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 December 1, 2008 Tangent Audio Quattro Mk.II Internet Radio
Description Tangent Audio’s line of table radios comprises six models -- the Uno, Uno 2go, Duo, Trio, Quattro, and Cinque -- that range in price from $199 to $399. As far as I can tell, only the Quattro has earned the "Mk.II" designation. All models share the same retro styling, along with a minimal number of controls, making them quite easy to use. The Tangent radios aren’t cheap, but their quality matches their prices. The Quattro Mk.II, which measures 8.2"W x 4.5"H x 5.7"D, feels solid and heavy when hefted. Like its siblings, the Quattro’s top, sides, and bottom are formed by fantastic-looking wraparound wood paneling. The wood appears to be solid, not veneered, and comes finished in your choice of natural walnut, black ash, or high-gloss red, white, or black paint. But no matter the finish, the Quattro is a desktop showpiece: you won’t want to hide this radio. All Tangent radios are monaural, with a single, "full-range" 3" driver, and a small rear port for bass augmentation. Tangent claims the Quattro’s acoustic output is 80Hz-20kHz. If true, that means the radio should sound full down low and quite extended up top. Though Tangent’s radios share certain similarities, their features differ substantially. The lowest-priced model, the Uno, has only an AM/FM tuner. The Duo has that, plus a clock with alarm. The Trio adds to all that a Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) tuner, while dropping the AM tuner. At the top are the Cinque and Quattro Mk.II, both of which have the clock and alarm -- but there the similarity ends. Tangent promotes the Cinque as a "digital sound center" because it has an AM/FM/DAB tuner and a CD player. Other than the FM tuner, the Quattro Mk.II lacks all of that -- so why does it cost the same as the Cinque? Well, its built-in Ethernet and wireless Internet connectivity mean that the Quattro can use your Internet connection to access Web radio stations via Ethernet or the 802.11b or 802.11g wireless standards. And, once online, the Quattro can stream Internet radio or network-accessible music from your own music library. The Tangent uses Internet-radio technology by Reciva (www.reciva.com), which seems determined to free Internet radio from computers and get it into more domestically acceptable devices such as this.
The Quattro Mk.II lacks one key feature: a remote control. For me, this was the only downside. I can do without a plethora of controls -- in many cases, as in this one, fewer controls are more desirable, to keep operation simple -- but a remote would be handy, if only to change volume and stations. Setup Connecting the Quattro Mk.II to the Internet is pretty simple, whether you wire it to your router or go wireless. If you have no security on your in-home network (not recommended), the Quattro should connect without incident. My network is secure -- it’s set to not broadcast my network’s name, and requires a password to log on to. That’s no problem for the WPA2-enabled Quattro, but it did mean that I had to enter my network name and password by using the Quattro’s Tune dial to bring up letters and symbols on the radio’s two-line display, then hit the Select button to choose the character I wanted. This is inconvenient, but you should have to do it only once -- the Quattro then remembers this information. If you’re able to program a VCR or send a text message using a cell phone, you’ll be able to handle this. Obviously, you’ll want a fast Internet connection to make use of the Quattro Mk.II’s Internet-radio feature. Once the Quattro connects to the Internet, it automatically heads off to Reciva’s website, where it can access an astonishing number of Internet-capable radio stations from around the world. When I first powered it up, more than 13,000 stations were available through Reciva’s site; today there are more than 14,000. Chances are, by the time you read this, the Quattro will be able to access over 15,000 stations. I had no idea there were so many "I-radio" stations out there. By default, Reciva.com gives you access to all +14,000 stations -- but no, you don’t have to scroll through the entire list using the Quattro’s two-line display. Instead, to simplify things, a few browsing options are provided. You can look up stations by country, which are listed alphabetically, beginning with Afghanistan (which, at time of writing, has three stations; Canada, where I live, has just over 800; North Korea has none). You can also see stations listed by musical genre: Rock, Pop, ’60s, ’70s, etc. And there’s a search function. You can also listen to music files stored on a Windows-based PC connected to your network by selecting the Windows Media Player option. Getting the WMP feature working was a little trickier than the initial network connection; it requires that you first share the music files on a network-connected PC, then work through the Quattro’s two-line interface to first locate the PC, then scroll through its folders and files to select the song(s) you want. But after I got the hang of it, the interface worked well. Tangent’s owner’s manual lists support for the most popular audio file formats, including MP3, WAV, WMV, AAC, AIFF, and Real Audio. Performance Once set up (a snap, as described above), the Quattro Mk.II quickly became the most popular electronic gizmo in my house, even outdistancing the TV for a day or two. This was mostly because the first station I cued up was Exitos, from Venezuela. My wife is Venezuelan, and her mother was visiting us when the Quattro Mk.II arrived. My mother-in-law’s eyes lit up when she heard her local radio station playing, and found out she could listen to all her favorite stations anytime she wanted, almost anywhere in the house, without having to boot up a computer. She liked the Quattro so much that we programmed her favorite Venezuelan stations as presets; every time I left the Quattro alone, she’d steal it away and listen to her favorite programs. When I wanted to continue testing the radio’s features, I had to hunt for it. I wasn’t concerned about testing the Quattro’s clock, alarm, headphone jack, and other ancillary features -- they’re nice to have, but they’re not why anyone will buy this radio. I wired the Quattro to my router only briefly, to ensure that it worked. It did. More important, and in addition to its FM performance and sound quality, I wanted to thoroughly test the reliability