Grace Digital Mondo Elite Classic Internet Radio + SiriusXM, Pandora, Spotify Connect, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 7-Day Alarm (Walnut)

I have owned Grace Internet radios for years (there isn't much competition in this market I guess). I just set it up this morning, and as per typical Grace radio fashion, set up is a piece of cake - very, very easy and straightforward. Make sure to have your wifi modem's password handy, as you need to enter it during set up (this part is the most involved step, and this only takes 1 minute at the most - very simple). Grace does have some nice touches that their limited competition does not feature, such as a USB port for flash drives and external hard drives (it doesn't work if you try to use more a 5 TB external drive), and RCA stereo lines both in and out. This is really nice for integrating into a classic stereo receiver's AUX inputs/outputs, though it works fine as a stand-alone unit - the built-in speaker (while not in stereo) is rich in depth and full of bass. The included remote control is also a nice little bonus. Also, they have removed the "rabbit-ears" style wifi antennas and replaced them with a more powerful internal one that seems to work much better (considering my radio is almost 50 feet from the modem, and is separated by two interior walls). For those who cannot live without their i-phone/android, it has an induction charging pad on top of the radio. I do not know how that works, as I have an old-school flip phone. My internet usage is strictly via this unit, my Roku TV and my laptop. The only time I use my phone is to make or receive phone calls - nothing more, nothing less. The radio is very well built - very substantial (it takes 2 hands to lift and move it safely; it's rather heavy, several pounds, which is not a bad thing, I'm just mentioning it in passing). Another kind of positive thing is that the cost of these big units seems to have gone down. When I bought my previous Mondo Elite Classic, I paid around $299 for it. This once (of course I bought it on sale) was $199; a significant difference in price I would say. Good value for the money. My only gripe that I have had in the past with Grace products is that there products seem to have a planned obsolescence, especially after a couple of years of firmware updates. There have been some snags with some of the updates in the past. I do not know if they have improved their software updates or not, but if you want a table-top internet radio receiver, then it's a possibly you may just have to live with. I love the whole concept behind Internet radio. As a fan of world music - Asian, Middle Eastern (especially the music of India) and Mexican/South American music, as well as news and talk from other exotic places that I will probably never get to visit in person, it just such a cool thing. I live in Missouri, and I love to listen to English Premier League soccer radio. And once you own the receiver, and keep up the payments on your internet service, most all of this really cool stuff is free!! Now, if you want to use any of the premium services (SiriusXM, Spotify, Pandora, etc.), then of course you have to pay for those. If you can afford the price of the receiver, and your curiosity is aroused, then give it a try. It is an amazing world of listening - it is waiting for you to listen, all you have to do is tune in!

This is my fourth Grace radio, starting many years ago with their first model. This one has much to recommend it over the predecessors. 1. It is heaver. This is important for me as the radio is on my bedside table. With all the previous radios if I would lean over from the bed to press a preset or the power button, often the whole radio would slide on the table and make it necessary I use a hand to hold the radio steady. This may seem to be a minor point but it is important on the basis of daily use and convenience. 2. It is more attractive with the wood appearance instead of plastic. Also the buttons are now easier to read because of the contrast of black on light tan instead of the prior gray on black. These improvements make the radio much more functional and easy to use. 3. The Mondo Elite models now integrate Pandora, as the earliest models did. The previous model, the Mondo+, allows casting Pandora to the radio from a smartphone or other source but the absence of an integrated Pandora is not user-friendly. Grace indicated it was a major effort to add Pandora to the Mondo Elite due to complex coding. I asked tech support if they were going to add Pandora to the Mondo+ models but they did not reply to this question. 4. The sound quality is rich but has too much bass for my 69-year-old ears. I adjusted the sound with the equalizer which helped some. Still I prefer the sound of the plastic models. Again, this is probably due to hearing loss or changes that occur when one ages. 5. The interface is very much like previous Grace radios, especially the Mondo+. Grace has added functionality in many small ways. I especially like how easy it is now to quickly adjust the sleep time with the large button on top. 6. The wireless charger is a bonus. It was not a determining factor in my decision to purchase the radio but since it is present I do use it. 7. I like the opportunity to set separate alarms for each day of the week, plus weekend and weekdays. Previously one could just set them for weekends and weekdays. One option that I use is to set overlapping alarms. If I want to get up at 7:00am to my local NPR station, say, I set an alarm for 6:50 for a new age channel at soft volume. I also set an alarm at 7:00 at normal volume. Then I awake gently. All in all, this is the best Grace radio I have owned.

