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Your favourite chair. The well-worn sweater you always reach for. The watch your grandad gave you. Life’s full of things we treasure and for us, it’s our R1 radio. It was the first product we launched in 2006 and we still cherish it today – and so do our customers. It’s perfectly proportioned, beautifully made, deceptively powerful and entirely adorable. What’s not to love?
We are delighted to introduce the latest addition to theR1 Mk4’s iconic colour collection: Pistachio Green. This serene new hue reflects the calming essence of nature, bringing a subtle yet refreshing update to interiors, perfectly timed for the arrival of spring.
Designed to effortlessly complement a wide range of home décors, offering a natural contrast against neutral tones. Whether nestled on a bedside table or positioned as a stylish accent in a kitchen, the Pistachio Green finish brings a sense of calm and renewal to any space.
Available exclusively at John Lewis.
“It sounds splendid, with spoken word, vocals and instrumentation all effortlessly smooth, articulated and engaging.”
“Be impressed by the smooth and natural sound you hear from the compact speaker. You’d expect it to be coming from a much larger music system.”
“If there was an award for ‘most perfectly radio-looking radio’, the Ruark R1 MK4 would win.”
“The Ruark R1 might be the most stylish DAB radio of them all.”
“It looks great and sounds fantastic, with more weight and authority than you might expect from a compact, bookshelf radio and impressive levels of space and detail.”
Each generation of our R1 has been an evolution of the original, but with R1 Mk4 we have been more progressive both in design and performance.
Using a precision moulding process has allowed us to gently profile the enclosure, providing a fresh contemporary look and the perfect surface for our eye catching soft sheen lacquer finishes. With internal acoustic treatment, the enclosure is acoustically inert, providing the ideal housing for our electronics and NS+ driver.
Enhancing the design further is the hand-crafted slatted wood grille. This adds sophistication and creates a timeless Eames like vibe, but overall, the design of R1 Mk4 is unique and distinctly Ruark.
‘Our crisp OLED display clearly shows time, alarm and programme information and auto adjusts to suit ambient light levels, making it a perfect bedside companion.’
Our previous R1 models were critically acclaimed for their sound quality, but R1 Mk4 is our best performer yet! With our heritage in high-fidelity loudspeakers, we understand the intricacies of enclosure and drive unit design and making sure that both are optimised to each other for best performance. In particular, we are proud of the neodymium NS+ driver we developed for R1, which delivers a smooth and natural frequency response and surprising bass performance for its size.
Driving the system is a punchy Class A/B linear amplifier and with adaptive equalisation it provides an eminently listenable sound at all volume levels.
The crisp OLED display on R1 clearly shows time, alarm and programme information and auto adjusts to suit ambient light levels, making it a perfect bedside companion. Radio reception is excellent, and a quality Bluetooth receiver allows you to connect and enjoy R1’s great sound when streaming from a phone or computer.
FM parameters can be set to suit US and Japanese needs and a multilingual user interface makes R1 a truly international product. Also an internal clock means time and date are kept active when power is disconnected or when transmitted time data is not available. Other highlights include a USB-C charge/shuffle playback port, headphone output, switchable line input and of course our trademark and tactile RotoDial control system.
As we said back in 2006, radio never sounded or looked this good.
Our compact remote is a convenient addition to your R1 and allows total wireless control. Store and choose your favourite radio stations through four direct preset buttons, select your source input, control volume, pause, rewind or skip tracks and power-down.
With its battery status display and improved power management R1 Mk4 works even better and longer with the our optional BackPack 3 and means you can enjoy R1’s rich mains powered performance where mains power is unavailable.
BackPack 3 attaches seamlessly to R1 and once fitted can be left permanently in place as it charges automatically whenever mains power is re-applied. A full charge will provide up to twelve hours of mains free listening depending on volume.
BackPack 3 is also compatible with our R1S Smart Radio and MR1 Bluetooth Speaker System.