This morning, I received yet another positive comment about the Tivdio V-115 (a.k.a. Audiomax SRW-710S).
This little radio is widely available on Amazon and eBay for around $19.00 – 25.00 US including shipping. About as inexpensive as a radio gets. Both Troy Riedel and Tom Stiles gave it an overall positive review.
Check out some of these recent comments from Post readers:
Andrew H:
“I purchased the V-115 about a week ago, and was surprised at how much radio I received for $15 plus free shipping. The FM band is quite sensitive. AM is good for locals, but not exactly a DX machine. Shortwave was iffy, but improved once I tightened the antenna mount screw (I’m used to loose screws!). Depending on location, shortwave is better, but does get some bleed from strong AM’s in the area. The audio is amazing for something of this price. I have yet to try the recording, but, this has become my go-everywhere radio as of late.”
Egil – LA2PJ:
“The TVDIO V-115 is an amazing receiver. It was bought because I needed a small recording device for my portable SWL activities. I put a 32 GB into the slot, and found that the recordings all were of excellent quality. It also doubles as an external speaker for my FDM-DUO qrp transceiver.
I’ve only tried the radio part on 25m shortwave, and to my surprice the first station heard was from Brazil.
Not bad for a device costing less than USD 20 including p&p from China to Norway!”
JR:
“I recently purchased this TIVDIO radio. I am in Australia and it is a little beast of a machine.
I live in rural country area and seem to have no luck with the short wave radio. Everything else is great!I have a 64gb micro SD card in it and can fit thousands of songs in it.
The screen is awesome, seems to detail everything going on even has a little spectrum analyzer at the bottom of screen.
The speaker along with the bass is outstanding considering the size and price of the unit.”
J D Bulow-Osborne:
“I bought two of the TIVDIO version radios several months ago. A 16GB TF card completed each one. They are, of course, re-chargeable, the sound, for the size, is excellent, the case finish is worthy of a more expensive item. Button lock, mp3 recording, auxiliary input, delete function, (including unwanted channels that the auto-tune has found), makes them a real bargain. They impress everyone who sees – and hears – them. OK, so there’s no clock or DAB, but for just over £12, including shipping from China(?), it would be really churlish to complain. One battery charge seems to last a very long time.”
Roger Waters:
“I own the Audiomax version of this radio. I have recorded classical music from an FM station using the Audiomax. When playing the recording on an iphone with $100 Audio Technica headpbones, the recording sounded quite good. Using the Audiomax to play recorded music off its storage card also sounds pretty good if the equalizer setting is Jazz and the headphones are expensive. While the Audiomax does not have a timer, its Auto On or Sleep function will save any recording when it turns off the radio automatically. When playing music off the storage card, the music can be listed according to artist. But the artist listing is not completely alphabetical. Radio reception for AM, FM, and SW is solid but not DX quality. When entering a frequency you have to wait about 4 seconds before the frequency changes. Also you cannot scroll to any desired frequency. The scrolling keys will skip over any frequency which does not have a significant signal. Where the Audiomax shines is that with a press of a button you can go from a boring commercial on the radio to some nice prerecorded music or podcast. For the radio alone, the Audiomax is worth its selling price.”
I agree with these assessments of the Tivdio/Audiomax. I’ve had this little radio for about a year now, but only really started using it around May of this year (this is the same radio I had forgotten that I’d purchased last year). Of course, the best feature is the function that allows you to make off-air recordings and save them to a MicroSD card–it actually works quite well. While in Canada this summer, I recorded a number of FM, MW and SW broadcasts on the Tivdio–so much easier than carrying an external recorder.
Listening to the BBC Midwinter Broadcast on June 21, 2017 in Québec.
Now if I put on my radio reviewer cap for a moment, I would have to note two issues, in particular:
- Though receiver sensitivity is quite good, the AGC circuit is a little too over-active when receiving a weak signal. Last summer, for example, while listening to the BBC Midwinter broadcast in Québec (see photo above), the AGC was so unstable I simply didn’t bother making a recording. Admittedly, I was very impressed a $20 radio could even detect this signal. I found that nighttime mediumwave reception is also problematic, save for the strongest of stations.
- The V-115 also seems to be quite prone to RFI indoors–more so than, say, a Tecsun PL-310ET. I suspect this is because it’s not shielded very well internally. Not an issue, if you’re listening outdoors, of course.
In truth, it’s hard to be critical of this little radio. As so many of you have echoed, for $19.00-25.00 US–? You simply can’t beat it. A great value indeed.
Click here to search for the Tivdio V-115 on eBay and click here to search Amazon.
Was very impressed at first but then the sound stopped working for the radio only works for recording . Don’t have any idea why this is
I JUST PURCHASED A TIVDIO V-115. CAN ANYONE TELL ME HOW TO PUT 105.3 FM INTO PRESET 01 ???
I bought this radio as a brand “Kaimeda” the adudio is very strong and sounds very good – the only problem — I hope you can help me solve it – is that in the AM band about 560 to 1650 kHz some stations when the person speaks loudly they make a “clack” noise …. it’s minimal but it bothers me — I think the problem is more when the station is wider, but I’m not sure about that. Does this happen to someone?
Just use the input keys and put the right frequency it will move the frequency accordingly in steps of 9khz.
