Herculodge Reader "DS" Reviews the Mysterious Sony ICFJ40

I just got my SONY ICF J40 which is a bit of a mystified beast. It is inexplicably missing from amazon and eBay (all over, not only western sites) while being well-known and perpetually produced and sold in some markets.

I had a friend of a friend buy it for me in Pakistan (US $95 in October 2013, with receipt) while on a business trip. There is also paucity of info about its performance so I thought I would put my two cents of observation here for whoever and whenever stumbles upon it with desire to buy it.

As far as I can read from the comments on the Internet, everyone gets attracted to its looks. It is not retro, it is real old design but you can buy it new. What can be better than that? It looks just the way you want it to look but it does not feel just the way you want it to feel. It is much lighter and plasticky than pictures would make you expect (unreasonable as such an expectation may be in the first place). Still, it looks good, very good, excellent. Case/cover is not leather. It looks as it is but it does not seem to be. You may not use it anyway but more about it later.

Yes, it is Made in Japan. It is obviously the main selling point in some way. It has it written on the front of the box, on the frequency scale, and it is carved in the front of the...leathery cover/case. I do not recall another procuct that so proudly rubs the place of its production in your face.

Battery life should be monstruous. It is advertised as almost 200 hours with two regular D batteries and alkalines should bring it to close to 400 hours. It takes only two batteries. It is much more convenient than fumbling with 3 or 4. It also makes it a very cheap choice. There is no AC power. Batteries or nothing.

No site, (SONY included) mentioned that it comes with earphone (mono) and "antena". It is essentially a wire that gets attached to, yet another unmentioned but important detail, a connection on the back so you can extend your antena as much as you want. It all gets neatly tucked into the battery compartment together with a shoulder strap. Shoulder strap is adjustable in some way and it is so long that you will wonder why it had to be that way. Telescopic antena does not rotate. Too bad.

There is a red "tuning" light which tells you when you are right at the station. Next to it are three smaller dots which, on the picture, look like they would light up as you approach the station. However, they are there for looks only. They do not light up at all. They are nothing but a fashion detail with no use but to look cool.

Performance on FM is acceptable but nothing to write home about. It holds frequency, it adjusts easily, and it is influenced by any source of electrical noise in the vicinity.

Performance on AM (medium, not short wave) is better and much less affected by electrical noise around you. Sensitivity and selectivity are good and you can try DX-ing if you want although this machine is obviously not meant for hobby guys.

Short wave is surprisingly good. Even without the wire antena, it works good and you can hear most of the things that you can with Tecsun PL 380. It is, of course, much harder to find the actual frequency but once you are there it holds it firmly. Scale is accurate, too. There is a "fine tuning" knob which also helps but is nothing spectacular.

Speaker is quite large, I believe some 10 cm, and it could play loud. Here is where things get less perfect. On and off is not the button but is on the volume knob making that knob used all the time. I wonder if it will start losing contact early. Having a dedicated on/off button would surely extend the life of the volume knob. With new batteries, turning volume up to maybe a third starts distorting sound. It gets loud but it gets hard to understand. Sound is also somewhat muffled when tone knob is in the middle. It is easily fixed by adjusting the tone more towards the treble. Cover/case is well-made but it is tight around the tuning knob and it is sometimes harder to dial it so you may be better off taking it off.

This radio is clearly geared for markets where people need them and not for people who want them just for the looks (like me) and mystique. Its FM performance is inferior to AM, just what you need when you are in some remote area of Middle East, Africa, or Asia (places where SONY sells them). It skips AC power as you will not have it available anyway. It takes only two batteries so it is easier to feed while batteries will last you good part of eternity. It comes with wire antena that you can stretch from tree to tree, if fairly long telescopic antena is not enough. It has a shoulder strap long enough to hang it from anywhere your arm can reach and still have it closer to yor ear level. I imagined some tree branch. It is close to perfect for such things. It is a bit expensive, though.

I hope this helps, if you are considering buying this really handsome radio. I love mine, as irrational that is.

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Comments

[Vimal]

Nice review,DS.
Good quality internal pics.can be seen here:
http://bbs.leowood.net:88/forum_read.asp?id=6543050&page=1&property=0&ClassID=0

[StarHalo]

That's kind of what I gathered from reviewing all the J40's specs, that it's a rather basic SW receiver with a bit of chrome for way too much money. Can't say we're missing out on anything by not having it available here..

[Jeffrey McMahon]

I was hoping for excellent FM. How disappointing.

[herculodge]

Thanks for the review.

[Vimal]

DS,as per review,
"Performance on FM is acceptable but nothing to write home about. It holds frequency, it adjusts easily, and it is influenced by any source of electrical noise in the vicinity.

Performance on AM (medium, not short wave) is better and much less affected by electrical noise around you."
Usually it's AM and not FM,that is affected by electrical noise around you.

[DS]

I was also a bit surprised but it is FM that gets more electric noise than AM. I do not know why but that is how it is in my apartment. Your results may vary. Maybe it is just this particular radio I have. Of note, my surroundings are as bad electrically as they get. Middle of Manhattan in New York City. However, there are many of the strong stations out here. Having said that, I was not trying to go deeper into comparision with other radios but was aiming for practical introduction to those intrigued, something I could not find on the Internet. If it helps describe FM performance better, here it is. In order for sound to be hiss-free, station to come in clear, and indicator light to light up acknowledging accurate reception, 105.9 needs antena to be extended at least by one or two parts most of the time. In comparision, SONY ICF 380, as basic as it is, does not need anything. It beats FM reception of ICF J40. It is true that 105.9 is, for some reason, trickier than som other local statios so that is why I use it for comparision. It is not matter of overload, etc. but simply does not get signal well enough. I may soon go to a little bit less dense electrical-noise area and may try the radio there. I will let you know guys.

[twitter.com/karldotcom]

Aren't the AM stations in the Middle East and Africa up to 500kW? Seems like a good radio to me. If you are worried about the D cells, you can always go the rechargeable battery route.

[Vimal]

Thanks DS for the reply.

[Sid]

Sony ICF-J40, it is very well designed(circuit) radio. Reception in AM band is very good. Ferrite rod size = 5inch and used IC Sony cxa1019p (DIP). Noise in AM band very low comparing to other radios(Panasonic RF562D, Philips DL167/40, Sony ICF18, Sony SRF18). SW reception is also good. FM reception is average.