Retekess TR629 AM FM Shortwave Radio & Recorder Review
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- Опубликовано: 1 июл 2022
- The Retekess TR629 AM FM Shortwave Portable Radio has an Awesome Built In Recorder that works on all the Bands. Large, and Bright LCD. Solid Speaker Audio. AC/DC Operation. MP3 Player. Great Reception on all the Bands. Do these Features, and More make for a Great Radio? Almost :)
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Features I like about the TR629:
Direct Access with the Numeric Keypad.
Separate Recording Folder.
Fine/Fast Tuning Control is Implemented Well.
FM Reception is well Above Average.
Recording Quality is Decent.
Good Headphone Experience.
Simple Controls.
Large Display.
AC Operation.
Shortwave & Medium Wave Reception is Great.
Runs on D Cell Batteries.
Accepts 128GB micro SD cards, and USB Thumb Drives.
Built in Handle.
Clock, and Alarm.
Features that can be Added or Improved on:
Remove Buzz Sound heard on MW/SW every 15 Seconds.
Add 10kHz Tuning(This is Being Addressed)
Add More Presets for MW & SW. Ten is not enough.
Add Stereo to FM, and MP3 Playback.
Overall, a good Radio, that could be Great if the above issues are resolved. If you love FM plus Recording, and don't mind it being in Mono, then this radio is for You. Otherwise wait till late 2022 to see if the Revised Model has these issues fixed. I plan to pick one of those up, and perform a follow-up review.
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▶ The Retekess TR629 at Amazon: amzn.to/3yl9OMg
(paid link) As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. There are no additional costs to you.
I just received the new version and it is now outstanding for the price! Excellent reception, and no more noise every few seconds. So far, I've tried it out making brief recordings of New Zealand, Thailand and Brazil on shortwave, and Netherlands Antilles and CBC Winnipeg on medium wave from SW Missouri. Really appreciate your videos!
Good to know it is fixed!
I'm using the new TR629, as well. The reception remains excellent. ATS now auto-scans in 10 kHz increments; although "9/10KHZ" still appears under a button, there's apparently no way to toggle between these numbers. Audio from the speaker and through headphones is less vivid than in my original. The recording function is still a disappointment for me, however. Radio recordings include rhythmic background distortion. This artifact is painfully apparent when using a micro SD card but slightly less obvious with a USB drive.
@@todderbert I just bought one myself. I really just wanted a basic FM/AM radio for the most part but wanted to get into short band radio. I figured this would be a good entry model. Other radios w/ these features jump up to the 150 200 dollar plus price range. Plus if I don't like it , I can always send it back.
@@todderbert I made my own antenna for this radio and I'm getting more signals.
Awesome review. Saved me $50. I will keep looking.
Hopefully Retekess will fix all the issues for the next revision. Thanks for the heads up on this one. 👏🏻👍❤️📻
Hej I agree with you, let's hope that Retekess fixes the problems this radio has in next revision because otherwise I think Retekess TR-629 is a nice radio take care and have a pleasant sunday.
@@NTPTM Mine sounds great for the size of the speaker.
@@monotech20.14 Hej thanks for the info regarding Retekess TR-629 this radio looks very nice and Retekess makes very nice radio devices and I own a few Retekess radios and am very happy with them. But sure I will buy more Retekess radios in the future because i like the brand take care and have a very nice sunday.
The power cord looks like one of those that the old cassette recorders used to use from the 70s.That light drives me crazy where it blocks out the display.lol.Great review.
Love your reviews. Thanks for this one. Go Iron Man! Thanks Todderbert.
Thank you for your love for retekess tr629.
Thank you I was looking for an AM radio and you saved me from a bad buy I think.
What do you mean AM radio it has AM. Do you mean you want something to pick up amatuer AM/HAM radio operators?
The record feature alone makes this radio worth the purchase, even the more expensive Tecsuns/Xhdatas don't have that, only playback.
I wish it had a tone control knob and stereo sound through the headphone jack. Great review.
The large knob on the front can be rotated to adjust the volume.
Retekess makes nice radios. The recording function is the only nice feature here. I'm okay with 10 presets though. There are not many stations out here. I like the TR-618, it's cheaper and does almost as much. The D cell batteries last forever! An antenna jack would be nice here...😎
I love the handle... ❤️👌👀
Yes, you can use the handle to take this radio anywhere, very convenient.
