Dear Jim,

I bought the Grundig Classic 960 in 1996. Right off the bat I realized
it was hopeless for SW broadcasts, though it does have good sound on MW
and FM. (The drifting on SW is intolerable and the tuning "feel" is
awful.) A few months after I bought it, the radio "died." I contacted
Grundig and they told me to ship it back to them, which I did. Instead
of fixing my radio, they sent me a new one. This radio drifted quite a
bit (the first one did too, but not to the same extent, especially on
FM). When I called them and spoke to a technician he admitted to me
that the set's design was not "all that would have been desired." Then
a couple of years ago that (second) unit died. Again I had to send it
back to Grundig and again they replaced it. (I noted that the SW
frequency coverage was somewhat different on this new unit.) But this
unit is the Mother of All Drifters! You can't listen to FM (which is
now all I use it for) more than an hour or so before it drifts off
frequency, no matter how long it's been running.

I "hate" that radio. It's my definition of "junk." (Three examples in
less than 9 years!) It "looks" good (people always comment on it) and
it has reasonably good sound, but its performance is very, very poor,
in my opinion. When new MW/FM radios are introduced featuring IBOC, if
the reviews are good, I'll replace that terrible "Classic" radio. (I
wouldn't even sell it to someone unless they knew exactly what they
were getting; it does have that 25-year warranty, however.) It's my
understanding that the local FM station that features classical music
half the day and jazz the other half is going to "split" in two via
IBOC and have classical music 24 hours a day on one "channel" and jazz
24 hours a day on the "other." That sounds good to me as far as local
programming goes.

By the way, that radio is kept in our living room and I have it playing
music most of the day. I do not play it "loud," and it has always
received good care.

I think it is, and has always been, a "loser." It's obvious that its
cost is next-to-nothing or they wouldn't just keep replacing the set
rather than fixing it. Naturally a year or so after I bought it for
$249.95 + shipping, the price "dropped" to $149.95 + shipping, though
the warranty also dropped from 25 years to 1 year. I can't blame them
for that! I wonder if they have a "stash" of them set aside for people
like me who have 25 year warranties and they'll use that "stash" to
keep replacing "dead" sets until the warranty runs out!

P. T. Barnum was right, as I learned through this experience (and a few
others over the years!).

As always, my opinion.

Best,

Joe