I can finally sit back, tune in, and enjoy listening to my favorite radio station on iheart 680 am WRKO @ 6am with my Morning Coffee! Radio works crystal clear, and it is sharp! The set up is so easy and offers lots of preset stations or you have the option to manually tune in. You can also select podcasts! The remote control is also user friendly. I did a lot of research before purchasing and thus far I feel I made the right selection! The cabinetry and size fits great in my home! If you are in the market for a nice looking and sounding radio for a fair price this is the one! I highly recommend!

I wanted to get a nice table radio for my bedroom. This radio has all the features I need. You can either use it as a table radio for a room, or a bedroom radio with alarm clock. This radio does both, and feature packed. My user case is for a bedroom radio that has all the stations including Sirius XM. I have to use my iPad and a speaker. I like to go to sleep by listening to sports at night. My local stations reception is not the best and this is why I bought this radio. Here is my review: This radio is well made and feels like the radio I replaced. It has a nice feature set - the instructions aren’t the greatest IMHO - but you can figure out how to work the features with common sense. The WiFi connected very easily to my network. Then finding the local radio stations was easy too. But as I found them, I could get no sound even though the station was locked in. But since this radio has Audacy and I Heart Radio, you can find your locals thru those two, since they are the biggest radio networks. I found my locals that I wanted. Sirius XM was easy to integrate, as my favorites that I use on my iPad immediately came up. Next was creating my presets. It was easy to do. But if you are using it in my case, it is best to put your five favorite stations - even though it holds ten - you don’t want to use the shift button in the middle of the night or half sleep. I learned how to feel for the five stations I often use. No problems there. You can preset up to 100 stations on this radio. The lighting is great enough and you can set the brightness or color of the digital clock. The daytime / nighttime feature for the screen is fantastic. You can set the brightness for certain times of the day and the night. It’s decent on my eyes. The alarm is loud enough - I set mine on buzzer- and works fine. So does the snooze button. Unfortunately, I can’t charge my iPhone 14 in an OtterBox case because of the camera bump. It won’t sit flush on the charger. Not a deal breaker. The sound is very good on this radio. Music sounds are great, and voices are clear. You can use the EQ for a custom sound, but the stock settings is good enough. The stations I listen to at night sound crystal clear. And I can now listen to channels on XM at my bedside. The app works well. It recognized the radio without issues. I use an old iPhone 7 as my remote, instead of my phone. The radio remote is decent, but I prefer to use the phone. My presets come up as a list on the phone, and changing channels is very smooth. Here is the bad thing about this radio: For the cost and price point of this radio, it should have an integrated Ethernet port. Not a dongle. After the first day of using this radio, the sound cut out, because the WiFi wasn’t connecting. My WiFi works well, but sometimes internet radio or XM cuts out. I called the tech support, and had to reset the radio twice. I told them that I needed a usb to Ethernet connector, but you have to use a special adapter. A common one will not work. They don’t have any on the website at all. Fortunately, I had to go elsewhere and got one thru C Crane, which sells them. I got the adapter two days later. The funny thing is that they also sell the Mondo version of the radio. It works beautifully, even though it has an orange glow. It is behind the radio, so you can’t really tell. No connectivity issues or dropouts at all. I am very happy with this purchase. I haven’t went into all of the features of this radio yet. But as I said, for the price point I would like better instructions on how to use the radio to the fullest. Secondly, the push buttons for the presets should be backlit - and dimmable like the main screen. And most importantly: it must be wired instead of WiFi. I don’t like WiFi connections for a streaming device - I want a solid internet connection. Some places in your home or room, the WiFi gets wonky, and drops the connection. This radio is a winner. I would by a second for my office if I had the chance. I gave it four stars because of the “iffy” instructions, and the lack of an Ethernet port. Otherwise, it would easily be five stars. It’s the best available. EDIT: Have been using this radio for a couple of weeks. It's been fantastic. No issues with the internet radio dropping out - as long as you have a wired connection. It's also been great as an alarm clock. it's worth the price I paid for it.

