Best sound on portable radio for shortwave listening 

Thank you! I agree with you, I think the R-108 is a good choice. I don't have one, but I have heard a lot of good things about it.

I like the XHDATA D-219 also, nice sound for such a small radio.

It's a great radio for sure, very sensitive and at an unbeatable price, but I really find the sound it produces too muffled. As mentioned, probably because it has a fixed narrow band filter for selectivity. But I really struggle catching speech on weak signals coming out of this one.

Yes, it's a very nice little radio to carry everywhere! And good reception.

Thank you very much Ashu, I agree with you, there must be some bass, but not too much. The radios that I like the most have some bass, but treble sound is also good.

Thank you, and thank you for watching!

Thanks Alain, I see we almost agree on two of the radios around the top end of the list, the PL-360 and the Eton 😀 The specific model is the Eton Elite Traveler III. I know that this kind of list will always be somewhat subjective, everyone hears things differently. That is why I said in the video the final verdict is just my personal choices. I fully agree with you that the R-909 and the R9012 are probably the clearest sounding radios here. To my ears, they are just a little bit too harsh (or shrill) though, that's why I personally prefer the somewhat mellower sound of the D-109 and the Eton. But I think weak signals would probably sound good on those two small analogue Tecsuns. I think the PL-360 is kind of inbetween, very clear sound, but not too harsh. I think it is because it has a fixed bandwidth setting at around 3K, and, seemingly, a slightly better speaker than the PL-368. It is thanks to a previous comment from you that I revisited my PL-360 and eventually decided to do this comparison! I still want to compare the PL-360 and PL-368 across a variety of stronger and weaker signals, should be interesting.

It's a great radio!

I actually thought about it afterwards, I should have, perhaps, added one of the bigger radios as an anchor. But I intend to do another test like this on MW, I will use a bigger radio then also, as a kind of benchmark. I think the D-808 is quite clear and I like it, but it is not my personal favourite for sound. It is one of my favourites for DXing though 🙂

Looking forward to a Medium Wave comparison. I'm curious if you can catch something on Long Wave in your part of the world. Perhaps Algeria.

@@j7ndominica051 I have tried to catch LW broadcasts many times, specifically Algeria, but no luck yet. The only LW signal I have picked up so far was a beacon in Cape Town.

Yes, I agree about the D-219, I think it would have sounded better with 3 kHz bandwidth filters. It does still sound quite good, for such a small radio. The D-808 did not deliver, I agree. Not the best sound on that one. Overall, the Retekess is really quite a nice little radio for what it is, the sound when you play music is actually quite nice.

@@StratmanII thanks for the insight! any DSP radio you would recommend? i have yet to find one that really sounds pleasing to me. i recently got gifted a sony icf7600d which size wise is comparable to my degen de1103. both are pll and even though the degen sounds ok, the sony is in a different league sound wise.

@@StratmanII budget is of course as cheap as possible ;) d-808 price range is fine. full on dsp features with good sound i what i am looking for. there are some amazing sounding vintage radios in that price range. i am fairly happy with the icf7600s sounds. just wish it had more filters and a better scan function

@@StratmanII hahaha thanks mate, i was guessing that it would be impossible in that price range. am listening to the old icf-2001 right now... it has all the flaws PLL radio can have, but it sounds great. size matters!

@@StratmanII yes i got one! :) i was lucky to buy it from a technician who took very good care of it. it is missing the strap, but other than that it is nearly mint condition. it sounds great but to be honest everything seems to be working much much better on the 7600. the 2001 is very noisy, i think they did not isolate it at all. but it is ok on shortwave and fine on fm, just wish it had a narrower filter. it does not get many station, but i am also not going to modify that thing because of the condition. MW is a mess: the ferrite antenna is not along the width of the radio but along the height (kind of in line with the volume and eq adjustment), which makes it pretty ackward to position. also the whip antenna is still active when in the MW band, which is weird and i think adds to the noise. very hard to use in urban condtition on mw. but when it's good, it's good i mainly use it for the few FM shows i listen to and to listen to the local SW stations we have here in the 49m band.

I like the sound on the R-909 very much, in my opinion usually much better than the R9012.

It sure does!

I think for analogue, the R9012, for DSP-based, the D-109. But that's only based on the ones I tested here. The Kenwood R1000 and, of course, the Tivoli Model One, have better sound, but not tested here. For DSP-based the Tecsun ICR-110 has spectacular sound. But not included in this test, because it does not have SW.

@@swlistening Yeah, those 2 aren't portables. Is there a top 5 you would say for each category? If so, I would like to know. Also, which place does the PL368 go in, just out of curiosity?

@@FamtechVideos I don't really have a top five right now. To me they are all quite OK, with a few that jump out, the ones I mention at the end. The others, if I were to grade them, are all between 65% and 74% 😀

@@StratmanII Sounds like the PL-680 that I have had my eye on for some time 😀 But even when, one day, I do get a PL-680, for my channel I will always use a variety of radios when DXing. I like to show how good the ultralights, as some DXers like to call them, can actually be.

@@swlistening How interesting. So I was thinking, for DSP, if you had the Eton Elite Traveller, Retekess V115, Tecsun PL360, Tecsun PL368, XHDATA D808, XHDATA D219 and XHDATA D109 in a list, where would they go? For analogue, where would the Tecsun R9012, Tecsun R909, as well as the Tecsun R808 go (You didn't showcase it in this video)? Edit: Fixed a spelling error, I guess I almost swore on a RU-vid comment, good thing I fixed it quickly.

Hi Ronan, I think I prefer some of the other radios for sound, like the D-109 and the Eton Elite Traveler. To my ears the D-808 is not the best. But it is a very subjective topic :-)

I wish I could get hold of one of those radios. Are they still sold on the second-hand market in Eastern Europe? I will be in Eastern Europe on holiday in December, maybe I can try to look for one. Where would be the best place to look?

@@swlistening There are many these radios in czech republic, im mainly buying they on Sbazar, Bazoš, Aukro and facebook marketplace. And 639 kHz is still not on, and they changed power (previously planned 50 kW, now only 20 kW). They will turn it on 1.10, but i dont belive they,

@@RalphCZ Thank you, I will have a look there. I think I mentioned to you before that I will be in Slovakia, so I will look at online marketplaces there. I will be interested to hear when 639 kHz does turn on.

@@swlistening company that are running that transmitter is lazy, they dont want to run it. they mainly want to destroy all of them to give money.

@@swlistening Best of these radios is maybe Selena B211 (Okean B209 and Gorizont 219 is same), i have one, but it does not work on battery for me.