Read review on a radio engineer's website ( Radio Jay Allen), who said the AM as well as FM performance for a radio in this price range was outstanding. To get better sensitivity and selectivity, one would have to spend twice as much or more. I bought it on his recommendation. Extremely pleased! One reason I got the ICF-506 was for AM "DX-ing", and I can pull in distant AM stations I never heard before, as well as stations I have picked up that are much louder and clearer than with any other radio. There have been a couple of times when I missed a digital tuning display, but the analog scale is remarkably accurate. FM sounds great; Sound quality is loud and undistorted from the four-inch speaker. I use it on AC, but I have the battery option if I need it. There is a D battery-only version that performs equally well that is about 10 dollars less, the ICF-19. If you're going to use it away from home mostly, you might want that one. The AC/battery version has no cord storage, and uses AA's instead of D's. If you want shortwave and digital readout and stereo from the headphone jack, with equivalent performance, you'll have to pay about 90-100 dollars at discount. But for AM/FM only, in a radio about the size of a hardcover dictionary, with Sony high quality construction and solid feel-- for about 50 bucks-- you're not gonna get a better radio than this one.