eBay Selling the Tecsun PL-450

For the last year I've seen this Tecsun PL-450 on eBay. It appears to be an update of the Eton E100. Eton has not put their name on this Tecsun, not yet anyways. 

I've not heard reports of its performance. If anyone has info, please let us know. 

Comments

[Paul]

The other radio released at exactly the same time by Tecsun, the PL-600, has received very poor reviews (performance, and reliability) in general. I don't know about this one.

[jeffrey McMahon]

My guess is it's similar to the E100. But I wouldn't buy it without more info.

[Tom Welch]

All these radios are very similar, you can't make any money in product development if you consistantly reinvent the wheel.

I bet the Sonido, Sangean PR-D5 and PR-D7 radios share share design elements and same type of individual components.

[Stetsiwawa]

I have owned a Tecsun PL-450 for several months now. It’s my bedtime (clock) radio. I go to sleep to it most nights and wake up to it most days. So you might say I have an intimate relationship with it.
It’s a class bigger than the Eton E100/Tecsun PL-200. I would say its main competitor, size and function wise, is the Degen/Kaito DE1102/KA1102 (it was a toss up for me, which one to buy). It’s just a few mms smaller in dimensions than the DE1102. It replaced the Tecsun PL-350, and (so I understand) shares many design features with its big brother, the Tecsun PL-600 (which replaced the PL-550). By the way, the PL-450 does not have SSB (the DE1102 does).
I notice the DE1102 manages to fit a 66mm speaker in its cabinet. The PL-450 has a 57mm speaker. This is significant as far as sound quality goes, as with speakers this small, any increase in size usually means a noticeably fuller sound.
There is a Local/Norm/DX antenna gain switch for the whip antenna (has no effect in AM). You’ll want that on DX for shortwave (full coverage, in 1 or 5khz steps). Even local FM stations seem to get a boost from switching to Norm or DX. You can then switch back to local in case of overload.
I mainly use the PL-450, in preset mode, for two or three AM talk stations and a couple of FM classical music stations; all local. So I don’t make great demands on the radio. Reception on both bands seems fine to me. I never hear any alien station images drifting in and out. I listen through the speaker, never through headphones. That’s just my preference. It does provide stereo FM through phones, but on my radio, you can’t switch FM through headphones to mono. The switch is there for it, it just doesn’t work. That’s bad, as you may often want to switch to mono to eliminate noise. On one AM station I sometimes have to swivel the case a bit to eliminate chirping. On FM, I have to extend the aerial at least several inches to begin to get clear reception (as noted, adjusting the gain switch also has a considerable effect on FM)
The PL-450 has a narrow/wide bandwidth option for AM and shortwave. It is quite effective on shortwave (which I rarely use), where it’s useful to scan in wide mode, then switch to narrow to lock in on a station. It does seem to reduce static/noise considerably. But on AM, it’s a joke. On narrow setting, as you’d expect, you have to tune to the exact frequency of the station you’re after for it to lock in, but the sound quality is then so horribly muffled (ie. the frequency range is so compressed), that it’s simply unlistenable. In wide mode, audio improves hugely – it’s perfectly normal - but you then have to always tune to 4 or 5khz above the station’s frequency to lock in properly. Thus, Radio station 612, is properly tuned at 617. This is, however, consistent for all stations, so once you get used to the quirk, you automatically tune to 5khz above any given station’s frequency, then apply pre-sets, etc. Needless to say, when listening to AM, I only ever have the bandwidth option on Wide. If I remember right, the ferrite bar is 4 inches, possibly a little longer.
The audio quality from the original speaker was very poor. It struggled with highs and lows. Cymbals or bass elements seemed to “crumble to pieces”. I swapped the speaker with a same sized one from an old Panasonic RF-P50, adhering it with blu-tak (sticky tak), which not only minimised cabinet vibration, but may also have maximized air displacement through the speaker (because of the airtight seal), thus creating a somewhat fuller sound (I may be fooling myself here). Anyway, the sound is now as good as you could hope for from a 57mm speaker. But that hardly counts as a recommendation for the standard issue radio. There is a Bass/Treble tone switch, which is also now far more effective with the new speaker. The original speaker now sounds not too bad in the Panasonic (with similar blu-tak fitting). So it may have been a combination of dud speaker and poor fitting (creating vibration), unless you contend that 57mm speakers need weeks of “breaking in”. Speakers this size are usually stuck on the cabinet with a bit of nasty gel glue and maybe a couple of tiny plastic clamps.
The case is sturdy and feels comfortable in the hand. In fact, there’s a good quality feel to all the buttons, knobs and switches. As you can see from the photos, it’s a handsome (pretty?) looking thing, in a traditional kind of way. Ergonomics are good.
Button layout is sensible (which is not that common these days), and the buttons have a pleasant spring-click mechanism with just the right force required, I think. The tuning knob travels with a satisfying oily smoothness. I like using it in preset mode to swing between stations. The LCD display is excellent, with very uniform and not-too-bright amber lighting (screen only, no buttons are illuminated). Light is auto-activated for a few seconds by the buttons and the tuning knob, or you can turn the light on permanently. But there’s no way of turning the light off completely, which is annoying, and a waste of battery life (there’s no daylight detecting switch like some Degens).
I use 3 2300mah AA batteries, which last me about last two weeks or 30 hours, which is not bad at all. But that’s on low volume levels, appropriate for bed. Subtract several hours battery life if usually playing at normal room volume levels. Recharge function works well and is quite quick too, at just over 7 hours for 2300mah batteries (it auto detects and stops charging when fully charged). There’s the usual Tecsun/Eton menu for setting these kind of firmware functions (ie. reading of manual required).
Important for a good bedtime radio is the simplicity of the sleep function. Sleep kicks in automatically when you turn it on. You can then set it to switch off at the time desired, and it’ll remember that time from then on. If you want it to stay on permanently, you hold down the On button for a few seconds. I understand some Degens have a maddening sleep function that requires several button presses every time you turn the radio on, if you want a different switch off time than the 99 min default.
On the whole, I’m very happy with the PL-450, but that’s after changing the speaker, and accepting it’s quirks.

[jeffrey McMahon]

Thanks, I'll post your review.