Lionel's Bluetooth Radio Tower 6-84611

MartyE posted:

Not much to say about this so I won't bore you with a long winded review. 

PROS: It works as advertised and sounds pretty dang good for what it is. Overall looks pretty good with a blinking warning light.  Plug and Play.

CONS: Packaging could have been better to keep it from damage and some of the stickers are poor and are peeling off.  I'll replace the stickers with some of my own.

Bottom line: Definitely worth it, even if only for a conversation piece. Impressive sound quality for what it is.

Nice job on this Lionel but take a look at that packaging and sticker issue!

Cool unit, how's it do with heavier stuff? Maiden and Gn'R would be pretty mint. 

Heavy metal on the radio with heavy metal on the rails. 

I have one of these. It's been on and off my layout at various times.

What I did was download one of those "railroad sounds" apps to my phone and I'll play them through the tower.

There's a volume control knob and the sound quality is very good.

I bought one last fall sometime... will have to check on the stickers now, though I didn't notice any problem with mine when I bought it.

I'd agree the packaging leaves something to be desired, maybe for different reasons though.  While it didn't break to the point of not functioning, the top flashing LED was a bit displaced on mine when removed from the box.  The flimsy clam shell might have had something to do with that, as it seems the unit could likely "float" a bit with the clamshell packaging being the only damping in transit.  It's very easy to displace the LED on mine, it's not really attached too firmly.

My other complaint being somewhere in between collector and operator (colloperator? ) is that the packaging is huge for this unit!  I have the first radio tower and it's probably 1/3 to 1/4 the size of this box.  This takes up a lot of room in storage when compared to the original.  Less room for other trains I might buy ...

-Dave

To me the big deal isn't just playing music, but the ability to play through the tower recordings of kids and grandkids, and simulated radio announcements, interviews, DJ talk, etc. that you make up. That seems like it would be a lot of fun. May have to get one of these.

Bought mine about a year ago - no sticker issue, and yes, the packaging was HUGE!  I found some air checks on the interweb of WABC 77 and WPLJ 95.5 from the 70's and play that through. Reminds me of back when I started out with my Tyco HO Spirit of '76 and a 4x8 board in my parent basement. 

Does it only connect by Bluetooth or can you also connect an audio source to it by cable? 

My Radio Tower is safe and sound in the rather large box it came in. I'll have to open it and check the labels.

Jeff2035 posted:

Does it only connect by Bluetooth or can you also connect an audio source to it by cable? 

Only Bluetooth. 

I initially wasn't interested since I didn't use Bluetooth for audio at all, but then I had to buy a new car and found they don't come with CD players anymore.  When I started using my iPod Touch for trials with ripping my CDs to the iPod, I then figured it was worth playing with the new tower.

-Dave

I will correct my "sticker" statement somewhat.  The main culprit for peeling is the sticker that covers the other hole on the base.  I think it was originally the tuner know when this was an AM radio.