Jules Updates His Tecsun PL-390 Review

 

 

 

 

Enjoying this PL-390 more and more - great on all bands including LW.  Picked up a NDB from the South Pacific last night, the first of my small portable radios to provide me with distant signals on LW.  I was tuning around, hearing the usual locals, when up popped a new CW ID. Woohoo! Love it...my 'raison d'etre' in this hobby.

The ferrite rod and telescopic antenna are a bit longer than the PL-380's, but I didn't think that the difference in sensitivity would be so massive.

The PL-380 sounds very harsh as well. The PL-390 won't be winning any audiophile awards any time soon, but it has the best audio of all my small portables.

I did another outdoor test last night, pitting the PL-390 against the PL-660, as requested. Conditions were fairly good. I set them next to each other, facing the same direction, their whips (same size, don't know if the ferrite is) fully extended. I was using the auto-scanning modes on all bands but LW. I left the FM stereo off to dig out as many signals as I could. Station splatter added as a preset was counted as false.

03/12/11

MW (9 kHz steps)

1055 UTC -
PL-390: 83 + 3 false
PL-660: 21 + 4 false

1207 UTC -
PL-390: 78 + 4 false
PL-660: 26 + 1 false

FM 1100 UTC -
PL-390: 30 + 3 false
PL-660: 28 + 6 false

1208 UTC -
PL-390: 28 + 2 false
PL-660: 25 + 5 false

SW 1132 UTC -

Complete bandscan. 2300 - 21950 kHz on the PL-390, 2300 - 30000 kHz on the PL-660.

My DX touchstones are Radio Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Service - if I can make out the speech then conditions are good, as they're both low-power and far enough away.

PL-390: 133 good, 3 false. Included 3945 Vanuatu & 5020 SIBC.

PL-660: 49 good, 1 false. Missing Vanuatu & SIBC, as well as ALL of the stations above 16 MHz that were found on the PL-390.

Compared by listening; SIBC at good levels, Vanuatu just audible. PL-390 sounds strong and clear on the 4 kHz bandwidth setting. The speech sounds muddy on the PL-660 with the tone switch set on treble, and even more garbled with the tone set on bass. Put the narrow filter on and the announcer sounds like he's drowning in quicksand.

The PL-660 delivers good, clear SSB, though I find my Sangean ATS-909 better on SSB.

It eats batteries - in this 5 v radio 3000 mAh rechargeables last less than one week when in use for one to two hours per day. Full Eneloops last two weeks - they last two months in my Sangean, another battery muncher (6 v) that I use much more than the PL-660.

The scan functions are not sensitive. The cabinet rattles when the volume is increased to what I consider a medium room-filling level, not loud, rendering it unlistenable. It has the most hand capacitance of all my radios.

A loud squeal is produced when using sync detect to separate strong signals, and sync doesn't stay locked on unless you find a signal it likes - it's capricious, you just never know. Someone commented that this radio uses the same sync detect system as the Sony ICF-2010/2011D. As the original owner of a 2010 that I've used every day for the past twenty-three years (and a more recently purchased but older 2001D) I can only say that they don't compare at all. The Sony's sync detect is still the best of any radio I have with sync, by a very large measure. I haven't tried the Degen DE1106 with sync, a bit too expensive, that one...wonder if it's any good...

Final Thoughts on Side by Side Comparison

I explained in my test with the PL-660 vs. PL-390 that auto-scanning functions were used. I went back over every single station found on the PL-390 to hear how it sounded on the PL-660, if it was there at all. I mentioned that the PL-660's scanning functions aren't sensitive.

I kept a log (as always), too long to publish here. Of the 133 SW stations found during my PL-390 scan, 82 were audible on the PL-660. The rest were completely inaudible. On MW the PL-660 could not find nor tune in 35 stations that were easily audible on the PL-390. On FM they are about equal except for the fact that the PL-660 doesn't receive a distant FM station that is the only one I listen to regularly.

They are two completely different radios, and the PL-660 has never performed the way I'd hoped it would. It was the first of several purchased this year, and used the least because it's not sensitive enough and it just sounds bad. Just a personal test for fun, not scientific, your results may vary.

Jules

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Gary]

Thanks for the additional info, Jules.

I'm surprised that the PL-390 is so much more sensitive on SW than the PL-660.

I have a PL-380, and I find the audio rather shrill. I'm glad to hear that the PL-390 has better audio. The PL-380 has lots of false tones on MW AM. I understand that on the PL-390 this problem is reduced, probably due to the much longer ferrite bar antenna.

