The trusty radio has finally received an upgrade—to the world of high definition. HD Radio, which has been gathering steam for a few years, sounds better and offers more channels than traditional radio. It also sends properly equipped devices text data like a song’s title and artist name as well as traffic, weather and stock information. One HD Radio even lets you pause programming in mid-stream, so you don’t have to miss a song or NPR story just because you’re drying your hair. And future HD Radio devices will record programming like television DVRs do now.

The Sony (above) and Coby Electronics (below) devices use HD Radio technology to play more stations at better sound quality.

This week, I tested three HD Radio devices to see what all the hype was about: Best Buy’s Insignia $50 HD Radio Portable Player (http://bit.ly/75FcIc); Coby Electronics Corp.’s $100 Portable HD Radio System (http://bit.ly/6G6g4Q); and Sony’s $160 HD Radio with Dock for iPod + iPhone (http://bit.ly/8c0Bqf). I also talked with iBiquity Digital Corp., the company that developed HD Radio technology and licenses it to broadcasters and radio manufacturers, about how this works.

I found some worthwhile offerings in HD Radio, like commercial-free, sub-channels within existing stations and better sound quality. IBiquity claims that HD Radio makes FM stations sound like CD quality and AM stations sound like FM; to my ear, this seemed to be true.

Overall, I didn’t hear enough incredibly great content or sound quality to want to run out and replace my old radios. Washington, D.C., where I live, supposedly offers 41 HD Radio channels, but I couldn’t find as many as that. Over 2,000 primary HD Radio stations and some 1,100 sub-channels can be heard in all 50 states and Puerto Rico, but some areas won’t offer as many stations, according to iBiquity.

Tuning in each HD station takes longer, like the way changing channels on a digital TV takes an extra second. But in my tests, this process took five seconds or more per change of channel. This kind of delay is enough to try anyone’s patience.

It might help to explain the technology behind HD Radio. HD Radio makes it possible for local broadcasters to transmit content via digital signals on existing AM and FM frequencies. The digital signals are encrypted and eliminate static heard in analog broadcasts, resulting in better sound quality. But they take longer to be decoded by HD Radio receivers.

Many people mistakenly think that in order to listen to HD Radio, they must pay an extra monthly fee like with satellite radio. If you buy an HD Radio device, you’ll only pay for it because the service itself is free; its price is built into the cost of the hardware.

Besides boosting the signal, HD Radio offers extra channels of programming you wouldn’t hear on a regular set. It allows existing FM channels to play additional content on “multicast” channels. Most multicast channels are commercial-free, and they appear on the radio’s display as HD2 and HD3.

Don’t confuse HD Radio with the text data that scrolls across the screens of many current radios, like my car radio. This is a non-audio service called Radio Broadcast Data System that has been around for a while.

Each of the radios I tested offered an HD Seek feature—a way of skimming through all stations to find and play those that could be heard in HD. But HD Seek didn’t stop on multicast channels; to get to those on each radio, I had to press buttons to tune up or down while listeningwhile already listening to to a main HD radio channel. Some HD Radio models have HD Seek tuning functions that find HD1 stations as well as HD2 and HD3 channels. I saved these HD2 and HD3 multicast channels in my radio presets so they were easier to find again.

While a radio was tuning in, or linking into, a channel (the process that took several seconds), an “HD” logo flashed on each radio’s display. This logo turned solid when the station was found and finally started playing. I listened to multicast channels like a bluegrass/country station from my local NPR channel. Another station’s two multicast channels played “South Asian” music and the Mormon Channel.

As its name suggests, Sony’s HD Radio with Dock for iPod + iPhone has a built-in dock for iPods, iPhones and iPod Touches. If, while using this radio, you hear a song on an HD channel that you like, you can hit a “Tag” button to save information about that song. The next time you dock an iPod, iPhone or iPod Touch into the Sony radio, these tags are transferred onto the portable player. When you plug that device into a computer and open the iTunes Store, a list of the tagged songs appears, making it easier to recall songs you liked and may want to buy. This radio is a tabletop model and has the largest display screen of the three radios I tested. It also comes with a remote. It saves up to 20 FM and 20 AM presets.

The Insignia HD Radio Portable Player is a much smaller unit that comes with earbuds and an armband for exercising. If this radio tuned in an HD channel that offered multicast sub-channels, these were indicated on the display with a “+” sign, like “HD1+.” The Insignia radio stores 10 preset stations.

