O-Sense
INTRODUCTION
Listening to radio was never my thing not only because i always liked listening to music without interruptions but also because i always wanted the best possible audio quality (CD/MP3/WMA) especially while i was driving. On a second thought i also never did care much about listening to people exchange opinions over the radio (some are really not even worth listening to) so that too played a significant role in that. The introduction of Internet radio and DAB/DAB+ (Digital Audio Broadcasting Plus) did very little to change my overall view about radio but i have to admit that i did enjoy being able to listen to stations from all over the world from the comfort of my sofa. Sangean is one of the leading manufacturers of high-end radio related products and today we're testing their flagship WFT-3 Digital Receiver.
Established in 1974, the name Sangean has been recognized for its unparalleled performance and matchless quality in designing and producing high quality radio and audio product to lead in its field with a range of DAB / DAB plus, internet, world radios, work site radios, clock radio and CD sound system. With a heritage of over 40 years, Sangean has high reputation for quality and reliability in its field. With its commitment to improvement, the company remains at the forefront of product development and innovation. Innovative Design awards from international broadcasting magazines particularly the “It’s very well made in Taiwan” award from Taiwanese Government has proved Sangean to be outstanding on the product performance and features. Today Sangean has brought major innovation to the radio market in the field of digital radio, such as DAB / DAB plus radio and Wi-Fi internet radio, some of them equip with I-pod cradle capable of playing and charge your iPod / iPhone. With a skilled team of over 100 engineers in the fields of electrical, mechanical, industrial design and software, we will continue to make the world’s best radios to the highest quality standard regardless of the competition. Our unwavering devotion to quality is what helped to build this company to be what it is today, and will be the cornerstone of continuing to build our company in the future.
The Sangean WFT-3 Digital Receiver was clearly designed to cover the needs of radio fans since it's fully compatible with Internet, DAB/DAB+ and FM-RDS radio stations. To get a better idea about what the WFT-3 is capable off in terms of raw numbers it gives you immediate access to a total of well over 12.000 internet stations and over 200.000 podcasts and "listen-again" services worldwide. That's not all however you're getting for your money since the WFT-3 can also be used to stream audio via Spotify premium and/or the UNDOCK app from your mobile devices and can also handle popular audio formats when used as a network or USB media player including MP3 and WMA (Real Audio and ACC+ are also supported for Internet and DAB stations). The WFT-3 also features a 3.2" color TFT display (320x240p) and is equipped with both stereo RCA and SPDIF optical and coaxial audio outputs. Last but not least via its wired (RJ45 10/100) and wireless (802.11 b/g) internet connectivity it can also update its time, location and automatically receive and install new firmware updates.
SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES
PACKAGING AND CONTENTS
Part of the WFT-3 is pictured at the front of the large white box right above its main features and beneath the company logo.
The support for Spotify streaming is mentioned on the left side.
A small picture of the WFT-3 is placed on the right side right over a 2D barcode.
The complete features list is printed at the rear of the box.
As you can all see the WFT-3 is wrapped inside a piece of paper and placed between two foam spacers.
Contained inside the box are the WFT-3 radio receiver, remote control, RJ45 cable (black would be better), manual CD, warranty information paper, Spotify papers and the user guide (unfortunately there are no audio connectivity cables present).
THE WFT-3
The 2.6Kg heavy WFT-3 looks a lot like a regular A/V receiver and measures 430mm in length, 310mm in depth and 75.5mm in height (without the antennas extended).
At the front you will find a 3.5mm port, USB port, 3.2" TFT display, 14 navigation/media buttons (including the on/off button with its blue LED) and the select/seek tuning knob.
Moving at the rear we see the FM-RDS/DAB/DAB+ Antenna, stereo RCA line-out, RJ45 Ethernet port, optical and coaxial SPDIF outputs, DC in and the WiFi Antenna.
When the FM-RDS/DAB/DAB + Antenna is extended it’s almost 1 meter tall.
The bundled remote control is quite large with good sized buttons but unfortunately it's not illuminated.
SETUP
Once you power on the WFT-3 you will be asked whether or not to initiate the setup wizard.
During the setup procedure you will be asked to choose between a 12/24 hour format, update the time via the Antenna or the internet, set the time zone, keep internet connection on or off and connect the device to a wireless network (if you don't want to use its Ethernet port).
