Hello,
The SRF-M97 is a decent radio.
General:
The SRF-M97 is larger and looks "chunker" than the SRF-M10. The M97 has a volume knob while the M10 has digital volume settings. The M97 volume control works well and has good channel balance tracking, even at the quietest positions. It takes 1 AAA battery. There are slide switches for "Hold", "Local/DX" and "Mega Bass". Operation is quite similar to the M10. Fifteen presets for FM and 5 for AM. There is a beep with each action of the tuning jog control and the "Mode" button. The beep doesn't seem to be quite as loud as the M10's. The display is the of the "reverse LCD" as used in the M10. In strong light the display is quite readable, in dim light the display is a bit hard to read. It would have been nice if Sony incorporated a backlight that would turn on when the tuning jog is utilized.
Sound:
FM: With a clear, strong signal this is a nice sounding radio. Detailed highs but not etched or irritating. The bass is a bit thin but with the bass boost turned on, the sound has more weight without becomming obnoxiously so. The bass boost balances out the sound quite well. When done right, these portable radios sound remarkably distortion free.
AM: The wide filter allows AM stations to be clearly understood. Again, the bass boost added an lttle more heft to speech.
The 2mw per channel puts out a surprising amount of volume. No earthquake here but did not have to max out the volume to get to uncomfortable levels. With the Sennheiser PX-100 the output is hiss free. I did hear a bit of bakground hiss with the Sennheiser PX-500.
Reception:
FM: Decent. As with the M10 strong local stations can still interfere with some weaker local stations but overall, the reception is clearer and more reliable than the M10 in my view. Selectivity, for what it is, is OK. When tuned off channel, the images of other stations begin to bleed though so ultimate selectivity is hard to determine. Still, clearly received local stations could be separated OK. Was able to load up the fifteen presets with fifteen local stations that could be heard clearly. While the "Local" setting of the DX/Local isn't as heavy handed as the M10, its action, for me, still weakens local stations too much.
AM: Pretty good. Not the most sensitive of AM radios as it probably has a very small ferrite antenna but somewhat distant stations could be received and local stations could be tuned with no problem. The selectivity is pretty wide (probably about 30khz) but this isn't a DX machine anyway so the trade off is decent, easily understood AM sound. Was easily able to load the five AM settings with stations. Could have used five more AM presets.
Conclusion:
Not without it's reception faults and certainly not a DX champ but with sparkling sound, overall, the SRF-M97 is a decent ultra-portable radio.
I'm keeping it!
Paul