Hi Todderbert, I have the new version of the radio for two days and am very impressed overall. FM reception is awesome, Mediumwave is very good but no DX machine. On shortwave I notice some AGC pumping on very weak signals as the signal fades in and out. A weird thing with Shortwave presets: I tried to save 9.330 and it saves as 9.01?? I tried to save 7.290 and it defaults to a lower frequency. Apparently the radio can only save frequencies within certain band segments on shortwave. Lastly, You cannot direct enter a frequency such as 9.335. It will stop at 9.33 and then you must turn the tuning knob to get to 9.335. If doing a band scan it will stop on that frequency and display it correctly but I am not able to input the 5 with the keypad. Overall It is an awesome radio with great sound. I paid $38.00 and with the 9/10 AM upgrade and AM buzzing gone It's a keeper. The offending temperature display is now gone.I played some music files on an SD card and the sound was very goog but no tone control. A fun radio overall.
I noticed that some of the songs you play in the video aren’t in the description. Could you add those?
I Todderbert can you make a Loop sesion with the New Sony P-27 ? Thanks. Nice video. Gretings from Quilpue, Chile.
If you like Retekess TR629 or other retekess radios, you can please pay attention to the prime day live broadcast on 7.11,12,13.
I just got mine. It sounds great for AM/FM. I'm new to shortwave though. For a small desktop radio its working great.
Odd to have volume control knob that large looks a tuning knob. I like the idea having the having a regular power cord with the power transformer build in to the radio itself.
⁵5⁵s for the review
SWell I have had mine for 2 months..I plan on recording fm football games. I really like the features. Thanks for the review. Ron z.
Thank you for liking the recording function of Retekess TR629, it has many other functions
Have upgrades been made since this review?
Hola 👋👋👋..
Muchas gracias por el vídeo..
Muy Bonita Radio multibanda digital analógica..
Saludos en Dios...
Love to see what you think of those Ion retro radios
Retekess also has other retro radios: TR618, TR626, TR629, TR604, TR614, TR605
I love Retekess products, but this one is a no-go for me at $50 with the medium wave buzzing issue.$35 is about all I'd pay for this one at the moment. However, the buzzing issue does not seem nowhere near as annoying as the snap, crackle, and pop on my tr604. But I only paid about $19 on a lightning deal for it, so I can't complain.
Thank you for enjoying the retekess radio and for your feedback after using it. Extending the antenna can enhance reception.
TR605 is a nice little radio
@@huntercarver1851 You are exactly right! I actually just got one a few weeks ago and love it, no issues, not even with medium wave. In my book this proves Retekess can make excellent radios at a reasonable cost.
I for sure have > 40 presets on SW so there might already be slight variations.
Thanks for your excellent review of this radio that was unknown to me. It looks great, has some interesting features but I wonder how it really does on SW. I've read bad reviews for this on the Amazon EU sites.
Noisy display seems to be a common flaw of many Retekess radios, see the V115.
Nice to have a record feature but no line in port, right? That's a pity. The cheaper V115 has it.
Here in France it's sold for 56 euros on Amazon and almost 70 on Retekess' own boutique!
That's asking for too much for this thing IMO.
Prices for these seem to be all over the place, from 23 euro to over 100.
@@patscanlan2678 where at 23 euro? at that price I'd go for it.
What is the different between Retekess 618 and 629? I want to buy one but don't know which one to go for
Hej Todderbert thanks for the review I was very interested in Retekess TR-629 and still is but we will see how I do maybe best that I wait to buy Retekess TR-629 and see if Retekess fixes some small problems this radio has as you mention in your review. I had high expectations for this radio but that's how it is you never know how a radio is and how it performs but I like the look on this radio. But it's lucky we have you Todderbert who testing different radio devices and gives us hard facts about whether a radio has problems and if it is worth buying take care Todderbert thanks for the review.
Thank you for your love for the appearance of retekess tr629, you can experience the function of the product, you will love it.
Yewrich radio with bluetooth and sd card. I want to purchase it. What is your opinion about it. ? ( from India )
What's are best radios with USB connectivity and a larger speaker?
For the D sized batteries you might be able to get away with using a AA to D size battery adapter. Those plastic tubes you put a rechargeable AA battery inside and it allows you to insert it where a D size battery goes. That's if the radio will run with slightly lower voltage you get from a AA NiMh battery.
This retekess TR618 radio is driven by AC 110V or 3 x D batteries. D batteries are easily available in the market.
Можно легко сделать переходник на элемент 18650 и вообще забыть о батарейках.
@@user-gw1op5km3h Подскажите, а как?
I prefer an option for AA, especially for rechargeable batteries. AA-to-D adapters with NiMH work just fine in this radio. @@retekessradio1714
Weird, doesn't accept 240v for Australia but tunes in our 9KHz steps and also our temp in C⁰.
