Review from Radio Jay Allen:
For the past month, I’ve been using C.Crane’s latest update to their
flagship AM/FM portable radio – the CC Radio 2. This revised version is
called the CC Radio 2E Enhanced and I’ll tell you right now, it is an
immense step forward – most noticeably in its AM sound quality, but in
several other respects as well. C.Crane has redesigned the radio’s
circuits around an entirely new chip, so although the new version looks
outwardly identical to the older CC-2 the radio has been thoroughly
revamped.
The new CC Radio-2E is among the best-sounding AM portables I own.
It has rich audio with a nicely balanced frequency response, punchy
bass, and clear treble, and the bass and treble controls are now far more
useful. Yes, you can still cut down the treble if you have a very noisy
signal, but for most listening, you will appreciate that the sound is
now much more alive and open…for its size the radio pours out a very
robust sound that is lots of fun to listen to. I put it side by side
with a CC Radio-SW (noted for its excellent audio) and find the
CC-2E sounds just as nice…maybe nicer. The two radios have a different
frequency balance with the CC-SW giving a bit more midrange compared
with the CC-2E’s more recessed midrange providing apparently greater
bass and treble, but I can’t say one is better than the other…they are
different but both excellent for portables. The CC-2 also competes well
with the GE Superadios, also known for excellent sound…clearly the CC-2E
is about as good as it gets for AM sound in this product category and
that is an achievement.
RF Performance: This improved sound is especially exciting to me
because the CC-2E is also as good as it gets for AM/FM reception in a
portable*…it is super sensitive and achieves nice quiet backgrounds on
medium to weak AM signals. Judging AM portables for sensitivity is best
done in the daytime, listening to how much noise is present in the
background of medium to weak signals. (You have to be in an area
relatively free of RFI – Radio Frequency Interference to judge a radio’s
sensitivity…if the background electrical noise is high it will become
the limiting factor in reception and you will not be able to tell how
low the noise floor of the radio is…see my article “Combating RFI” at
the top of my home page).
FM reception has also been improved…comparing the CC-2E to my
older CC-2 the enhanced model was still excellent in sensitivity but
more selective…it was able to pull in some problem signals much more
clearly and now ranks among the best FM portables I have tested.
Muting: One quibble…the new chip used in the CC-2E has muting
which makes manual tuning irksome compared with the older model. It also
suppresses the volume when you purposely tune slightly off the center
of a signal, such as when trying to help with adjacent channel
rejection. Luckily it does not seem to mute weaker signals as many
current-day radios with so-called “soft muting” do…the radio received
signals right down into the band noise as well as or better than any
radio I compared it to. So luckily it does not impact reception in most
cases but it would be wonderful to be rid of it.
