Grace Digital GDI-IRDT200 Hi-Fi Internet Radio Tuner

**** Please note that some of the photos I have included with this review show home-made rack-mount 'ears' that I made for this radio. They do NOT come with the radio! I show them only to help others that might want to make something similar. I just used sheet tin of the sort sold by hardware stores for heating duct repairs, cut it with a tin snips, folded it with a bench vise and a pair of pliers, and painted the 'ears' after drilling holes. ****Review:Since I live in a rural area almost devoid of good FM radio reception, I rely on Internet radio in my home. I have previously reviewed a table-type Internet radio by Grace Digital, and although I have three of those in different rooms in my house, my main stereo system was relying on a digital-HD broadcast that I could not reliably receive, and which recently was discontinued by the radio station....time to upgrade the stereo to Internet radio as well.However, my stereo is a rackmount semi-professional setup, so I was looking for an Internet radio in a configuration suitable for that kind of installation, preferably with dimensions allowing it to be rack mounted. This Grace Digital model GDI-IRDT200 is the only decent candidate I found that met my criteria.This radio is decent looking, with a black anodized front panel (or maybe it is just plastic textured to look like it is black anodized....from the front it looks like anodized brushed aluminum, but from other angles it looks more like plastic. The unit's width makes it suitable for stacking with other stereo components, and in my instance I fabricated two rack mounting 'ears' for it so it would mount in my rack with the other components.The radio comes with a wall-wart power supply, an FM antenna since the radio is also capable of regular FM radio reception, the infrared wireless remote control (with two AAA batteries), and the operator's manual. No cables are included, most importantly absent being the necessary stereo audio cable that you will need to connect this radio to your stereo; you will need to already own such a cable or go out and buy one. I should note that, if your stereo receiver or other audio amplification unit can handle these, this radio also outputs the audio via a coaxial digital output and a 'Toslink digital output', which is the standard digital audio fiber-optic connection used my many audio devices these days.The radio can play the following:- actual FM radio broadcasts picked up using the included FM antenna- Internet radio via either a wired Ethernet connection or via Wi-Fi; you will need an Internet connection to your premises, with a router that has either an available wired Ethernet connection or Wi-Fi capability- MP3 audio files on an SD card plugged into a slot on the front of the radio- Pandora (if you subscribe)- RSS feed podcasts- Playback of audio files stored on a computer that is connected to the same Ethernet/Wi-Fi router as this radio- There is also what appears to be a USB connector on the radio, but the user's manual does not adequately describe its use....I am only guessing that it might allow connection of a USB connected hard drive containing audio filesThe radio will play audio files in these formats:- MP3, Real Audio, WMA, AAC, OGG, WAV, AIFFThe manual also mentions playback from 'UPnP' and Apple Lossless format.Radio dimensions are 43 cm x 26 cm x 4.7 cm (approx 16.9" x 10.2" x 1.8").The radio front panel is rather spartan, having only:- Power button- Power LED indicator (confusingly, the LED is illuminated when the radio is off, and off when the radio is on)- Headphone jack (conventional 1/4" stereo jack)- LCD display with blue colored backlight (only three lines of text, 132 x 48 pixel resolution)- Pre(set) / Play button- Mode button- Back button- Tuning / Menu Select knob / buttonThe remote control has the following:- Mute button- Power button- ten button for numbers 0 - 9- Back button- Select button- Up / Down buttons- Play / Stop buttons- Volume Up / Down buttons- Store button (for presets)- Recall button (for presets)- Browse button- Mode buttonBesides displaying two lines of text, the display has a third line that is used for displaying status icons, signal strength, etc.This unit sounds good, no problems there. It looks pretty decent, but some aspects look slightly cheap; it is definitely sub-par in appearance when compared to pretty much any modern stereo component. The buttons all have a cheap feel. The worst part by far is the crummy appearance and functionality of the