It looks and sounds OK for a cheap radio but one feature many higher end radio's don't have recording function. Thanks for your review.👍🍻😉
Retekess tr629 has complete functions, including AM FM SW, recording, USB TF card to play music, clock alarm function.
Got one recently and it has no internal interference on AM when recording (USB or TF), and 10kHz AM. However, unless I'm missing something, the tuning dial is only 1kHz, with a temporary switch to 10kHz if you go far enough (10 clicks?). Gads that is annoying. Not the only radio to do it, of course. (Tecsun PL360) You have enough control over station memories, plus direct entry, so it's not as bad as it could be. Still...why?
I have a question about the electronic recording… if I record something on this radio the play the recording on a high grade, would it replay as a copy of this radio’s output, or closer to the original sounds of the source?
Radio's output.
@@todderbert very cool!!! Thank you!
Is there anyway to make this thing record PCM Wave too? Since these radios with MP3 and WMA feature also play PCM wave files at 44,1Khz 16 Bit. In the age of super huge Flash memory for USB and SD card slots it would make more sense to be able recording something lossless and being able to later save it as FLAC or MP3 files or just leave it as WAV files on the card or USB stick.
Do you really find the source audio from these radios worthy of FLAC?
@@radellaf I ALWAYS prefer lossless. And a lot of old time radio recordings still exist as high quality backups in archives. Sadly the majority that is available to the public is compressed to hell with audible MP3 compression aliasing as well as extreme Noise Reduction artifacts which in those combinations make it sound WORSE than the raw original unprocessed recording. And we also don't live in the age of dialup modems anymore. Lossless audio for downloads is the ONLY thing i accept these days. Especially since storage space also has become very affordable.
@@KRAFTWERK2K6 I can see that for high quality sources, but even 256 mp3 is overkill for conventional broadcast radio. Not that you lose anything with lossless, of course. And if you are digitizing archive recordings then OF COURSE lossless. For what the radio in this review picks up? I just don’t think it would ever matter. 32GB does hold quite a bit of even flac audio (70h?)
The artifacts we hate did not come from 256 or 320 encodes. early 2000s 128 was atrocious. And those encoders would absolutely choke on AM static.
@@radellaf I simply want lossless because THANK GOD we don't live in the dreadful age of MP3 anymore. And a lot of OTR shows also sadly only exist as 32kbits of 64kbits 22khz MP3 files, which all sound absolute god awful and way worse than the original source.
@@KRAFTWERK2K6 I just think there's a world, nay, galaxy of difference between even 256 44/48 (I find 160 transparent) and (especially older) low bitrate mp3 encodes. 32k is never going to sound good. I do a lot of audiobook compression for listening off my phone (yes, at 128GB, storage space is still a thing, the 320/flac/alac goes to 160aac) and 32k counts as merely tolerable. 32k OPUS is actually fine, as a distribution (not storage) codec, too. Mind, I grew up with all audiobooks in 16k ACELP. Listenable is kinda generous. Useful, though, for 32-128MB players.
22kHz, by itself, should be fine for OTR. I'd be shocked to find real audio content over 10kHz in it. 32/44/48 does reduce the need for filtering the input for aliasing.
ANYWAY, I'll agree that 128 MP3 isn't perhaps the best compromise even for a cheap radio, with 32GB cards. No extra hardware required for 320, and, if h264 encoding is any indication (it may not be) then embedded-chip 320 may be nothing like Apple Audio Toolbox or LAME 320. Especially for AM with all the hard-to-encode static.
If I may throw in something else, I find it incredibly annoying that line input (vs mic) seems not-standard on
Hopefully in the next revision they will put in an external antenna port.
Thank you for your feedback on improving the external interface of the antenna.
Hey, Mr. Stark -> Two thumbs way, way up for recognizing the issue with the 15-second thermometer cycle. I noticed the buzz but never connected it to the thermometer. Well done. I attributed the buzz to a manufacturing defect and returned the radio to Amazon for exchange. When the replacement exhibited the same issue, I decided to just live with it because the TR629 works so well on FM for me. Example: When not listening to WSM or CFZM on AM late at night on my Sony ICF-S5W, I'll usually tune in the TR629 to WDCB on FM. Despite living in a south-facing, steel-frame highrise apartment, I can still receive this Glen Ellyn station on 90.9 MHz clear as a bell - even with the antenna retracted. Nearly all local FM stations also come in loud and steady without antenna extended.
I also use the TR629 as a frequency checker when DXing with the ICF-S5W.
The big disappointment for me is the distortion the TR629 introduces when recording. There's a rhythmic rumble that's annoyingly apparent upon playback, especially using headphones. This artifact is less prominent on recordings saved to a USB thumb drive. Does your TR629 have this problem?
