This and That:
Available in different colours. I bought the grey one.
Much smaller than I expected. The speaker drivers that are angled towards the outside are much smaller than expected, too.
Decent build quality. Plastic chassis and buttons; metal speaker grille.
I neither find the design attractive nor unpleasant. It’s not the prettiest device, though, and looks a bit dated.
Built-in rechargeable battery. Not directly accessible or user-replaceable.
Very nice screen.
Four stages of illumination brightness (no illumination and three different brightness levels).
Large and easy to read.
Nicely large clock when the radio is turned off.
Intuitive, easy to use and really good menu structure and navigation.
I like the rotating dial on the top that is used for most navigation and settings.
The top feels quite crowded with all of the buttons and the dial, however the layout is logical and one gets quickly used to the layout; unsighted navigation in the dark is not really a problem.
Unfortunately, all of the button clicks as well as the rotating dial are quite loud.
Unfortunately seemingly permanent screen illumination when the radio is plugged into the wall power outlet (one needs to use the illumination button to turn it off).
If not plugged in and used with the built-in battery, the illumination goes off after about 30 seconds if no button is pressed during that time and goes back on if a button is pressed (but the illumination can also be turned off altogether by using the dedicated button).
Unfortunately only 5 station presets for FM and 5 station presets for DAB/DAB+. What’s really nice, however, is that by rotating the dial, the full list of available stations including their names is shown.
The Sony supports RDS and DLS.
Built-in two-band EQ (bass and treble adjustment with +/-5 steps each).
Can be used as a radio alarm clock (either last station or a specific preset station) or traditional alarm clock (no snooze and only one alarm, though), and it doesn’t matter whether it’s plugged into the wall power outlet or running on the built-in rechargeable battery. Wake volume can be set between 0 and 30 (unfortunately no increasing volume can be set).
Very good battery life.
Signal reception and signal strength are very good and the radio finds all of the FM stations that are available here and that I also receive with my other radios plus one additional station, but it doesn’t receive nearly as many stations as one of the TechniSat radios that I ordered (but returned) as well.
Sound, Part 1 – used as Radio/Speaker:
Two small full-range speakers (stereo configuration) that are angled outwards. Single bass-reflex port.
What’s definitely somewhat annoying for me is that each time the radio is turned on or off, or when the station is changed, or when the mode (FM/DAB/Audio In) is changed, there’s a moderate pop/click sound coming through the speakers as the amplifier chip is turned off and back on during this time.
Volume Control:
Goes from 0 (mute) to 30. Controlled through two buttons.
What’s very nice is that listening quietly is definitely possible. This is an important requirement for me, and something that several TechniSat radios that I ordered as well failed at quite miserably.
Hiss Performance:
Unfortunately, the Sony outputs somewhat more hiss than I’d like, along with a bit of static noise when in FM mode, through the speakers.
Tonality:
Bassy, warm and somewhat dark in the default bass 0, treble 0 configuration.
Good extension in the lows down to about 200 Hz. Gradual roll-off below that.
Most linear sound with the bass EQ set to either -4 or -5 and the treble EQ set to +1. Nonetheless a bit of fundamental range warmth still remains.
Setting the treble to +1 leads to a slightly boosted upper treble, whereas leaving it at 0 leads to a slightly too dark high frequency response – a setting in the middle would have been good.
The general timbre isn’t perfect in the midrange but definitely very reasonably close.
Performing sine sweeps, what I can hear is a surprisingly even and flat frequency response without any nastiness.
My default setting is bass -4, treble 0.
Resolution:
Okay to decent but clearly does not reach the smaller Xiaomi Mi Square Box Bluetooth Speaker or Xiaomi Mi Bluetooth Speaker’s level of performance.
Still reasonable for the speakers’ size, though, although at least two or three tiers below what’s possible and available around this price point.
Soundstage:
Not much and quite disappointing, like most compact or Bluetooth speakers. Sometimes there’s a very mild left/right stereo effect, but having the two speaker drivers this close together and angled towards the outside doesn’t really help with the soundstage (one of the TechniSat radios that I had ordered and returned had a comparatively very nice, believable and fairly wide soundstage).
There’s ultimately still a difference between stereo and mono when using the XDR-V20D as a speaker (Line In) and switching between mono and stereo on the playback device, but this difference is not very big.
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Sound, Part 2 – used with Headphones:
As my Sony XDR-V20D has got a headphone output, I thought I’d see how it performs as a radio with headphones as well as a headphone amplifier, even though both use cases are nothing I’m really interested in since I use it purely as a traditional radio and radio alarm clock.
The speakers are muted when a headphone is plugged in.
Volume Control:
30 steps plus mute, just like when the sound is played through the speakers.
Listening fairly quietly is thankfully possible even with an in-ear as sensitive as my Ostry KC06A.
Frequency Response (no Load; LH Labs Geek Out IEM 100 as Source; EQ set to B0/T0):
Linearity is obviously very poor with a strong roll-off on either end of the frequency spectrum and a boost in the upper bass and fundamental range.
The flattest headphone output no load frequency response output can be achieved by setting the bass EQ to -1 and the treble EQ to +1 which results in a flat output between 200 Hz and 2 kHz, but the roll-off below and above that area remains unfortunately.
Output Impedance / complex Load Frequency Response/Frequency Response Deviation (critical Multi-BA Load: my Ultimate Ears Triple.Fi 10; LH Labs Geek Out IEM 100 as Source; EQ set to B0/T0):
The frequency response deviation indicates an output impedance of at least 35 Ohms, most likely even higher, which is undeniably very bad.
Furthermore, what can be seen as well is that the bass roll-off is even worse than before, which indicated that there are coupling capacitors with values that are badly matched for low impedance headphones in the headphone output (counter-checking with my Xiaomi Mi In-Ear Headphones Basic shows the same result – a bass roll-off that’s even stronger than without any load).
Hiss Performance:
… is definitely poor; there’s already a substantial level of hiss audible with my Ultimate Ears Triple.Fi 10, and the hiss performance with my near-extremely sensitive Ostry KC06A is audibly worse wherefore I didn’t even bother checking out my Sony XDR-V20D’s hiss performance with my Campfire Audio Andromeda.
Subjective Sound Perception:
The frequency response output as well as the output impedance and hiss performance are already really bad, which unfortunately also applies to the other measurable values (distortion, stereo crosstalk, …), wherefore it is not really surprising that the subjective sound perception, when used with my Triple.Fi 10, KC06A or Mi Basic, is bad: clearly lacking bass, dull and lacking treble, clearly audible hiss with my Triple.Fi 10 and Ostry, audible high distortion, distorted and soft bass response that clearly lacks control, small soundstage reproduction.
Nope, the Sony was clearly not designed to be used with headphones or as a proper line out source, as its headphone output performance is unfortunately both subjectively and objectively very poor.
To me, however, this doesn’t really matter as I’m not using it with headphones or as a line out source anyway.
Conclusion:
Definitely not perfect, but in the end the best compact radio alarm clock (that can run on the built-in rechargeable batteries) that I have found after ordering and returning several different models.