OTHER TECH

Teac SR-L50 The SR-L50 combines an AM/FM tuner, a CD player, and a three-driver speaker system in an imposing brushed-aluminum package that sports blue accent lighting when it's turned on (you can also dim it). To the right of the display window are a volume up/down rocker and the CD transport-control buttons. At left are a tuning up/down rocker along with buttons for power, source selection, band selection, and other functions.

On top is a large oval snooze bar, and on the right side are the dimmer button and a minijack headphone output. At the bottom of the back panel are an F-connector FM antenna input and RCA jacks for the auxiliary input; the AM antenna is internal. Almost all the front-panel controls are duplicated on the remote (not shown), which adds some others such as muting, bass boost, and direct track and preset selection.

Reception of local AM stations was good, except that strong signals often came through on both the broadcast frequency and the one above, which could make it hard to receive stations on adjacent channels cleanly. On FM, I received 20 stations cleanly in stereo with the supplied wire antenna vs. 35 with the attic antenna (again compared with only 30 stations pulled in by the reference tuner). Unfortunately, you can't switch the tuner to mono to reduce noise on weak stations, and it can't lock onto a station adjacent to another with a stronger signal. (In fairness, however, adjacent-channel discrimination is a difficult task for a tuner and won't be an issue in most areas.)

The SR-L50's sound was clean and detailed, but unless I engaged the bass boost it was also thin and hollow. Even with the bass boost on, the sound was often aggressively forward. Although most everyday functions were easy to use, some of the setup operations, such as setting the clock or station presets, are too complex. The clock-setting procedure, in particular, involves three buttons and actually varies somewhat depending on which source is selected.

Other oddities include the absence of a mute button on the radio itself and that you can't even open the CD tray without first switching to CD mode! Although the Cambridge Sound­Works CD 740 does everything the SR-L50 does, and does it better, it costs $150 more, which makes the Teac SR-L50 more attractive if you're on a tight budget. More:Radio Special: 3 Table Radios and Antex SRX-3 Triple Sirius satellite receiver Triple Your Radio Pleasure Antex SRX-3 Triple Play Sirius satellite receiver