The Coby Electronics Portable HD Radio System resembled a single, lightweight speaker with a wheel, six buttons and a digital display on it. IBiquity Digital said this model uses an older HD Radio technology that doesn’t offer as much reception sensitivity as the Sony and Insignia. Still, it was simple to use, and its wheel made it a cinch to tune in HD2 and HD3 channels. It stores up to 10 presets.

In September, when Microsoft’s Zune HD was released, I tested its built-in HD Radio, the only such device capable of pausing live radio content. I paused music and talk radio on the Zune’s HD Radio when my phone rang, then un-paused the station to resume. This doesn’t work if the device is turned off and on again before resuming play.

Along with stand-alone radios, HD Radio receivers also are becoming more common in home audio systems and in cars. But while HD Radio’s sound quality and extra channels are definite pluses, the number of available stations needs to improve to make the wait for the HD channels to start playing more tolerable.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Via Reuters/Billboard:

Guns N’ Roses and Universal Music Group’s Interscope-Geffen A&M label were sued by British label Independiente and the U.S. arm of Domino Recording Company, who own the licensing rights to songs by German electronic musician Ulrich Schnauss.

Singer Axl Rose and Guns N’ Roses band members and album producers copied portions of two of Schnauss songs–”Wherever You Are” and “A Strangely Isolated Place”–for a song used on the band’s last album called “Riad N’ the Bedouins,” according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed on Friday but made available on Monday, seeks $1 million in damages. A spokesperson for Interscope-Geffen A&M, owned by Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, was not available for comment.

You might have thought the labels suing the band and Universal Music would have done so last fall, when there was a biggish to-do about the album and when the band and Universal Music were siccing the federal government on bloggers who posted links to unauthorized MP3s from the album.

Anyway, it’s another good opportunity to remind the young people of today why the young people of 20 years ago were really into Guns N’ Roses: They used to be great!

Also, I am still trying to track down a recording of any of the songs from the Axl Rose-inspired “White Trash Wins Lotto,” the best musical I’ve ever seen (the version I saw featured a pre-“Ratatouille” Patton Oswalt, I think). Any help greatly appreciated…

Anyway, now it’s not. The cash-strapped publisher has sold WQXR-FM for $45 million, carving up the asset into two packages for different buyers–local NPR affiliate WNYC and Spanish-language broadcaster Univision Radio, a unit of Univision Communications.

The money will be used to chip away at the paper’s $1 billion debt (the terms of the $250 million loan it took out from billionaire Carlos Slim pretty much require that the paper do that whenever it sells off anything significant). It’s not much, but it may end being more than the paper gets for the Boston Globe, which it bought for $1.1 billion in 1993.

The Times has owned the station since 1944; it sold off its AM sibling to Disney (DIS) in 2006.

The deal involves a swap of licenses and equipment between multiple stations, but that won’t be of interest to you unless you listen to classical music or Spanish-language programming on New York City radio stations. If you do, the details are in the release.

I really had no idea if I would make it, or end up embarrassed with just my mom donating at the “polished rock level.” By the way, the polished rock level (free early download) was $10. But you could donate all the way up to “weapons-grade plutonium” ($10,000), where you get to sing a duet with me. One businesswoman from the United Kingdom, named Jo Pottinger, flew in last month to sing and, honestly, did a bang-up job.

So, how have I spent my money so far? Well, I got production help from my pal Don Was (The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt). He got me a great rate at the old A&M studios (where Carole King did “Tapestry,” Joni Mitchell did “Blue” and where so many of my favorites recorded). Normally, I would never be able to afford to record there.

He also hooked me up with some of my favorite old-time session players, like Jim Keltner, who played on all those Beatles solo records. We recorded old-school and played live with not much overdubbing–and that includes the vocals.

I wanted to have the energy and looseness of some of my favorite childhood records, before everything got so quantized and auto-tuned. And because of that, we did it really fast.

Oh, I have also booked a day where I will sing and play guitar on 10 songs to a click track. My idea is to release it with the audio files so that people (pro or amateur) can put the tracks on their garage band or pro-tools and mix, produce and deconstruct the songs as they see fit. Thinking of having a contest for the best production.

