Kevin Reports Strong Performance on His Black Tecsun PL-390 in an Excellent Review

(Re-post)

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!

Thanks, Kevin S:

Comments

[Keith Rennie]

Kevin,
Couldn't have said it better.
The 390 is amazing.
Huge antenna compared to the others.
The logical positioning of the "Snooze" button makes it a natural for traveling.
It's a "brick" even with the antenna extended.
Thanks again for the great review.

[brandon]

Thanks for the review - I've been wanting to get a DSP radio for a while now, I just wish somebody would make one with bigger speakers than this. But performance-wise sounds great, as soon as one pops up in a bigger speaker radio, I'm buying it. Also a quick question - does the bandwidth (1/2/3/4/6khz) work on just AM or does it work on shortwave as well?

[Paul]

New: Uniden Homepatrol Scanner:

http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/scanners/0738.html

[Blake]

Does this radio have the annoying beeps that you can't turn off like the Grundig 750 which is also made by Tecsun. I have been using my 750 as a clock radio but using it at night but because of the beeps it is understandably a problem when my wife is trying to sleep. I thought about using the PL390 instead as long as the operation is quiet. Thoughts?

[Jeffrey McMahon]

I'm very tempted by this radio, but I wouldn't get it unless it had an AC adapter.

[Kevin S]

Hi all:

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. And Jeff, Anon-co (Ebay seller) now ships a free USB cord for battery charging!

[Pablo]

Great radio, I have mine since 1 month and enjoy it a lot except for the common problem with the digital volume setting (very high at lowest level) and the overall sound, dull and insipid compared p.e. with the Kchivo D96L

[Gary]

Blake - Depending on your version of the Sat 750, you may be able to disable the beeps via an undocumented keystroke sequence at power up. See the Yahoo Satellit-750 group for details.

[Gary]

(from Yahoo Satellit-750 group, message #1148)

to turn off the beep:

power off the unit.

power-on the unit THEN press 0 for 3 seconds it should turn the beep off.

-----------

(someone else commented that it might be closer to 5 seconds)

Apparently this only works with a newer version of the Sat 750. For the early ones, some folks on the Yahoo group have disassembled the radio and physically crushed the beeper. Why they released any units that can't have the beep canceled via firmware, I have no idea.

BTW, on the PL-380 the beep can easily be eliminated. I suspect the PL-390 is the same.

[Gary]

Jeff - A 5-volt cell phone charger with a mini USB connection can power the PL-380 (or PL-390). I use a BlackBerry charger with my PL-380. Unfortunately, since cell phone chargers are typically "switching" power supplies, they generate a ton of hash on the AM broadcast band. These are best used only to charge the batteries but not to power the radio while listening. I haven't seen a "linear" power supply on any recent cell phone charger, as this presumably violates some energy efficiency laws. Unfortunately, many devices that are energy efficient create electrical noise that is noticed on AM.

[jeffrey McMahon]

Thanks, Gary. I think I'd still prefer the simplicity of an AC adapter.

[Max]

One question, the G8 I'm looking at will turn on the display light when tuned, will this PL-390 do that?