for a really long, enjoyable time.

The Internet Connection

Reciva is an Internet Radio and Digital Media Player company that provides firmware technology to its industry partners for inclusion in their IRD products. They also provide a comprehensive list of validated Internet radio stations used by their partners products. Their web site also provides that same list of validated Internet radio stations free of charge via the Internet to
Overall Rating and Final Thoughts

Those of you who have read this column in the past know that no electronic device is perfect, at least in my book. My biggest complaint with the Quattro was the lack of tone controls. I really would like to have some treble and bass control of the streamed audio. But even without that set of tone controls, I really like the audio provided by this unit. The 5 watt amplifier feeding the top fire and back fire speakers really can
April 2008 MONITORING TIMES