It’s been seven years since our What Hi-Fi? Awards radio category featured as many as three winners, and yet just when you think there can’t be many more days left in the humble desktop radio, here we are. Indeed, rather than settle on only a pair of radios for this year’s Best Buy winners, our in-house reviews team was so impressed with the recent newcomers that had arrived in the test rooms that we had no choice but to decorate a trio of them.
Only one returns from last year, the Ruark Audio R2 MK4 (below). And if your idea of a radio is a dated bedside box with a pull-up AM/FM antennae, this modern masterpiece will alter that slightly... or rather, a lot. Taking its second consecutive gong as our premium radio pick (‘Best radio over £400’), the handsome R2 MK4 is one of the British radio specialist’s larger and more fruitfully featured models – not only a pretty face and FM/DAB+ facilitator but also a gateway to music streaming via its Bluetooth, Spotify Connect, Amazon Music and Deezer support.
And, to quote our R4 MK2 review, “If you aren’t charmed by the Ruark R2 Mk4’s looks and feature set so far, you will be once you start playing music on it.” The Ruark is wonderfully rich, weighty and expressive, with a fullness and smoothness that makes even lower-quality audio nice to listen to.
But yep, you pay for that tabletop opulence, so if you’re looking for something more affordable, and smaller, but with the same generous feature set, you would do well to look further down Ruark Audio’s lineup to the R1S (pictured top), our mid-range Best Buy winner (‘Best radio £100-400’). We called this little charmer “as close to hi-fi as a small radio can get” for good reason: it too marries that same tactile, modern design with wi-fi streaming and Bluetooth, while the sound is pleasantly neutral and articulate, if not, of course, as room-filling as the R2 MK4’s.
OK, but what if you don’t need streaming and just want a nice little bedside radio? Well, we have something for you too – and from an arguably even greater radio legend: Roberts. Its new Revival Petite 2 (below) won us over a few months ago with its compact, cute-as-a-button design, features and operational simplicity (it has FM, DAB+, Bluetooth and presets) and clear, punchy sound.
The bonus is that it’s portable – the built-in battery offers 20 hours of on-the-go use per charge for accompanying you on a picnic, or in your DAB+-less car! Which brings us to our favourite quote about the radio, from Hunter S. Thompson: “On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio.”
We wish both Ruark and Roberts luck for the What Hi-Fi? Awards ceremony on the 14th of November, where one of these Best Buy winners will win the radio category's even more prestigious Product of the Year trophy. So check back then!
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