So, now that I have spent a little more than half my budget on recording, plus another $10,000 on various stuff (donation prizes, Webmaster fees, the PayPal percentage, iPhone apps), I have around $25,000 left to play with.

I still don’t want to license the record to any of the labels. But now I have to figure out how to do all the things they traditionally do (distribution, marketing, publicity) and take advantage of the opportunities with new media (which they have not been so great at).

There have been more than a few companies that have come to me with their new paradigms for how to make money in this digital age–mostly how they can make money. I am trying to look at all of them (some do sound sort of promising and intriguing).

Oh, and I still want to have hard copies available too–I have a friend who will make a mini graphic novel that would include two pages for every story (song).

So here I am, asking you smartypants AllThingsD.com people for ideas. You do seem to know more than most in the “industry.”

By the way, I reopened the Jillsnextrecord site recently, upon request, for those who told me they wanted to donate and have their names in the liner notes (or sung in a song). If any of you are interested–and I’m just saying–it will still be up until we go to the printers in a week or two.

Many folks would rather listen to Internet radio in rooms where their computers don’t live, or where they’d rather not lug a laptop. To do so today, you have to buy a device that transmits music from a computer to remote speakers. These include the Squeezebox from Slim Devices Inc., Netgear’s MP101 Wireless Digital Music Player and Roku’s SoundBridge M1000.

None of these devices includes its own built-in speakers. You have to attach them to your audio system, and some require you to manage software on the computer that allows them to work over your network, a tricky process.

But, this week, we tested a new Internet radio product that’s totally self-contained and requires almost no setup. It doesn’t depend on a computer to bring in Internet radio, but does the job itself, wirelessly connecting to your broadband service, just like a computer does. And it doesn’t require an external audio system. It has its own built-in subwoofer and speakers, just like a traditional radio. It even looks like a traditional radio, but it does much more.

This new product is called the SoundBridge Radio, and comes from Roku LLC. It’s due to hit store shelves in a few weeks at around $400, which includes a remote control.

By including speakers, Roku eliminates the intimidating extra step of fiddling with wires to attach the device to a separate sound system. With its own sound system, the SoundBridge Radio can also function as an alarm clock, and it can receive your local AM and FM stations over the air, in addition to Internet radio.

Roku’s SoundBridge Radio, priced at $400, includes a remote, built-in speakers and a subwoofer.

And, even though it doesn’t require a computer for radio, the SoundBridge can pull music off your computers wirelessly and play it. It can even play music stored on a SecureDigital memory card.

We rocked out all week, listening to all different types of radio stations, and concluded that the SoundBridge Radio is a decent product, but its user interface could stand some improvement.

In addition to playing roughly 100 preprogrammed Internet radio stations, the SoundBridge Radio also detects and plays music from all libraries within range of your wireless network — without having to install any special software on your Windows or Mac computer. These libraries can include content running on Apple’s iTunes, Real Networks’ Rhapsody, Windows Media Connect and Windows Media 10, as well as services like MusicMatch, Napster, MSN Music and Walmart.com.

To add your own Internet radio stations onto the SoundBridge Radio, you must use a convoluted method involving iTunes. This summer, Roku plans to upgrade its software so as to include many more preprogrammed stations on each device.

The SoundBridge Radio is black and measures 11 inches wide, 6 inches high and 6½ inches deep. Two speakers are built into its front panel, and a subwoofer is built into its rear. A horizontal display with blue-green lettering runs across the front panel, and 13 buttons are built into the top ledge, including a hard-to-miss sleep button and six numbered preset buttons. A headphone jack and SD card slot are positioned on the player’s right side.

We had no trouble setting up the SoundBridge Radio. We plugged it in, and its display screen immediately came to life, asking us a few simple questions, which we answered by pressing the Select button on an included remote. After a few seconds of waiting, we were on our way.

This text in the display screen can be adjusted to one of six different fonts; we chose the average-size type. While the smallest enabled us to see more text, it was impossible to see across the room, and the largest font had to constantly scroll to display song information. Unlike on some other devices, the remote has no built-in little screen of its own.

Navigating through the SoundBridge Radio was confusing at times. A Source menu listed the six sections of the player, including each of our share-enabled iTunes music collections, and read: Play Walt’s iMac, Play Katie’s Music, Play AM Radio, Play FM Radio, Play Internet Radio and System Configuration. The radio itself had a Source button on it that, when pressed, easily retrieved this menu, but the remote had no such button.

