Magicbox Clarus Plus

There’s a proliferation of internet radios hitting the shelves at the moment. These devices connect to your wireless network and can play audio from thousands of radio stations from across the world. They are also a handy way of listening to the music you’ve got kicking around on your computer’s hard disk. This makes for a potential feast of digital aural entertainment to spread around your home.

The even better news is that prices are spiralling downwards. The Clarus Plus costs just £79 and comes with a range of features that higher-priced rivals will envy.

Features:
One of the things about internet radio is that it isn’t always exactly what you want – sometimes you just want to tune in to Radio 4 or your local FM station to hear the news or weather, without having to trawl through thousands of stations. The Clarus Plus has this covered, offering FM and DAB (digital broadcasts available over the air) as well as Wi-Fi connected internet radio and music streaming.

Choose digital radio, however, and there is a wealth of stations to choose from. While we originally suspected it of not offering the BBC’s Listen Again programming, which was something of a worry, we actually found it under ‘podcasts’. This is more than a bit confusing, however, since the BBC offers downloadable podcasts as well, though you can’t access these through this device.

Performance:
With the price being so cheap, we guessed there had to be a corner or two cut somewhere. The most telling cut-back is with the speakers. Listening to the radio on its own you might not notice, especially if you’re not an audiophile and are looking for something unfussy to bring radio and streaming music to your kitchen, for example. However, we lined it up next to the Tangent Quattro that won our Gold Award for internet radios back in May (see our review at http://tinyurl.com/tangent-review) and the Clarus Plus paled in comparison.

Ease of use:
The device uses a simple text menu to scroll through the settings. This worked well on everything except text input, which was mightily frustrating, although you only need to input the handful of characters that make up your Wi-Fi’s WPA security key.

Sharing music from your computer is simple – it’ll pick up a UPnP server (such as the one that runs automatically as part of Windows Media Player 11) or you can simply share files and folders using Windows’ basic network sharing settings.

Value for money:
Digital radio enthusiasts have been spoilt by the Tangent Quattro, which – although it doesn’t have DAB built-in – has superior sound quality. It’s also more expensive. Online we’ve seen it for a smidgen over £150, which is significantly cheaper than its £200 recommended price but still just about twice the price of the sub-£80 Clarus Plus. So, you’ve just got to ask yourself whether it’s worth paying double the price for good speakers. If not, and the DAB option is also attractive, the Clarus is a great-value proposition.