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Review on πŸ“» Discover the Superior Performance of the Sangean ATS-909X2 FM/SW/MW/LW/Air Multi-Band Radio by Christopher Bacho

Revainrating 5 out of 5

Great Radio: Portable Audio and Video

This is a great radio. I am a radio amateur and have used many radio stations including the predecessor to this one. The original Sangean 909 has always been an easy-to-use radio with lots of nice features, but it was missing a few key areas, including sensitivity. All of this has been fixed in version 2 and now this radio is a complete package of pleasant operation and excellent performance. On my first night I had already spent several hours listening to SSB on 80m, all with the built in whip. AM and FM are also great and the sound quality is very good. Update: after a few days and nights with the radio I like it even more. I was initially a bit disappointed that they didn't add a sync detector. But ECSS turns out to work impressively well on this radio. (ECSS is a fancy term for listening to AM broadcast stations in single band to eliminate audio distortion caused by signal fading). It actually works better than the sync detectors found on many other radios because the sync detector doesn't have to "snap in". Just switch to SSB when you have a weak or fading station and it will be very stable and the sound quality will be good. Update 2: I have now been able to compare this radio directly with the latest Tecsun PL-990. Here are my observations. It's all based on using the built in whip antenna.- At 49m AM PM: The signal here on the West Coast is generally weak but both radios handle it just fine. There wasn't a single station picked up by one radio that I couldn't hear on another. The sound quality is very similar. The Tecsun's noise floor is perhaps a little better and weak signals are a little more understandable. Whereas the Sangean sounds better subjectively, especially when the signals are a bit stronger. In general I would say this is a draw. I'd be happy with either - Still on 49m, listening to AM broadcast stations but switching to SSB now. For this, Tecsun has a synchronous detector mode. The first time you turn it on, there's silence for a few seconds (the sound is muted) and some kind of busy icon appears on the display. This is annoying and quickly becomes boring due to frequent switching back and forth. Once the sync detector finally turns on, the audio gets muffled and slightly distorted. Sangean has no sync mode so I use LSB directly (something like manual ECSS as described above). The sound is excellent in this mode and significantly better than Tecsun. Tecsun allows you to switch bandwidths in SSB and synch modes. Even with the largest bandwidth of 4 kHz, the sound is still dull. Sangean only provides one bandwidth in SSB mode, which annoyed me at first. But whatever bandwidth Sangean implemented here sounds very good! Next we listen to the radio amateurs on 80m SSB. Here Tecsun shows the same dull sound I observed above. Also, there is now more distortion. It seems to me that the beginning of each transmission (the first syllable spoken by the amateur) is cut off by Tecsun in the RF amplifier. This means that AGC is enabled in SSB mode and with a relatively short time constant. Not good! Sangean sounds cleaner and softer here. It has manual gain control via a small knob on the left as it should. I also noticed that the Sangean is a bit more sensitive. Listening to ham radio stations across America, I was able to follow everyone on Sangean (albeit with some difficulty for the weakest), while weak stations on Tecsun sometimes dropped out. Note that this difference was very small. In most cases, both radios worked the same way. Overall, however, this point belongs to the sangean purely on the basis of sound and distortion. I also tried the 20m ham tape during the day. The results were very similar to what I described above at 80m, except now both radios were actually equally sensitive. A few notes on the physical aspects and how these radios work: Tecsun is noticeably more compact, which is really nice! I also preferred the tuning and volume wheels on the right over the Sangean. These controls on the Tecsun are a pleasure to use, with just a thumb when needed. The volume knob on the Sangean has to be pinched between thumb and forefinger and the dial on the front works, but it's just not my cup of tea. I also found it good that with Tecsun you can always switch on the backlight of the display as you wish. On the other hand, the Sangean's buttons are larger and more comfortable to use, and the display is large. The whip antenna is bigger and much more powerful! The last element of the Tecsun whip antenna is really very weak and I almost bent it after an hour of work. You have to be very careful with it. In terms of features, the Sangean has RDS and radio range, while the Tecsun has an MP3 player and Bluetooth. It all depends on your preferences. The sound quality of both radios on VHF is very good. I haven't compared them on the AM broadcast band yet, maybe in another update. Overall, both radios are very good and I'd be happy with either, but I'd give the advantage to the Sangean.

Pros
  • ATS (Auto Tuning System) to LW/MW/HF/FM
Cons
  • Doesn't go with everything