The remote does have a Home button (represented by a house icon), but this goes only to the main menu within the current source, not to the useful Source menu itself.

After selecting each of our music libraries, options for how to play the music appeared on the screen, such as by selecting premade playlists or by browsing through and choosing a specific artist. We played a few songs from each of our iTunes libraries, including Billy Joel and Coldplay, and were impressed by the sound.

Music bought on Apple’s iTunes Music Store will not play on the SoundBridge Radio because of Apple’s refusal to license its digital rights management software. Instead, the title of that purchased tune shows up in the display line with a tiny padlock icon next to it; playable music is distinguished with a music note.

But backing out of a song while it played wasn’t as easy as we had hoped — pressing the Back button didn’t do anything. We pressed the Home button, which took us two steps further back than we wanted to navigate.

AM, FM and Internet radio each had its own list of stations. We attached two separate antennas to the SoundBridge so the AM and FM radios could be received, then used seek buttons on the remote and radio itself to find stations. About 100 Internet stations were preloaded on the SoundBridge Radio, but these could be sorted by various categories like name, genre or language.

We listened to various Internet radio stations, including Beatles Radio, Swiss Radio, Smooth Beats, Southern California Public Radio and CNN Radio. But we had trouble with a few stations — like ESPN and Pacifica Radio — that failed to stream content to our radio after five tries. Roku said that this might have been because the stations’ servers were busy.

Without the remote, the Roku SoundBridge Radio functions — but not completely. The six numbered preset buttons are categorized into A, B and C, so there are really 18 places to save a station from AM, FM or Internet radio. You can also use the preset buttons to save specific playlists, as well as lists of search results, by holding down a preset while listening to a song or station in that category. For example, while listening to music from Walt’s iMac, we held down the number six button, and a new label was placed on that button, smartly titled “All songs on Walt’s iMac.”

If the Radio is in standby mode, the time, or the time and full date, can be displayed. Pressing any of the preset buttons will turn on the device and start playing music saved under that preset. Another button brings the Source menu to the screen, but Roku didn’t think to add a select button to the Radio, so we couldn’t navigate far enough to listen to music from the Katie’s Music or Walt’s iMac libraries.

Overall, the Roku SoundBridge Radio is a smart device that needs a little tweaking. If the company really wants to market it as an alarm, it has to understand that users will want to play all of its available music, including computer libraries, without a remote. And navigating with the remote itself needs to be improved so that users don’t feel like they can’t back up out of a menu.

But by designing this receiver with built-in speakers, Roku made it less confusing for average users — a move that might encourage more people to step away from their computers, while still enjoying great music.

• Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com

Of course, if you stock numerous extra batteries for each device, and keep them charged fastidiously, you might ride out a long power outage. But that takes a fat wallet and an iron will. You could use a car charger to keep these gadgets going in a power outage, but during Katrina many people couldn’t get gasoline to power their cars. You could recharge your gadgets from a home generator, but few people own them or stockpile the fuel they consume.

The Multi-Purpose Radio FR300 by Eton

So this week, my assistant Katie Boehret and I tested gadgets that are specifically designed to work in emergency situations. We tested two radios that use cranks to recharge their batteries, including one with a built-in cellphone charger. We also took a look at disposable chargers for cellphones, smart phones and even iPod music players.

Obviously these products won’t help you stay connected should the communications infrastructure itself go down, as happened during Katrina. If the cellphone towers, Internet providers, and TV and radio stations are knocked offline, even a well-charged laptop, phone or radio might be useless. But it’s best to have your end of the system ready if some of these networks do remain operational, or come back on line during the crisis.

The crank radios were pretty easy to set up and use, which is a relief for anyone who might buy them and not learn how to use them until actually necessary. We found the $50 Multi-Purpose Radio FR300 by Eton Corp. at Hammacher Schlemmer (www.hammacher.com) and liked its multifaceted functionality, which includes picking up the audio signal from TV stations.

Freeplay Eyemax Weather Band Radio from Innovative Technologies Distribution Inc. Price: $69.99. For info: www.windupradio.com

This sturdy-looking, square radio has a carrying handle on top and comes with a case. Its front displays a speaker, small flashlight, and tuning display for five settings: AM, FM, the TV1 and TV2 television audio bands, and a “WX” band for the government’s weather channels. Katie used a slide bar just below that display to choose which she wanted to hear. She turned the tuning knob to hear a specific radio station; a smaller knob built into the larger knob allows for more precise tuning. There is a collapsible antenna.