I do not know about the buttons. But I know that if you set R10 = 1 k? to your position, the receiver will receive VHF starting at 70 MHz 🙂
Here it is for $13.43 but note that it is SRW-710 not SWR-710S. I do not know the difference but i see that in the 710S there is a key with double function MENU+Repeat and in the 701 is only labeled Repeat.
https://tinyurl.com/y6wv4sqg
I would be curious to know if it will charge while playing. I have seen conflicting information in this. If you plug it in first, then it charges and will not play. However, if you plug it in while playing, the radio continues to play but is it actually charging? Would love to know.
Whether it will be charged or not depends on whether the power supply will provide the required current and whether the USB cable is good. I listen to my own and charge it from the computer at the same time. Slowly, but charging.
I got this too (Tivdio version), it is a marvel, I like its sound for FM radio and making radio comedy recordings from Fm for later. On AM fo rme it works fine for Virgin Radio 1215, which is just across the Channel. Regarding SW, fine on loud stations in the evening, but admittedly, the equally carryable Tecsun 310 is much better in many respects.
Yes, if you compare on short waves, the PL-310 is undoubtedly better. But on MW the difference is not so obvious. The differential input of the magnetic antenna works wonders. On VHF, he loses very little, except for the lack of stereo. At the same sound, sound recording and the possibility of using Tivdio as a multimedia device make it a very useful thing. My PL-310 has long settled on the shelf in the closet, and Tivdio regularly goes with me to work 🙂
Recording of the DARC transmission at a frequency of 6070 kHz of the received and recorded Tivdio V-115:
https://cloud.mail.ru/public/D66d/dWw8ZPFdX
Antenna external – 3 m vertical. Place of reception Saratov (Volga region of Russia)
Wonderful recording! Just a few days in and I continue to be impressed by the yeoman’s duty this receiver does! I may even pick up a second one just because!
I have had this radio a few days. Mine happens to be badged as a “Kaimeda SRW-710S” – $16 delivered in two weeks to Pennsylvania from China! I have to agree that it’s amazing for it’s price and size. The build quality looks good. It does a respectable job with stronger SW stations considering it’s tiny whip antenna. AM (MW) performance is decent for a pocket sized unit and mine doesn’t seem to be especially susceptible to RFI.
FM has typical performance for a cheap DSP radio, and is in stereo on stronger stations, although there is no indication on the bare-bones display. Good sound from the small speaker and OK with headphones. I haven’t tried radio recording, but apparently it will only record from FM?
It’s feature-packed with auto memory storage and, amazingly, direct frequency entry.
At this price it’s basically disposable – no big deal if something happens to it.
Records off of all bands. . .just tried. I am blown away. . .worth far more than I paid, for sure!
All bands – good. The manual is a bit deceptive. BTW the translation to English in the manual is not bad. I’ve had to deal with much worse.
Just got mine today. . .Like everyone else, I am amazed. It is a lot of radio for the money. A DX machine, it is not. But it is, as everyone else reports, quite an amazing feat of radio engineering! I am loading up my 32gb MicroSD card with a wheelbarrow full of recordings from Shortwave Audio Archive and will listen to it at work! I am extremely impressed and can’t wait to put it through its full paces!
I’ve done the same thing–loaded the card up with a boat load of shortwave archive recordings! 🙂
Every Radio Casablanca recording I could find will be on today!!!
Very interesting receiver. Used in Tivdio AKTS 6955 very correct chip. It has a differential input for connecting a magnetic antenna. Due to this, in-phase interference from the digital part is very noticeably weakened. They are heard only when the balance is broken. And it can break if the antenna wires are incorrectly laid out and one of them is closer to the earthen plane. To get more control over this balance, I soldered a piece of insulated wire to the ground plane and laid it parallel to the ferrite rod. This serves as an electrostatic screen. And the wires from the antenna together. I also noticed that for the resonance at the lower end of the range, the antenna inductance is not enough. Rewind the coil by adding about 10 turns.
The case of the receiver was glued from inside with aluminum foil. Particularly helps to glue the front panel.
https://youtu.be/62l6ezbvB3A
Today I opened up the Tivdio to look into re-routing the ferrite bar connecting wire in an effort to lessen digital noise from the display. Unlike the Grundig Mini 400, which had a very generous length of wire when I did this, (see my previous post), the Tivdio does not. It has “just enough” to be able to open the radio, no more. It also seems to have only one logical path to be strung, without getting pinched by the two halves of the case coming together. I decided I better not tamper with it, lest I either break the very fragile wires or pinch them off when re-assembling. Oh well…at least now I know!
On medium wave, my unit has interference on all but the strongest of stations. It’s sort of a constant buzz, much like you sometimes get when a ceiling fan is running on a dimmer switch somewhere in the house…or like when someone in the neighborhood is running a motor. I believe in this situation the sound is being generated by the radio’s display, because it increases greatly when I place my hand over the display. I realize it’s rather picky to criticize the radio over this, given it’s price! It’s just that it’s a little bit of a shame, because you can tell the MW section is otherwise at least “fairly” sensitive…there are indeed stations there…but the constant grilling sound is annoying and covers up what would otherwise be a perfectly good, enjoyable signal. I’ve been tempted to open my unit up and see if perhaps the ferrite rod connecting wire can be carefully re-routed away from the display. I had the same MW problem on a Grundig Mini 400 and the problem was mostly solved by re-routing this wire a bit. (An idea I got from someone’s post on the internet…I forget exactly where.).