display. I appreciate that the displayed text and icons are large enough to be seen from some distance, but up close (at arm's length from the front panel controls) it looks very pixelated and rough. The text is so large that hardly any meaningful words, prompts or phrases can be displayed without scrolling the text, and while that is done automatically, it is slow and tedious to read anything on the display. This is especially rough for the user when trying to set the radio up.And on the subject of setting this radio up, you pretty much need to go by trial and error, since the thick manual is very poorly written and organized, has lots of misleading or flat out incorrect information, and it mentions features and display screens that do not actually exist (I called Grace Digital and talked to customer service/tech support, and they admitted that this manual, although specified in many places to be only for this model of radio, that much of the content is generic to their overall radio line, and thus wrong or inapplicable for this model). The display is all menu driven, with menus inside menus inside menus. But you can't see the menu structure on the display, so you can easily get lost. You turn the Select knob to scroll through the current menu until you see the option or another menu that you want, then you press in on the knob to select that option/menu. The adjacent BACK button allows you to back up out of the menu(s).The radio supposedly has 10 presets, but it is not clear from the manual whether they only work for radio stations, or if you might be able to apply them to other sources as well. Grace Digital tech support told me that this model actually has more than 20 presets in spite of what the manual says, but I was not able to use more than 9 presets (1 ~ 9) using the remote, and 12 presets (1 ~ 12) using the radio's front panel. The manual describes how to program and use the presets from buttons on the front of the radio that do not actually exist. The instructions for setting and using presets from the remote control are incorrect, and also incomplete (failing to mention the extreme sensitivity of the radio's infrared receiver to angle and distance of the invisible light beam, and the sluggish display response to remote control actions). Because of this inaccuracy, I offer below a few things I found by trial and error:- To program a preset using the radio front panel, press and hold the PRE/PLAY button until the display prompts to select a preset number, then turn the SELECT knob until the desired preset, 1 ~ 12, is highlighted, then press and hold the SELECT knob until the display indicates that the preset has been accomplished.- To program a preset using the remote control, press and hold the STORE button until the display prompts to select a preset number, the release the STORE button and press and hold one of the buttons 1 ~ 9 until the display indicates that the preset has been accomplished. No matter what I tried, I could not get the radio to recognize a preset number higher than 9, in spite of the manual's assertion in one place that up to 99 presets can be programmed, and in other places that 10 presets can be programmed.- To recall a preset using the radio front panel, press and hold the PRE/PLAY button until the display prompts to select a preset number, then turn the SELECT knob until the desired preset, 1 ~ 12, is highlighted (presets already programmed will show the name of the radio station beside the preset number), then press and release the SELECT knob (don't hold it pressed) and the radio will start playing that program.- To recall a preset using the remote control, press and hold the RECALL button until the display prompts to press a preset number, then press any number between 1 and 9. Again, I was not successful in using any presets higher than 9 using the remote control.I should also note that, besides its functionality is setting and recalling presets, and for navigating the setup menus, the SELECT knob also functions as a volume control when a program is playing and no menus are currently active. As soon as the knob is turned, the display switches to showing a bar graph of where you are setting the volume relative to the minimum and maximum volumes. This knob is mostly useful when listening to the radio via headphones.The internal functionality of this radio is pretty good, but if Grace were to improve the display, rewrite the manual using a less dim-witted author and better editing, and making setup navigation better organized, I would rate this higher.

