With Radio Peking long gone and since Radio Moscow has been dismantled, The Voice of Korea, that is North Korea, has become our favorite station for traditional style Imperialist bashing and Communist rhetoric all presented with a “modern interpretation of Marxism.” After all, isn't this why we listen to shortwave?
The objective word here is listening. First and foremost we listen to shortwave and the Grundig Transistor 865 wins hands down versus, for instance, the often touted Sony TFM-8000W. At first glance the TFM-8000W feels a bit more selective. This is due to its excellent tuning mechanism and inclusion of a simple “fine tuning” control. The Grundig's tuning mechanism is a bit more coarse and balky reminiscent of a Zenith TO. The Grundig requires a deft hand to tune, more rocking back and forth. Once tuned though it really locks onto stations, better than any of the TOs in our experience.
The Grundig's audio superiority becomes apparent once one is actually listening to program content. Its rich full audio provides headphone style clarity but with a room filling volume that is felt in addition to being heard. The audio is reminiscent of listening to a local FM station on a good stereo. Speech is very intelligible and when listening to music you will hear mid-range and bass tones that are simply dropped and ignored by the Sony. The Grundig has a push/pull switch on its lower right front panel that enables/disables a separate tweeter.
If your objective is to tune up and down the bands simply trying to identify as many stations as possible then you may appreciate the Sony's vernier tuning mechanism. If you halt tuning to listen to and interpret the speech and music then the Grundig is the only way to go. It entertains.
The poor audio quality of current production tiny hand held shortwave radios must be partially responsible for shortwave's apparent death spiral. High quality audio is being transmitted. It's your choice now as there are currently available on Ebay examples of both the Grundig Transistor 865 and the more common Sony TFM-8000W .
"High quality audio is being transmitted. "
YES ! I though it was only me and my radios but yes in some SW stations I can hear the SW audio is much better than AM Audio with bass and treble much richer... I though this was due to the quality of my radios but I see somebody else is reporting it. Some radio station like the VOZ EXTERIOR DE ESPAÑA have an excellent audio. By the way did I say that the Panasonic RF-2200 is one of the best for SW ?
Posted by: Huesby | March 28, 2011 at 12:50 PM