What to Buy for a Geek: Most of them will Choose MUZEN OTR Wood Retro Radio

Music is the greatest communication in the world. Even if people don't understand the language that you're singing in, they still know good music when they hear it.

What to buy for a geek who like music？You know classic MUZEN OTR Wood Retro Radio is a great option!

Unboxing of MUZEN OTR Wood Retro Radio:

As shown in the pictures above, I purchased a Nice Blue one, a relaxing color brimming with an intense aroma of retro-literature. According to the official website, every color of the radio betokens a salute to a certain period of music history. The inspiration of this special Nice Blue color stems from the Côte d'Azur of Nice, France. It presents quite a comfortable looking.

Despite its tiny scale, the heavy sense of weight of the radio doesn’t tally with its small body. It’s said that the five-sides-forming-in-one-take method is deployed in producing the metal material on the surface of the radio. Moreover, the baking-varnish style fairly adds to the overall exquisite appearance. Each radio is packed in a small and well-handcrafted suitcase in which the radio could be stored well, or you can simply use it as a home ornament. It also provides perfect protection for the radio.

The MUZEN OTR WOOD Radio comes with only a few parts: a special 3.5mm charging cord with MicroUSB and a universal charging port.

Appearance

The radio features fine workmanship. There’re three knobs——one of them is bigger and the others are smaller——installed on the radio. The bigger knob is for adjusting receiving frequency; the smaller one on lower-left controls the volume and the one on lower-right serves as the on-off, the reception of Bluetooth and AUX and the radio switch. It’s worth mentioning that the Bluetooth pairing and connecting of the MUZEN Radio is extremely smooth and it doesn’t require pairing code, which makes it very convenient to use.

Sound-guiding jacks are distributed on the back of the radio from right to left, the folded antenna and the multipurpose MicroUSB could be used as charging interface, AUX or external antenna. The design is actually ingenious, especially when you unfold the folded antenna: it’s like, to a large extent, the knob that’s used to wind up the clockwork toys I adored much in my childhood, which add a dash of childlike delight to the radio.

Using Feeling

As a radio and a portable Bluetooth speaker, I didn’t hold much hope on it considering the price, the number of reproducer and its size. I’ve got to confess that when I first used it to play music, the performance of the MUZEN OTR WOOD Radio exceeded my expectation vastly. The sound adjustment of the MUZEN OTR WOOD Radio is able to outstand the characteristic of the vocal music and the instrument itself. I played a few vocal and instrumental music with the radio when auditioning, and I’ll elucidate briefly in the following.

Being impressed by the preliminary performance of the MUZEN OTR WOOD Radio, I played Aimer’s Crazy in Love recorded in the album of Your Favorite Things. This is a cover of Beyoncé which is performed by the Korean artist through a vocal-coupled-with-piano way that has lighten the original a lot and provides quite a counterpoint. The MUZEN OTR WOOD Radio performed the vocal and piano both distinctly and distinguishably in a hierarchical manner.

Next, I played the Mombasa by Tommy Emmanuel recorded in the album of Only. This is one of my beloved guitar music inspired by the insights the guitar master Emmanuel had sought through his journey in Africa. The thrumming technique deployed by Emmanuel literally brightened the rhythm of the whole song. It’s greatly unexpected that, in term of auditory impression, the MUZEN OTR WOOD Radio didn’t only demonstrate the general style of the instrument effortlessly, but also delivered the trembling sound of the guitar string delicately. In my impression, last time I had heard such a trembling effect I was using Bang & Olufsen A2 which is several times more expensive than the MUZEN OTR WOOD Radio.

The last song I played was the Make it Mine by Jason Marz, the version which was recorded in the album of The Studio Album Collection Vol.1. The MUZEN OTR WOOD Radio could nonetheless performed this song with much more colorful underscore and arrangement in a distinct-layering manner, however, due to the fact that only one full frequency speaker is installed, the sound quantity of low pitch which came out relatively dull, was not yet satisfying, and shall be counted as one of the obvious drawback of the MUZEN OTR WOOD Radio.

Summary

Despite that it didn’t leave me a good first impression, this radio is a lovely boutique. I’ve got to say, this is a boutique you’d never forget after you hear it, and a boutique which is able to deliver the sense of vocal and instrumental via traditional way. It’s quite suitable for less-complicated arranged music or pure instrument music.

In recent years, I’ve became less interested in those loud and strong popular music or rock music I had once enjoyed, it’s not that they are tedious; I still listen to them once in a while, but not for long as I’d feel stuffy. Maybe it’s because I’m aging, or maybe it’s the work, I don’t know. In retrospect, even for a headset, I’d chosen one with reputation in low pitch such as Sony when I was in college, and I’d never give up until I heard those bouncy bass. I’m not sure if my hearing has degenerated, because for one thing, it seems that I’m less sensitive to the low bass, and for another, I’ve developed preference to medium frequency sound. The abundant median coupled with appropriate high pitch sound can always calm me down, which happened to be what this little boutique can artfully achieve. Therefore, my comment on the MUZEN OTR WOOD Radio is: Warm. This lovely thing has been my reading company recently.

Advantage: Exquisite, cost-effective, very expressive sound, hierarchical, especially when performing vocal and instrument music.

Disadvantage: Probably not suitable for dynamic pop music, or for those who enjoy bass or mega-bass on which Marshall shall be comparatively more spectacular.

Lastly, I’d like to post some picture of the radio here. It’s been a while since I last put my finger on the camera.