I was looking for a replacement for my Sirius "Table Top" radio which began having connection problems. I needed something which had a line out jack. I chose this radio after much shopping and comparing features of other Grace radios. This model has an Ethernet jack in addition to wireless - a good feature to have if you have a flaky wireless network.Grace opened up a whole world of listening for me, rather than just listening to Sirius streaming. So many stations and options.The good:Total time it took me to bring the box in from the car to listening to music: 30 minutes, without reading the manual. That included removing my TTR1, hunting for an audio cable, entering my WEP password, entering my Sirius password, and entering my computer password to browse. I have a Mac running Snow Leopard and Grace logged in without problems and was browsing my disk. I registered the radio and added my free Pandora account. It was playing for a while before I heard a commercial, so I upgraded my Pandora account to their paid service to never hear advertising again.The network settings allowed me to connect DHCP or modify the DNS, gateway, and IP address. I tweaked the settings to set a static IP address on the network. The audio seems better than the Sirius TTR1 as well.Digital optical output jack is available.The presets switch service as well as station. I can easily switch between Sirius channel presets and Pandora presets. The radio appears to keep playing the old station while it acquires the new one, decreasing dead air time.The bad:Bear in mind these are complicated beasts. Performance relies on your Internet provider and the equipment you have installed. I never expect every feature to work perfectly.My first gripe - no audio cable. Yea, it's nice that they've included a digital output jack which I still don't have the equipment to use. But, I needed to dig through my closet for a simple audio cable to hook it up. If they could include batteries for the remote they could toss in a cheap set of RCA cables too.By default, the "stay connected" setting is on. This doesn't work for me. It works for a while, but overnight the radio cannot connect with this setting on. I had to manually run through the settings every time until I turned it off. The radio should be smart enough to re-connect if it looses its connection. Meanwhile, I just tolerate the extra 5 seconds it takes to re-connect the wireless network, which is still much faster than the Sirius TTR1.The iPhone app is really bad for connecting to the radio, I'm guessing since I let the radio disconnect from the network and I'm using wireless. It may be easier to control if I had it wired. The iPhone app is essential for scrolling through all the local stations and browsing when you don't know what you're looking for... because,The interface. ugg. There is a backlight contrast setting, but unless I'm missing something not much in the way of controlling the brightness of the display or timeout. I've just left it on default settings.The radio seems to designed for rack mounted systems, so it's much wider than it has to be. There aren't enough buttons on the front panel. I need a combination of the front panel, iPhone app, and the included remote to quickly access everything.Conclusion: I'm still rating it 5 stars despite its flaws because it does what I want it to do. It plays music. The audio sounds wonderful. I have access to whole world of music with many options, such as browsing my Mac for music, using an SD card in the front panel jack, or acquiring signals off the air.I will be exploring with this radio for a long time.edit 2/24/2012 - opps. After many hours of listening the radio couldn't find the wireless network. The radio convinced itself that it was wired-only while I've never plugged a cable to the RJ45 jack. A factory reset didn't resolve it. I also needed to unplug it for a while, factory reset, then it found the network once but couldn't re-connect after a station update. I was using a static IP over wireless. I rebooted my router and set the radio for full DHCP on wireless-only. Disabled the "stay connected" setting again. Now it's working again. I hope I don't have to do that too often. Funny, but with a factory reset I did not have to re-enter my Sirius information - although I did register the radio.edit 3/16/2012 - opps again. I had turned off the radio using the iPhone app remote. Boy, that was a mistake. When I turned it back on, it was able to log into the network but it would just sit and spin trying to connect to anything without timing out. The solution was to unplug the radio for a minute. Then it couldn't find the network and prompted me to use the existing WEP key or enter a new one. I re-entered my key. From there the radio worked just fine.I knocked my original 5-star review to 4-stars since Grace still does not report any firmware updates to address some of these connection problems. Seems the thing to do when the radio gets "weird" is to unplug it for a minute. Also, avoid using the iPhone app to power it off. That caused bad things to happen.edit 3/26/2012 - I think we've hit bottom now. After connecting for a week, the radio would display "Internal Error 1074 690" for about a minute, then restart. I would try a "Factory Reset" and unplug it for a few minutes which might or might not get it connect. At this point, I figure there's something unreasonably wrong with the radio and visited Grace Digital's website to ask for repair. In the process of submitting a ticket I was offered a few choices to fix my problem before confirming the repair ticket. One option is something called a "Master Factory Reset."Master Factory Reset is apparently different than the Factory Reset which can be reached by navigating the menus. The Master Factory Reset is accomplished by unplugging the radio, holding down the select button, then plugging the radio in while continuing to hold down the select button until a confirmation message is displayed. This is quite tricky if you don't have long arms to reach both the plug and the select button at the same time.No problems connecting immediately following the reset. And, I've noticed a few options which were really set to factory defaults when just the plain "Factory Reset" did not do it. If it fails again I'm returning it.edit 4/8/2012 - Working perfectly. It's been a struggle to have the radio work as designed. Here are a few tips. This radio prefers wired over wireless connection. Do not download updated firmware if it's not broke. Disable the "Stay Connected" setting in the network settings; those 20 seconds it will save you powering up will cost you a lot more time trying to re-connect when it fails. Use the presets to save your favorite channels, which changes the source as well as the station. That way you can easily switch between Pandora and Sirius with a single button press rather than a frustrating game of "What button do I have to press now?"edit 9/16/2012 - Wireless connection is useless. Grace, if you're listening, fire the engineer who wrote your firmware because they know not what they do. I needed to do a power-off, factory reset two more times, re-enter the WEP password, only to have it fail in just a few days. As a hack, I'm now using a  ASUS 802.11b/g/n Portable Wireless Router (WL-330N)  to give it a wireless connection through it's LAN jack and it's working as it should.The symptoms are it gives me an internal fault and says the jack is unplugged. ya, it's unplugged. It was wireless. But, after it crashes, the wireless options just vanish from the menu and it wants a hard-line. Fine. Whatever. I knocked off yet another star for poor firmware.edit 9/18/2013 - I was able to get more life out of the radio by connecting my wireless gateway to the RJ45 jack, thereby bypassing whatever bugs they had in the wireless software which kept corrupting memory. Still no firmware update is available.But, I am finally weary of the dance. Power up. See the "Could not connect" error. Press #1 on the presets. Have it play for a few minutes then say "Stream closed" or stuck on "Buffering.... 0%" until I pressed the preset again or powered off and back on again. I used the Grace iPhone app to cycle power on it from the other room to continue to listen. Finally, ahhghgh. I give up.I purchased the Sirius Tabletop Radio for half the price. This is my second tabletop radio. The first failed after several years of service. The new radio connected and played flawlessly for hours until I powered it off. Disadvantage: it only plays Sirius Radio. Advantage: I can play music by simply pressing the power button.Curse you, Grace Digital. For such a wonderful design, your firmware is just awful and you are providing no updates. I give up.

