Kevin Reports Strong Performance on His Black Tecsun PL-390: An Update

Thanks, Kevin S:

In record time, my black Tecsun PL-390 arrived from Joyce at Ebayer "Anon-co" today. Quickly unwrapping it and running it through its initial paces, I am quite pleased indeed! 

On AM, as indicated by the pictures of the longer ferrite (posted on the Yahoo Ultralight group), it is quite a bit more sensitive than the PL-310. Stations that are intelligible on the 390 are but mumbles on the 310. 

All 5 DSP bandwidths are there for selectivity. A quick series of checks show that the sensitivity is essentially that of my trusty Sony 7600GR! It's short of the sensitivity of my treasured Sony Sony S5W, but not by as much as I thought it would be. And yes, the PL-390 has just the touch of audio soft-mute like the PL-380, not the 12-15 dB of the PL-310. 

On FM, the whip antenna is 35" long, compared to the 22" whip on the 310. As a result, low-band FM is noticeably better. Even in the upper band, where I had to shorten the 390's whip to resonate near the proper frequency, the 390 still has a readability edge. With the DSP FM section, it is probably the best FM portable on the marker right now! On Shortwave, it's very sensitive, easily better than the PL-310, PL-380 and Sony 7600GR on the few stations I checked. On Longwave, it's not up to the 7600GR on sensitivity, but substantially better than the PL-310. Plus, it doesn't have the horrible soup of images from local MW stations to contend with, as does the 7600GR.

Ergonomically, the two stereo speakers sound much better, as would be expected. The buttons have a much smoother action to them (on my 310 and 380, I have to work at it more to get the buttons to work). Plugging my mp3 player into the AUX IN jack, the audio is quite good: not up to my specialized PA2V2 headphone amp, but still allows Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto #2 to be at good volume levels on my power-hungry Grado headpones.

The PL-390 has a big orange button for "Light/Snooze", meaning it is much more usable as a clock/radio. The manual is in English. In sum, this appears to be a very well-rounded radio in all aspects. I would definitely recommend it!

Update:

It's a few weeks now since I've had the PL-390 and still love it. In close comparisons with my Sony 7600GR, the PL-390 is somewhat more sensitive all over the MW band, and of course runs circles around the 7600GR on FM.

In answer to Brandon's question, yes the DSP bandwidths are for LW/MW/SW.  Anon-co (Ebay seller) now ships a free USB cord for battery charging!

Thanks, Kevin S:

Comments

[Paul]

Kevin,

If one already has the PL-380, what added benefits will one get from the PL-390? (in terms of performance mostly). Are any such benefits actually noticeable?

Thanks
Paul

[Tom Welch]

Does having a 2nd speaker on this DSP radio improve the sound quality?

[Kevin S]

In answer to Tom's question, they added a second speaker like the one on the PL-380, so the sound is fuller, and FM is in stereo. It's not very big on bass, so it's not going to be an audiophile's dream, but it is better than the PL-380.

Per Paul's questions, sensitivity on all bands is better (LW, MW, SW and FM) over the PL-380, LW and MW especially - very noticeable for listening and DXing without an external antenna. FM is more sensitive on the low end of the band with the much larger (and quite sturdy) 35" whip antenna, making it probably the best portable FM DX receiver even made(?), but the PL-380 is not that far behind. SW is perhaps the least noticeable improvement, but the difference is there. Selectivity is the same as the PL-380 - same DSP chip after all.

I like the PL-390's mp3 input, better/bigger key layout, and a nice loud alarm and large snooze button for traveling. The hets/tones on MW are less pronounced, apparently because there is more signal coming from the larger ferrite which drowns the tones out (you can get rid of them altogether with a Terk loop or equivalent).

[Gary]

I hope in the next iteration Tecsun adds the ability to force a 10 kHz tuning step, rather than having to use the dual speed 1 kHz/10 kHz tuning. With the current setup, it's not possible to tune up or down one 10 kHz increment with one click of the tuning wheel.

[Antonio]

I would like to know how the shortwave in this radio compares to other DSP receivers. I live 20 km from a 600kW medium wave transmitter (same site is transmitting also 100 kW in another frequency and I have 4 additional 50 kW transmitter less than 10 km from home) and the front end of other DSP receivers becomes so overloaded from this that both any MW DX and any SW reception is completely compromised.

[RADIO TECSUN PL390 PLL]

CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN THAT MEAN AND WHAT IS "ETM", THANKS