Grace Digital Allegro WiFi Internet Radio

(3.0 star rating) Written by: Justin Whitaker

Internet radio and media streaming comes in all shapes and sizes – there are dozens of products that can be used to wirelessly stream music, video clips and movies. The earliest example came by way of the full-fledged desktop PC, and the latest examples come as mobile phones that can run all types of media streaming apps.

Grace Digital has tried to carve out their own piece of the pie with a broad range of internet radio devices. The latest is the product we are reviewing today – the Allegro. It is a dedicated internet radio designed with simplicity and portability in mind – and a clean, modern look along with support for Sirius, Pandora and thousands of other free radio stations. With a relatively modest price of around $170 online, my initial reaction was "Sounds great - where do I sign up!?!?" But let's temper our excitement and take a close look before passing judgment.

Design

Glossy black plastic encases the Allegro on all sides, with a handful (10 to be exact) of silver playback/control buttons atop the unit. A large circular scroll wheel and a snooze bar are the only other controls sitting atop the Allegro. Included is a remote control with all of the basic functions for playback, as well as a few buttons specifically for Pandora usage (more on that later).

A single full-range speaker is used for sound reproduction, and it is driven by a class-D amplifier (wattage rating was not listed). A couple of small rear ports at the back of the unit help to add bass, although they limit the positioning possibilities since this means you can't lay the unit on its back during playback. A power switch, a 3.5mm headphone output jack and the DC power input round out the connections on the unit.

The face of the unit incorporates a small 4-line monochrome display. The 3-inch size of the display, like the rest of this internet radio, is quite small. Up to 15 characters are displayed at a time, and each line of text scrolls left-to-right whenever the 15 character limit is exceeded.

Allegro Box

Accessories

Front View

Features and Specifications

• Listen to over 50,000 Radio Stations, Podcast, and on demand content
• Supports online music services: Pandora, Live365 and PREMIMUM SIRIUS internet radio
• Compatible with the Grace iPhone¨ / Touch remote control application
• 4 line high contrast backlit display
• Displays Station, Song Title & Artist info
• Full function remote w/ 10 presets
• 5 presets on the radio + 99 station folder
• High powered Class D Digital amplifier
• Large soundstage full range speaker
• 3.5mm Stereo headphone jack
• Built in dual band equalizer
• Supported audio formats: AIFF, AIFC, WAVE, CAF, NeXT, ADTS, MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, WMA
• Supported playlist formats: ASX, M3U, PLS
• Supported streaming protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, RTSP, WSMP, Shoutcast
• Built in media player streams your audio files from your PC or MAC
• True 802.11g wireless connectivity works with all 802.11b/g/n routers
• Supports WPA Personal, WPA2-AES, and 64/128-bit WEP encryption
• 12 or 24 hour clock with date
• Clock is auto synched via the internet
• 5 individual alarms
• Wake to buzzer or music
• Set each alarm for daily, weekly, weekend, week days or one time
• Sleep Timer: 30 seconds to 23 hours
• 30 backlight brightness settings
• Large Snooze Bar
• 12 Language Menu: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Japanese
• Dimensions: 7 in. (H) x 5 in. (W) x 4 in. (D)

 

In the Box

• Allegro Wi-Fi Radio (GDI-IRD4000)
• Remote Control and Batteries
• AC Power Adapter
• Manual

 

Setup and Controls
Unlike a traditional AM/FM radio, a wireless internet radio needs a lot more setup and configuration to work properly. Thankfully there is no software installation required with the Allegro, you just need to set it up with your WiFi router. It's an easy process – at least according to the user manual – since the Allegro scans for available wireless networks as soon as you power it on initially. You are supposed to select your network, enter your WPA/WEP key, and then be ready to start enjoying free internet radio stations galore. Sounds easy on paper, right? Yeah, well … not so much in real world.

The first issue I encountered was the excruciatingly painful to use user interface. No software installation means that there is no keyboard to use, which means you have to use the large circle scroll wheel atop the unit, or the remote control, to enter text. It literally took me about 2 minutes to type in my 10-character WEP password. Each keystroke requires scrolling through the alpha/numeric character set to find the correct letter. Make a data entry mistake and you have to scroll to find the <back> in order to delete a character. I am sure that I would become more proficient with practice, but suffice it to say that this is a very, very cumbersome UI.