I bought this to replace my iPhone 5S through which I was listening to internet radio on Tunein Radio, plugged into my HiFi system. The set-up was easy and straightforward and the sound quality far better than the iPhone - with proper phono plugs! The iPhone App which allows the iPhone to control the Grace is brilliant and worked 1st time and was very easy to navigate and select radio stations from around the world. So I now have Swiss Classic (the best classical radio station in the world) and some interesting American Country Music stations! All in glorious high fidelity!I would have given the Grace Tuner 5 stars if it had been able to connect to my iTunes and Apple Music account but sadly, it does not (as far as I can see). I have emailed Grace to see if they are working on it but suspect there is an ideological chasm between Grace and Apple - as there is between Amazon and Apple. Shame guys...

I bought the tuner despite reading the widely differing reviews on this web site. I have been looking for such a device for some time and have to say that so far, I am well pleased with the results. I had no trouble setting it up & it is giving me hi fi quality sound through my system - just what I wanted. The app set-up also worked & still works (this is after about 3 weeks) as advertised. It would be great to have more than 10 pre-sets - 50 would be ideal. The only other negative is a function of the internet - some stations are more prone to drop out than others. I have even asked for an station to be added to the list & that was done very quickly & efficiently.

Easy to setup and provides a high quality audio signal. Nothing against and would recommend it.

This is a great product, setup was easy, and the sound and ease of use is great. The remote is not very intuitivr, but you can find interesting and enjoyable radio with ease. It is a top notch product.

Love this TunerIt arrived quickly and works perfect with the 70V amplifier I have in my office. It has soo many stations and the interface is simple to navigate.