Despite all these undocumented features, I do like the TR629 for what it does and am looking forward to the next version. What surprises me is that Retekess/Retevis missed these issues during development. The company's focus on customer satisfaction after the sale almost rivals that of Amazon itself. That's probably why I put up with this radio's idiosyncrasies.
I received confirmation from Retekess, that the next version will come without thermomether. I detached the T-Sens in the radio. This will get you rid of the buzz but the radio reacts erratic afterwards, so no permanent fix.
@ -> How could this problem not have been noticed by Retekess when the radio was designed? Or when performing routine quality control during production? Listening to an AM station for less than a minute would have made the issue painfully apparent.
@@LTHanlon Even more so as the pcb design is two years old. This radio was sold as the Panda T-19 and the Retekess version has T-19 on the PCB. So already three years this fault.
Он на FM диапазоне не так уж и хорош, просто, вы, видимо, использовали для питание переменное напряжение, а не элементы питания, а в этом случае данный приёмник частично использует как антенну сеть питания в вашем доме.
@@user-gw1op5km3h wrote -> "It is not so good on the FM band, it's just that you, apparently, used alternating voltage for power supply, and not batteries, and in this case this receiver partially uses the power supply in your house as an antenna." My reply -> I was operating the TR629 with batteries and not AC house current. But using the house current as an antenna sounds like an interesting idea. Я использовал TR629 с батареями, а не с переменным током. Но использование домашнего тока в качестве антенны кажется интересной идеей.
So what's the benefit of the DSP? What function(s) is it performing? Do you disclose this in the video? I'm not watching a 30 min video just to find that out.
me, me, me
Google
DSP radio has a significant improvement in signal selectivity, signal-to-noise ratio and anti-interference ability through digital processing of radio signals.
@@retekessradio1714 да-да-да, если только забыть, что вы его и так снабдили внутренними помехами...
On most of my DSP radios, FM reception is especially good.
Mr.Toderberg how can I buy this item in India.
Is there any way to switch from celcius to farenheit.
Seems rather bad that it's only 9kHz channel steps on the MW/AM band, especially as the box is marked as US version. There's not even any internal jumper or solder link options for it. There's a few of these Retekess radios that are 9kHz only, with no option to change to 10kHz.
Yet the the FM and Shortwave seem to work. Is AM really that important to people?
How many radios do you have?
A couple here and there. Realistically I have not kept count. I tend to box them away, and bring them out when answering questions. One day I may do a physical count. You may assume every radio you see on my channel counts as one, since I have not sold many of them, just a few.
Pls does Retekess 629 has Bluetooth?
No
Just got one of those. The temp display was not was not on the one I got.
cool, do you get a noticeable click on MW every 15 seconds?
@@todderbert No I have not.
@@douglasburskey6411 Sounds like they may have fixed that issue.
Does it do NOAA?
Not this model.
Здравствуйте. Разрешите мне вставить своих пару слов.
Получил я приёмник в конце весны. Отличия из сказанного вами: память на станции 50-50-99 по диапазонам FM-MW-SW.
И по порядку:
Звук - да, неплох, но шумов за его цену много, у того же HanRongDa HRD-900 на порядок меньше и звук у него стерео.
Mp3 плеер - не запоминает время остановки воспроизведения, что проблема при прослушивании больших файлов, время выставляется не на 0:00, а произвольным порядком, что тоже плохо.
FM диапазон: да, ловит он неплохо, но много дешёвых приёмников ловят лучше, единственное избирательность хорошая. Также он ужасно сканирует, останавливается только на радиостанциях с уверенным приёмом. Присутствует на некоторых слабых станциях помеха от подсветки экрана.
На SW диапазоне только шаг быстрой настройки странный в 0,01 МГц, когда правильнее было бы сделать в 0,005 МГц, а вот шаг медленной настройки в 0,001 МГц.
MW диапазон: там кроме датчика температуры, помеху даёт ещё и сам дисплей, а также подсветка, только в обратную сторону нежели на FM диапазоне, то есть, помеху даёт не сама подсветка, а её отсутствие, думаю это от того устройства, что следит за нажатиями на органы управления, чтобы включать подсветку экрана. Так что, на MW диапазоне здесь сразу 3 источника помех в самом радиоприёмнике!
Но в целом, аппарат всё же неплохой, хоть и с недостатками.
Кстати, кому интересно, я выкладываю сравнительные тесты разных радиоприёмников и этого в том числе.
Как эталон для сравнения использую Tecsun PL-310.
Looks it is mono only (even headphones)
made in china meaning : the look is great but without quality
all the world know that.