Steve Evaluates the Good and the Bad on the Grundig S350DL

 

 

It sounds like Steve might be ready for the upgraded Grundig S350DL, the S450, due hopefully in Februrary of 2011. Steves writes:

A few months ago I purchased a S350DL from my local Radio Shack for the $100 street price.

I didn't have good luck with the first one. The tuning mechanism failed after just a few weeks; it would tune up when you tried to go down, and vice versa. I had been using it a lot, but was gentle with it. Fortunately I was still well within the return period and took it back for a replacement.

That was some months ago, and radio #2 is still doing well. I am still very gentle with the tuning knob, though...let's face it, these things aren't exactly built like tanks.

As far as performance, I use mine mostly indoors, and it does reasonably well. There are serious imaging problems on the shortwave bands, with some frequencies bleeding into other ones. It's tolerable though, and the sensitivity is quite good for a $100 radio (I managed to pick up, in the middle of the afternoon, a broadcast of Koran readings from Saudi Arabia that was aimed at western Europe...this little sucker really can DX!) AM is very good; I'm in Tampa and can get nighttime broadcasts from as far away as Nashville, Cincinnati, and Chicago. FM is good as well, althouh I have experienced imaging on this band as well.

I wish Grundig/Eton would fix the imaging problems, slap sturdier knobs on it, and re-market it. I know I'd be willing to pay more for an upgraded version. As much as I like to radio (it looks great), the flimsy tuning knob bugs me.

Comments

[Steve]

If I'd known you were going to put my comment on the front page, I'd have fixed those type-o's, haha!

I just learned about the ( mythical?) existence of the Grundig 450 on this very website. Okay, I guess I should've done a little homework before plopping down $100 for the 350! Chalk one up to impulsiveness, I suppose.

I'll probably buy a 450 anyways, and man I hope they made that tuning knob sturdier...I can't help but wonder whether the 450 having digital synthesized tuning will siginificantly alter its performance relative to the 350 (I can't see how it wouldn't.)

[S Patrick]

My problem with the 350 has been it's overloading, even with the gain turned all the way down if using any antenna except for the whip. I've also had to manually repair my 350 twice by taking it apart and tightening the bands around the tuner. The worst example is when WYFR is booming on 5950khz in the afternoon, and it shows up EVERYWHERE in the receiver. Makes it impossible to enjoy other stations. The images are bad with the 350 but it really only affects a few stations.

I keep mine in the garage now, it's got a good sound and a good FM radio. It's okay on DX AM, and subpar on shortwave DXing in my opinion because of the above.

I'm very much interested in the 450, as long as it doesn't suffer from the overloads and images of the 350.

[Steve]

I was listening to the local public radio station earlier this evening, and decided to extend the antenna to get better reception...the tuner responded by jumping around .3 megahertz or so, causing me to lose the signal. When I re-tuned back to the proper frequency, I found that the station had become a mess of static, with various signals heard faintly in the background. When I retracted the antenna, the reception went back to normal. Ugh. First time that's happened, and it recurred every time I repeated the above steps. Sorta disappointing.

Ah well...at least I can placate myself with fantasies of the Sony I got coming in the mail...

[Doug T.]

Since the S450 will be made by a completely different manufacturer (Redsun) than the S350 (which was made by Tecsun) we can be optimistic that it will not suffer from the many problems of the S350. Indeed, my hope is that the S450 will be more like a 2100 with a better speaker.