USING THE WFT-3 PART 1
From the mode switch and main menu you can choose between internet radio, Spotify streaming, USB music player, DAB/DAB+ and FM-RDS.
There are also options here for putting the device to sleep mode, setting up alarms and accessing the system settings.
Inside the system settings you adjust the equalizer (via the 7 presets or your very own), setup the network, set the time and date, adjust the backlight of the 3.2" TFT screen, choose the menu language, check for software updates and see the current firmware and software versions.
USING THE WFT-3 PART 2
Through the internet radio tab you can access local and worldwide internet stations and podcasts.
When you select local these stations are placed in categories so you can either choose to listen to the most famous ones or choose one of the 38 available categories.
Not every category will be richly populated however as you can see from the Soundtracks one above.
The highlighted category contains most popular stations in your area so it's a safer bet that you will find the one you're looking for in here.
When you finally select to listen to an internet radio station you will see the name of the song played currently and in most cases also the logo of the station itself.
You can also listen to internet radio and podcasts by choosing a region and of course once you do you must again choose one of the available categories.
We spend quite a bit of time listening to BBC Radio 2 and ESPN Los Angeles to make sure that there were no issues with playback.
Unfortunately we don't use Spotify so that specific feature was not tested by us.
FM reception was excellent during all our tests but for some strange reason RDS was not displayed some times.
One of the things i enjoyed while testing the WFT-3 was its music player capabilities since not only does it playback shared network content (if connected to such a shared source) but it also playbacks FLAC audio files even though Sangean doesn't list that in their features (i ripped an entire Scorpions album to FLAC and used it for testing without issues).
UNDOK APP
The WFT-3 is fully compatible with the UNDOCK app, you just need to connect the device to your local network and then connect your smartphone/tablet to the same network.
I was surprised to see that even though the UNDOCK app is a generic one which can be used with many similar players it was still able to look for available firmware updates.
The app allows you to use your smartphone instead of the remote control to control the functions of the WFT-3. The only difference is that via the UNDOCK app you can also stream audio from your smartphone/tablet to the WFT-3.
CONCLUSION
We spend a total of two weeks with the WFT-3 and although I still don’t like listening to local radio it’s very interesting to be able to listen to stations from all over the world at the push of a button. This of course is not new and you can do so from your PC just as easily but using the WFT-3 is much faster and easier. Unfortunately DAB/DAB+ is not available where we’re located (the WFT-3 was unable to pick up any stations of that type) so I can’t really comment on that feature as I can’t comment on the Spotify feature since it’s not an app any of us uses. However it was a pleasant surprise to see that the WFT-3 does support playback of FLAC audio files (perhaps that was added via firmware update and Sangean forgot to update the features list?). We were also quite satisfied with the number of available audio outputs the WFT-3 has (stereo, optical and coaxial) but we do feel that just 5 presets for each radio type might just be too few (this is something pointed out by some people we talked about the WFT-3 with – personally I feel that even 5 is enough for each radio type). As for the UNDOK app well it is a generic 3rd party app which means it can be used with a wide range of compatible devices. Still it worked flawlessly and that’s pretty much the only thing that really matters. Of course we do feel that Sangean can further improve the WFT-3 perhaps by adding a touch screen to make it easier for people to use the menus and select stations and songs. The sky is the limit here really so we’re very curious to see what plans Sangean has for the near future.
Pricing is perhaps the only slight drawback of the WFT-3 digital receiver by Sangean since it currently retails for 355.60Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de) a price tag which although quite reduced compared to its launch day it’s still set quite high. Of course we did check around to see just how much similar devices go for and although we did find many DAB/DAB+ and FM radio combos for much less none supported internet radio not to mention the USB/Network media player feature so at the end of the day it all comes down to what your needs are. Leaving out its price tag however there’s no denying that the WFT-3 offers more compared to its direct competition and that’s why it gets our Golden Award.
PROS
- Build Quality
- Internet / DAB / DAB+ / FM-RDS Radio
- Spotify / UnDOK App Audio Streaming
- Network / USB Media Player (MP3 / WMA / FLAC)
- Wired And Wireless Connectivity
- Available Audio Connections (Stereo / Optical / Coaxial)
- 3.2” Color TFT Screen
CONS
- Price (For Some)
- Current Availability
- Only 5 Presets Per Radio Type