The worst feature of the PL-380 for me is that I can't listen to SW with headphones when also using a clip on, roll up antenna. For some reason, doing this seems to cancel out almost all of the signals. Stations that are clearly heard when using the roll up antenna and the speaker practically disappear when headphones are plugged in. It does this with all headphones that I've tried. It acts like it's treating the headphone wire as an out of phase antenna. Very odd.

I also own a Sony ICF-2010. I have only one radio that has a better sync detector than the 2010: my Grundig Satellit 800. The 800 also has a selectable slow AGC, which helps a lot with signals plagued with rapid fading.

[vimal oberoi]

What a comparison,it seems PL390 is a DSP wonder at it's best.

[Paul]

I don't think this is a fair comparison between the PL-390 and the PL-660 since most of your results are from automatic bandscanning. PL-390's ETM feature works differently (and better than) the autoscan feature on the PL-660. Thia gives the false impression of a more sensitive PL-390. It seems that you manually tuned the PL-660 only for 3945 Vanuatu and 5020 SIBC.

Can you please clarify? Did you compare the radios mostly based on autoscan or ETM detected stations?

A more accurate comparison would be to manually tune both radios at the same time over the same bands, and see how many stations you can detect.

[Jules]

I used the VF scan function as the PL-660 lacks ETM. I manually entered each station found with the PL-390 into the PL-660 at the same time and logged and rated what the scan and manual tuning found. I have performed several tests with manual tuning, and wanted to see if it was better at picking up stations using the scanning features. I don't use the scanning functions in normal use. I sent more detailed results to Jeff - he can post them. I'll just say that the PL-660 is comparable on FM, well behind on MW and SW. I'm off to bed...too many odd hours spent with headphones on lately and it's cold and windy out. Tomorrow I'm testing the new toy with my external antennas. 73

[Paul]

Well this is very interesting. I don't have either radio, and have been looking at both. Surprised that the PL-660 fares so poorly on SW compared to the PL-390. Thanks.

[Jeffrey McMahon]

If the 390 came with an AC adapter, I might be interested but too much fuss without one.

[Jules]

Mine came with an adaptor...depends on who you buy it from. One eBay seller even throws in a cheap IPod knockoff with your order. I like the fact that all of the Tecsun DSP radios take the same 3v USB adaptor as my Degen DE1127 - only have to pack one that way. I generally use Eneloops in my radios, and they lasted five weeks in the PL-310 with heavy use. I wonder how long they'll last in the PL-390, given the extra speaker.

I'll be packing them for a long holiday and DXpedition soon...can't wait!

[Jules]

Paul, if you're looking to buy a small, relatively inexpensive SW radio, I'd recommend the Degen DE1103. I don't love the ergonomics but it's a good, sensitive radio with full SW coverage and SSB for about 80.00 shipped. Good luck!

[Pablo]

The PL390 is a wonderful small radio in terms of sensitivity and selectivity...but there are two aspects that bother me about it: In my opinion the sound isn't great even considering the size of the radio. I've bought a dirt cheap mp3 fm radio (chinese of course) smaller than the 390 and the sound is far more pleasant. The other aspect also linked to audio is the factory setting for the digital volume, the lower setting is too loud..

[A. Black]

@Jeffrey, My Jensen 1700 universal adapter works with my Tecsun PL-660 (except you should not use universal adapters to perform in-radio recharging of rechargeable batteries according to Jensen but only to run the radio) so that adapter would likely work with the PL-390 too.

[Doug]

Jules,

You picked up 121 listenable SW frequencies on your PL-390? My god. Where do you live?

[Jules]

East coast of Australia. 133 SW stations, the vast majority (at that time of night) from Asia. The PL-390 continues to surprise: on Saturday afternoon I heard Galei Zahal (5/non-directional from Tel Aviv) loud and clear - couldn't hear it on all the others but my 2010.

[Ed S.]

I have PL 390 too, and while I thought it sounded good, I was recently given a Kindle Fire, and its 2 tiny built-in speakers actually sound better than the 390. I was amazed. Of course it is streaming Internet radio, which is usually a good clean signal to start with, but still...

[Jack K.]

Jeff - I too was very reluctant knowing this did not have a standard AC adapter, but after 8 months of use - I don't miss it. I can use this radio all day and plug it in at night to recharge, or charge during the day and listen at night.

You can easily purchase a USB charger that goes into an outlet and run it like that. (I use a Verizon cord from an old phone as well as a USB cord that will charge from my laptop.) Just saying, for under $70, this is definitely worth having around.

[Arnfinn Hystad]

The oil platforms in the North Sea has many helicopter beacon (NDB) and sometimes it can be good to he brought a listening instrument when you have tuned ndb antenna etc. These sends approximately 440 - 500khz and the question is whether some hr tested this radio to listen to ndb?