of the Quattro’s wireless Internet access. Though wireless provides a less reliable connection than wired, it’s far more likely that that’s how this radio will mostly be used. According to the manual, the Quattro’s range of wireless operation is about 30m (about 100’) from the router -- enough for most houses of moderate size. That range, though, will also depend on the exact layout of the house, how many walls and floors the signals have to pass through, and what those boundaries are made of. My house is a bit of an obstacle course -- three-and-a-half storeys with lots of walls, one of them brick -- and my router is in a downstairs room, more or less in one corner of the house. Reception can be tricky -- there are no "dead" spots, but in some places the signal strength can be very low. It was in these troublesome areas that the Quattro Mk.II periodically lost connection, or couldn’t connect at all. When it did lose connection, there was no static or noise, as you hear with over-the-air AM or FM transmission. Rather, things went completely silent until the Tangent could reconnect and buffer enough data to give itself some breathing room. Naturally, the same thing occurred when I streamed music wirelessly from a shared folder on my wife’s computer (where she’s stored thousands of songs) -- it all goes through the same router. I rate the Quattro Mk.II’s wireless range as good but not great. My laptop computer does a better job of connecting in our house’s areas of poor reception -- it always connects, even if performance is compromised. In fairness, though, the Quattro was good enough for most living spaces, and my house is trickier than most. When I placed the Quattro in the areas of my house where the signal was at least reasonably strong, I had no problems connecting. The Quattro’s standard FM reception was very good overall. The tuning worked well, and stations locked in solidly. Overall, I was impressed with the Tangent’s FM performance, but no one will buy a Quattro Mk.II to use it as an FM radio. A dozen or so local FM stations are nothing compared to more than 14,000 from around the world. Last but not least, the Quattro Mk.II’s sound was surprisingly full and spacious, with quite respectable bass. It’s hard to know if its combination of 3" driver and rear port actually ever got down to 80Hz, as Tangent claims it can, but the Quattro did sound weightier and richer than I thought a pint-sized radio could. The highs were well extended -- not the effortless extension you get from good tweeters, but surprisingly sweet. Most relevant, perhaps, was the Tangent’s midband performance: Voices sounded full and natural, with enough warmth that I was almost tempted to think that Tangent had put some tubes in there -- a good thing. What surprised me most was the spaciousness of the Quattro Mk.II’s sound. Because the radio’s output is monaural, I’d figured it would be easy to hear precisely where that sound was coming from: the 3" speaker under the grille on the radio’s top panel. But no -- the sound sort of hovered in space around the Quattro, making the radio sound bigger than it is, and with more drivers. I don’t know how Tangent achieves this, but it’s impressive. As for Internet vs. FM sound quality, provided the station’s bit rate was high enough to transcend any odd compression artifacts, digitally streamed radio signals resulted in clearer, cleaner, fuller sound with greater dynamic range and no static whatsoever. Add to that the astonishing number of radio stations available via the Web, and Internet-based radio through the Quattro Mk.II won hands down. Conclusion
Internet radio is today’s shortwave radio, only much better -- you can get thousands of stations without having to hunt for them, all in high-quality sound. Obviously, you can also listen to them via your computer, but not everyone wants to boot up a computer to listen to the radio, or keep a laptop in the kitchen or bedroom, where most such listening will likely be done. That’s where the Tangent Quattro Mk.II comes in. This beautifully styled, well-built, high-end table radio is rich in features and dead simple to use. It essentially marries the new technology of Internet radio with the look and feel of a traditional table model. The only thing missing is a remote control. The Quattro Mk.II’s wireless reach is good, not great, but in an area with reasonable signal strength it should flawlessly stream those thousands of stations. Most important, it sounds really good. I’m still scratching my head at how they get such full, enveloping sound from a single 3" driver and a little rear port. I now find it strange to think that, had someone else not suggested I review the Tangent, I would likely have passed it by. Thank God I didn’t -- my wife and mother-in-law have let me know in no uncertain terms that this thing had better be sticking around for the long haul. No worries there -- the Quattro Mk.II is like a microwave oven: After you’ve got used to having one, you can’t imagine life without it. . . . Doug Schneider Tangent Audio Quattro Mk.II Internet Radio Tangent Audio, Audiorena Denmark A/S Website: www.tangent-audio.com North American distributor: Phone: (905) 428-2800 Website: www.kevro.com
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Every once in a while, it’s good
to have someone else suggest products to review -- it avoids the pitfall of cherry-picking
the same ol’ sorts of things while overlooking the worthwhile and the new.
That’s what Sheldon Ginn of Kevro International did when he told me he’d like me
to try out the Quattro Mk.II from Denmark’s Tangent Audio -- a high-end table radio
with wired and wireless Internet capability ($399 USD) that Kevro is distributing in North
America. The Quattro Mk.II turned out to be one of the most fun, useful products I’ve
used in some time. Once I’d set up in my house, no one wanted to see it go. 
The Quattro Mk.II’s
controls are neatly laid out on the front panel, which is dominated by two large knobs
(volume on the left, tuning on the right) that frame a two-line digital display of
relevant information (e.g., the station you’re tuned to) that acts as the
interface for the radio’s configuration menus. Below the display are two rows of six
buttons each for controlling various functions, including six for station presets. Around
back are two mini-jacks, one for connecting an external audio device (e.g., an
iPod), and one for headphones, as well as the Ethernet RJ45 jack and an FM antenna.