My unit matches the current images that don't have external antennas in the rear I see on other reivews. But the internal antenna seems quite sufficient (my wifi signal is strong). I use in the kitchen, so I cannot comment on the alarm features. The unit boots up very quick and connects pretty quick to a radio station if that is what you were last listening to. This was important to me as I just want to flip the radio on and immediately hear music, like old school over the air radios. I do occasionally listen to an app on the phone over bluetooth, which doesn't take too long to select/connect. I've got no problem with the speaker quality for the size. Sure it would be nice being a little wider with 2 internal speakers for stereo. But what really degrades the sound is dependent on the selected radio station. I don't know if it's bitrate or something else, but some stations don't sound as good as others or are low volume. Stations with strong/clean signals sound fine for me as I don't expect extreme high fidelity in a unit this size at this price point. The navigation is okay - not too hard but could use improvement. Getting to presets 1-5 is very easy, 6-10 is a 2-button affair on the unit or direct from the remote. Presets over 11 are a bit cumbersome to get to. I wouldn't even bother researching/saving stations off of the unit itself. Use the Grace portal via a browser for that. I usually research radio stations of interest through google searches, and find that most of them broadcast over the internet and can be selected by this unit. The remote works fine but feels cheap compared to the unit. Overall I'm very happy with the unit. I think it's main feature is as a stand-alone internet radio. If all I wanted was to listen to apps from my phone, many external speaker devices serve that purpose. The great thing is the variety of music stations available. I discover many bands that I don't normally encounter through Pandora/Spotify/Youtube suggestions.

Just had this unit for a week or two now. So far have discovered at least 3 negative things. Do not buy this if you plan to listen mainly to Spotify as it does not actually have the Spotify app, just what I would call I guess a link instead. To actually listen to anything on Spotify you will need a 2nd wireless device such as a mobile smart phone or home PC connected to a wireless modem, which can detect the radio thru the Spotify app on them. And you will have to use that 2nd device even to just simply change stations or playlists (unit functions essentially just as a satellite speaker when it comes to Spotify) - VERY INCONVENIENT! Second negative - it has no type of 'volume leveling' setting that I can find. So your listening to one song and the very next song may be blaringly loud or volume so low you can't hear it! Third main negative to this point - the little user/owner manual is lacking in one important area. To input log-in credentials like for your wireless modem or Pandora, my access key or password includes alpha and numeric characters. The only way I could find to input the numeric characters after messing around with the on-screen keyboard display for about 15 to 30 minutes was to use the remote control which does have number or numeric keys. The user manual is totally silent on this important requirement, so made logging in very frustrating! On the good side the unit does appear to maintain a stable network connection and aside from the lack of any kind of volume leveling capability, the sound quality is okay. It does have equalizer settings you can adjust, and after all it is just a relatively small table-top radio. Can't expect audiophile quality from such a unit.

Update: had it for a couple of years now. Love it! Especially visiting radio stations around the world. Still wish it had a separate AM/FM tuner without an internet connection. Outstanding machine. Changing my rating to 5stars. Shout out to California's Pala Indian REZ RADIO. It's the closest thing to pirate radio, if you get the reference. Radio is pretty good for the deep price Amazon is asking. Cons first, then SOUND: It puts out a decent sound, enough to fill a small kitchen or room--- careful not to crank up the volume too high though! RADIO: I was disappointed to learn that internet and internet alone accesses the radio. This severely limits its versatility. This is yet another device that is only useful with an internet service. I thought that surely the company would have a simple built AM/FM receiver built in. *Especially considering the high price of the device. DISPLAY: I put this radio on a tall kitchen counter. The display turns out to be pretty good, it could be angled up slightly. Nice and bright, with an option to dim it to nothing. Very nice. POWER CONSUMPTION: The unit is always in, even when off it silently siphons power that hits your pocket. To its credit, the company does include a deep sleep mode, but it takes quite a bit of time to wake up from it. Give us a switch! LOOKS: It is a gorgeous looking machine. SOFTWARE: User friendly! The coders who worked on this are top of the line.

Great radio. Was very easy to set up and use. I lived all over the US, and now I can listen to my favorite stations. Unlike phones/computers/tablets, the sound is clear and crisp.