To generate power for the FR300, we simply folded a plastic crank out from the radio’s side, and turned it for a little while, evoking a loud whirring sound. Eton says that two minutes of cranking should suffice for an hour of radio play time, but we got 35 minutes out of a 30-second crank, which is even better than that estimate.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration broadcasts can be tuned in on the FR300 by setting the slide bar to the WX setting. A separate tuning knob lets you turn to whichever is the strongest of the seven NOAA channels. You can set another separate knob on “Alert” so as to hear whenever the NOAA announces emergency weather news in your area. A siren is also built into this radio.

A small cellphone-charging piece plugs into the back of the FR300, and five included adapters permit charging of certain Samsung, Motorola, Nokia, Siemens and Sony Ericsson phones. Katie easily plugged her Samsung cellphone into the adapter and had it charging after a few cranks.

The $70 Freeplay Eyemax Weather Band Radio from Innovative Technologies Distribution Inc. (www.windupradio.com) was similar to the FR300, but it lacked a few features. This radio has its crank, speaker and tuning display all lined up on the front, with a tiny flashlight at one end and an antenna at the other.

iRecharge for iPod mini by Compact Power Systems Inc. Price: sold in $79.99 Value Pack. For info: www.cellboost.com

A solar panel on its top can be used to operate the radio in direct sunlight, which might be a nice feature if you’re not up for repeated hand-cranking. The Freeplay also comes with an AC adapter, unlike the FR300. But the FR300 can run on three AA batteries, which might be more useful during an evacuation; the Freeplay had no option for disposable batteries.

While the Freeplay Eyemax is also advertised to receive seven NOAA weather-band channels, its weather-tuning display is confusingly represented on the same display as AM/FM tuning. We liked the FR300′s separate weather-channel knob better because it allowed us to set one weather station and not have to change it after listening to the radio.

The Freeplay’s estimated crank/run time was more accurate — as the company said, 30 seconds of cranking enabled the battery to work for 35 minutes, the same as the FR300.

Katie and I also re-tested a product we have reviewed in the past — Cellboost by Compact Power Systems Inc. These are tiny disposable cellphone chargers that can give your phone 60 minutes of usage time or 60 hours of standby time. But this month, the company introduced the same devices for smartphones, which are cellphones designed for email and Web browsing. Other new Cellboost models power portable game stations, camcorders and even iPod music players — though these aren’t necessarily emergency lifelines.

Cellboost for Treo smartphones by Compact Power Systems Inc. Price: $7.99. For info: www.cellboost.com

I use the Treo 650 smart phone every day, for email and phone calls, so I tested the $8 Treo Cellboost, which promises 60 minutes of talk time. As soon as I attached the Cellboost and flipped its on/off switch, it worked like I had plugged my smartphone into its wall charger. Katie tried the $8 BlackBerry charger and the $10 iPod mini charger with the same simple results. The Cellboosts for iPod and iPod mini each afford eight hours of play time.

Compact Power Systems also introduced a product called the iRecharge, a rechargeable portable battery that fits snugly around your iPod, iPod mini or iPod shuffle giving the iPod and iPod mini 12 hours of extra play time and the iPod shuffle 40 extra hours. It has an on/off switch, so you can charge your iPod as needed, as well as a charge-level indicator that glows to tell you how much juice is left.

Katie used the iRecharge with her mini, and it worked easily. The iRecharge for iPod and iPod mini is sold for $80 in a Value Pack with a disposable iPod Cellboost, belt clip and a leather carrying case. The iPod shuffle’s iRecharge Value Pack costs $40.

We highly recommend getting a couple of Cellboosts to keep in your briefcase, purse or glove compartment; each charger remains usable for up to two years. And we recommend a crank radio as well. But, while Cellboosts are an inexpensive solution for recharging your gadgets, crank radios are more of an investment. Be sure to look for one with as many power sources as possible — such as a slot for disposable batteries and AC adapter — and make sure it includes a good flashlight.

Then, pray you don’t have to use any of these things.

With reporting by Katherine Boehret

• Email me at mossberg@wsj.com