12 Best Internet Radios in 2023 – Reviewed & Buyer Guide

Our guide to choosing the best internet radio will help you understand which are the most convenient devices currently on sale on the market, highlighting the most interesting features to always keep in mind in order not to waste your money on anything but satisfactory.

The term internet radio refers in particular to products that allow listening to the radio using a home network connection, both wireless and wired with LAN connection cables.

Here we had selected the best internet radios for you that are present below.

Buyer Guide to Choose Internet Radios

Signal

When analyzing the technical data sheets in detail, numerous acronyms begin to emerge which could confuse some users who are not accustomed.

Let’s start from the most easily recognizable, that is the abbreviation FM, which indicates the analog radio band, the classic one in short that all the radios of the past used.

If this abbreviation is present you can listen to the radio even without an internet connection, an addition not to be forgotten if it is a portable radio that you always have with you even during your travels.

The next abbreviation, which must always be checked for presence, is DAB or DAB +, or Digital Audio Broadcasting, the new standard that allows you to listen to radio programs broadcast on the web. An internet radio without this abbreviation is not simply such.

Finally, if you find compatibility with Spotify in the datasheet, you may find yourself in front of a potentially complete device.

Those who have a subscription to the music streaming service can, in fact, count on their radio to transmit music at home without having to turn with headphones or smartphone always in their pocket.

Dimensions

Generally, internet radios are compact in size and can be easily positioned anywhere in the house, however, there are exceptions and before purchasing, you must also carefully check this detail. But remember that the smaller they are, the less powerful the built-in speakers will be.

It is, therefore, necessary to try to find a middle ground that can allow you to have a compact radio but that does not sacrifice too much the diameter of the speakers.

In case you want to connect it to a home system with separate speakers, then you can select the product that most closely matches your quality standards, always taking care to take a look at all the types of connections available.

Minimal design

In the first position we have the Auna radio, Connect 150 WN, available in three different colours to meet the different needs of consumers: black, white and hazelnut.

The external appearance is minimalist, on the front you will find two knobs, one for selecting the stations and the other for the volume, with small keys embedded in the body to navigate the menus.

The dimensions are very compact and you will not have any problem in positioning it in any corner of the house, whether you want to use it in the kitchen to listen to music while preparing some delicacies or you want to use it in the living room while reading a good book.

Many consumers also stressed the simplicity of use, a key factor for those who have never put a product of this type into operation.

Connections

As for connectivity, on the back we have a series of extremely satisfactory connections, including the slot for the LAN cable, if you do not have a sufficiently powerful home Wi-Fi system, the slot for the power supply, AUX-IN and headphones over than the inevitable USB, to connect compatible sticks or hard disks for playing MP3, WMA, FLAC and AAC archived files.

If these acronyms scare you, don’t be afraid, these are simply the most common extensions for audio files that are usually saved on computers or smartphones, not always visible and therefore could confuse the potential buyer.

The radio also has DAB, DAB + and FM RDS functions, if you do not want to use it as internet radio, therefore, you can always rely on its classic functions.

Spotify

The most attentive to the digital world will certainly need support for the most famous music streaming of the moment: Spotify. For those unfamiliar with this application.

It is a service that can be used both for free, listening occasionally to some commercials, and for a fee with a monthly subscription that removes the spots and allows you to independently choose any song you want.

The Auna radio provides compatibility with Spotify, good news for subscribers or for those who intend to enter the world of streaming music.

What Is Internet Radio?

The radio has long been the most widely used means of mass communication, even before the advent of the television and the internet.

Younger people might consider it an old-fashioned vehicle but the revolution it brought during the early 1900s was epochal and has resisted the jolts of other media, always representing a point of reference for many people.

Even today, radio is a system that could hardly be dispensed with. Imagine going to work in the morning, by car, bus or train and not being able to listen to your favourite programs or stations via smartphone: a real nightmare.

The concept of radio, however, has not remained true to itself and a bit like what happened with the transition from TV programs to those broadcast on Youtube, it also landed on the internet.

At one time the standard for radio reception was the FM frequency, today instead it is moving towards DAB and DAB +, an acronym that stands for Digital Audio Broadcast, and towards broadcasts that use the web.

The advantage of the latter technology is the ability to listen to the radio without necessarily having a special device but taking advantage of those we have around us every day: smartphones, tablets and computers.

To listen to your favourite stations, just go to the broadcaster’s website, for example, and you can listen to live music while on the smartphone you can use special applications to space between Italian and worldwide broadcasters.

Those who say that the radio is dead are mistaken, they have simply evolved as a means of communication, becoming even more unifying on a global scale.

Which Product to Choose?

Anyone wishing to purchase an internet radio, a device capable of connecting to the home network and bypassing the use of smartphones and PCs, is really spoiled for choice, there are indeed compact ones, with numerous functions, capable of connecting to other devices or use subscriptions to services like Spotify to listen to your playlists.

There is internet radio for every imaginable use and you will simply have to establish a budget to immediately select the one that best suits you. They are also not particularly expensive devices and many are also available below the hundred euros.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to Listen to Internet Radio?

To listen to the radio while on the PC and without having a specific device, there are various options. The first and most immediate is to reach the website of your favorite radio station to be able to listen to live programs on the air.

The second one, on the other hand, allows you to choose your favorite station from a list, but to do this you need to download a special program and install it.

The program in question is Screamer Radio and does not require any type of payment for download or use. Simply reach the official website to download it and you will be ready to listen to the radio on your PC.

How Much Does It Consume Listening to Internet Radio?

Those who have a tariff plan based on GB consumption, whether at home or from a smartphone, must always be attentive to consumption which could be significant in the case of video streaming.

As for audio tracks, data consumption is certainly more contained even if it should not be taken aback. In this case, we must consider the bitrate, which under 56 kbps leads to 25 GB of hourly consumption while over 320 kbps we are talking about 120 GB per hour.

How Does Internet Radio Work?

Basically it is a device that is able to connect to the internet, thus exploiting the network to find and reproduce the radio content transmitted via the Web by the various broadcasters.

In principle, the various models on the market are already set up with the internet addresses of the most important and well-known stations.

But since the beauty of this type of product is also that of discovering little-known, artisanal or broadcasting stations ‘other part of the world, you can also manually set the streaming address or search.

Be careful not to confuse internet radio with the DAB + tuner, because the former uses the network to reproduce broadcasts, the latter the digital signal that travels in the ether (as a sort of evolution of FM radio waves).

How to Record Radio from The Internet?

Recording radio from the internet, in today’s era, might seem like an exercise in style and nothing more but it must be considered that radio programs do not always offer podcasts to be listened to quietly after being aired or if they often do so are divided into short clips.

In order not to miss even a moment of your favourite radio program you can use different programs, both from smartphone and from PC, such as Audials Radio, downloadable for free in the Lite version and paid for the Pro version.

After a quick registration to the program, you will be able to access the various broadcasters by dividing them by broadcast music, by country or even by artists.

Once you have chosen the program you can select the Register option and let the app do its job, finally pressing Stop when you want to stop it. The file will, therefore, be saved in the Recordings menu, from which you can listen to it as many times as you wish.

How to Listen to The Radio on Pc without Internet?

Listening to the radio on a PC without having access to the internet may seem initially impossible, however it is not exactly like that and there are some ways to do this. First of all, you need to download a program called WinRadio, so you will need a connection on some computers.

Once downloaded, you can pass the executable on a stick and bring it to the PC disconnected from the network. After installing, you just have to buy an FM antenna with a USB slot to insert into the PC slot and you can start listening to your favorite radio programs.