I will start this review by saying I am a long-time user of Emerson Smart-Set alarm clocks. I discovered them in about 2002 and have used them ever since. I buy them as gifts for people. I recommend them to anyone who mentions needing a new clock radio to me. My original Smart-Set is on my desk at work, because I upgraded to a wake-to-CD model for home in 2005. Both still work perfectly well, except that they are programmed for the old daylight saving time schedule. It's easy enough to change the time zone 4 times a year when it changes, or doesn't change, on the wrong DST schedule, but I thought a new clock would be nice. I wish I could write a 5-star review that said everything was an improvement over my old Emerson's, but unfortunately, I can't do that. This will be long, but I am going to outline the differences, in case anyone else is a previous owner and is wondering how the newer models stack up. I mostly started looking for a new model with the digital tuning, because my old clocks have the dial-tuners, and it is nearly impossible to hone in on my favorite radio station with it, and also easy to bump the dial and move it off the station. Because of that, it would often go fuzzy and quiet, and wasn't doing the job of waking me up, even though I had "customized" it by watching a YouTube video on adding an external antenna to get better reception than the "the cord is the antenna" nonsense. The digital tuner in this model works great, and is right on the station, even without needing to use any other antenna than the cord. As a few reviews said, the sound is a bit tinny, probably because the speakers are a lot smaller than my old cd-player model, but it isn't horrible. IMO slightly tinny, but crisp on the station is an improvement on better speakers, but static-y because it can't find the station. I really like the green numbers much better than my old models red numbers, and I love that this one has more dimming levels, because all the Smart-Sets I have ever purchased could be used for landing lights at the airport in a pinch. This one can be dimmed WAY down, which is GREAT. This new clock has 3 main "fails" for me vs the older models. First, I absolutely hate the "crescendo wakeup", and there is no way to turn that off. I need that jolt of noise to wake me up, and this "feature" makes it come up so gradually that I am able to ignore it if I am really tired. My old clock only did that if you set it to wake to alarm instead of wake to music, or if you used the "nap alarm". The second fail, is that the nap alarm is not part of this model. The nap alarm could be set from 1-99 minutes, and when you hit it, it would wake you up in that amount of time, without having to reset your regular alarms. It had a lot of useful purposes. Mostly that if I meant to hit snooze, and accidentally turned off the alarm, I could hit a 20 minute nap alarm and still get up on time. The third fail is the snooze alarm. It says in the description that it's still a 1-hour, but it doesn't work the same way it used to. This one, if the alarm is set for 6:30, and if you keep hitting the snooze, it will shut off at 7:30. If you hit the snooze within 9 minutes of 7:30, it won't turn the radio on again, it just turns the alarm off, and potentially lets you fall back asleep. The old one PLAYED for 1 hour. If it played for a few minutes, and you hit the snooze, it would potentially keep turning the radio back on at 9 minute intervals for a couple of hours if you kept hitting it until it played for a hour. Besides as a normal snooze, I used it as a way to track my time while getting ready for the day after I got up... and I admit I am not a morning person... I am a multiple-snooze-button smacker :) Other comments that might help new as well as long-time users. The Amazon description says the power source is battery. That is inaccurate, because it does plug in. The BACKUP is battery powered, which is what allows it to set to the correct date and time after a power failure. The clock comes set for US Eastern time. If you are in another time zone, change the time zone, not the time itself. I haven't used the wireless charger, because it is also the snooze button, but it does seem to work, at least on mine. That button is also the volume up and down button, which is annoying, because you can't turn it up or down while it's in wake-to-music-alarm mode, it just snoozes it instead of changing the volume. The programming of this one was a little more challenging than my old ones, but it does have more features (digital tuning and saved stations), which they have crammed into as few buttons as they can, but it isn't impossible. All in all, still a good product, but still not perfect :)