The second issue I ran into is that the Allegro would not connect to my wireless router. The initial wireless network scan found it just fine, but after entering the WEP password it would not connect. I double-checked that I entered my network key correctly, and frustratingly entered my network key again, but still had no luck. Keep in mind that the Allegro was sitting directly next to my Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop – which was connected perfectly fine to my WiFi network and showed 'Good' or 'Very Good' signal strength – so I know that my router was working correctly and there was sufficient signal strength.

I finally took it and set it directly next to my wireless router and tried for a 3rd time to get it to connect. It did connect successfully, which leads me to believe that the wireless network adapter in the Allegro does not have as much range as my laptop. This was disappointing, as the main reason you would want to buy the Allegro is to have wireless internet radio available in all areas of your home.

Setting up the Allegro with Pandora requires that you register the device on the Grace Audio website and link your Pandora account. This was quite easy – surprisingly the easiest step in the whole setup process – and after a total of about 30 frustrating minutes, I was finally able to listen to music through Pandora on the Allegro. The next 20 minutes were spent trying to navigate through the menus to set up the alarm clock and to program my favorite presets. Here I will not go into too much detail – I was able to get both of these tasks done, but only after suffering through the clunky and unintuitive menu structure.

Top View

Back View

If you want to switch from using the speaker to using headphones, there is a line-out headphone jack that can be used. Plugging in your headphones works very well if you want to keep others from hearing your music, although the Allegro does of course need to be powered on in order for the audio to pass-through to the headphones.

Last but not least is a few words about the remote control --- overall it worked well, and it is a much more user friendly way to use the Allegro versus using the buttons atop the unit. The remote is indeed full function – I was able to use it to browse through internet radio stations, scroll through preset station selections, mute the speaker, adjust volume levels and perform other basic functions. The only gripe I have is that the remote cannot be used to control Pandora playback. While you can like/dislike Pandora songs using the remote control, there is no way to stop or pause music while listening to Pandora – you can only mute the volume or turn the power off.

Sound Quality
The sound quality performance evaluation of the Allegro was done by exclusively listening to music through Pandora and other local internet radio stations. A wide selection of classical, rock, alternative and hip-hop music was used in the evaluation.

With only a single full-range speaker, I did not really have any lofty expectations for sound quality from the Allegro. Many of the traits you would typically find in a portable speaker were also found in the Allegro – noticeably lacking bass, minimal texture and detail and an overall limited soundstage. The bass had just a tiny bit of "thump" and is certainly not going to rattle any walls. The mids and vocals were mostly smooth, and came across as more pronounced that any other frequencies. Highs were pleasant sounding and were not shrill, and I did not hear any sibilance or other harshness in my music listening.

Turning up the volume to near full power resulted in some distortion, but not nearly as much as other portable speakers we have tested. Do not expect room filling sound from the Allegro, as it has a very narrow sweet spot where the full musical detail is clearly heard. But it has enough power for a single person to rock out at more than enough volume level for all but the noisiest of environments.

Main Menu

Playing through Pandora

Portability
The small block-shape of the Allegro, along with ability to internally recharge batteries using the AC adapter, makes this internet radio quite travel friendly. It won't fit into a laptop bag or most briefcase-sized bags, but would easily fit into a small carry-on bag. I did not find any way to "lock" the unit to keep it powered off, so I worry that it could be turned on accidentally if it gets jostled around during transport.

Grace Digital Allegro Internet Radio

Even if I was able to overlook the awful setup experience, the final result is that the Grace Digital Allegro is a promising audio product that is marred by an antiquated and frustrating UI experience. The tiny monochrome 4-line display that can't be read more than a few feet away, coupled with the unbearable text entry and menu layout scheme, will test the patience of even the most forgiving users. I simply couldn't imagine trying to use this as my day-to-day Pandora music player. Even with decent audio quality, it's just too frustrating to accomplish the simplest tasks, such as adding a new favorite preset station. For the $170 price tag, we deserve a device that is much easier to use and there are certainly more user-friendly options out on the market to enjoy portable internet radio.

Pros: Decent audio quality; small and portable; wide compatibility with internet radio stations and providers; can be used as a streaming media player with any UPnP compatible device.

Cons: Difficult to set up; frustrating user interface; remote control lacks basic Pandora playback controls; no way to "lock" the unit during transport.

Rating: 3.0 out of 5

www.gracedigitalaudio.com