Frankly the key improvement, the sync detection, honestly appears like something that could be fixed by releasing a firmware update for the 880 even if they charged some sort of upgrade fee for it I think alot of us would be interested in it as I think the 880 still is the more attractive radio with better sound, the 990 looks kind of cluttered and an sd player seems pointless without a record function. If it had a record function that actually would make this something closer to warranting its high price. SD players are kind of a mark of tacky features and usually included with cheaper receivers as something to make them seem more functional as an mp3 player. People spending this much on a receiver want to listen to international broadcasts from in many cases weak and hard to receive transmissions, not mp3s.
It's a matter of personal taste. As far as my taste goes, I prefer the looks of the pl-990x. As far as the audio goes, that's a matter of personal taste also, as I prefer more treble for the spoken word on sw, but prefer the 880's sound for fm music.
@@carlboches4090 exactly but shortwave doesn’t really have much fidelity for music. But I still like the music bc. on Radio Nacional do Amazonia. The Voice of Greece is another great example. WTWW is also good. If I really want to do this though I’ll use an external speaker system. And those rubber stoppers will get lost fast. Don’t really like to use a kickstand. Those break real fast too. The lack of a record on the SD is something of a luxury to me. Record function would be great. The 990 is calibrated very easily. Watch OfficialSWLChannel video on calibration of the 330/990.
Thanks for the review. From what I have seen from 3 or 4 recent reviews on the 990, I am not impressed. Especially when the people who have actually bought them have paid $400+ . You are spot on about the 880’s strong and weak points. The 990 seems to exceed the 880 in marginally better filters and sync. The new switch placement is desirable, but at twice the price?? And the sound of the 990 is a noticeable down grade. Again, I appreciate your review (all of them!). Keep up the good work
The PL880 has too much bass. That hurts when you’re trying to find weak, or obscure stations. A real communication receiver isn’t going to have any bass. The 990 is good middle ground. I think even my new 330 is much nicer than that 880. Don’t need all that bandwidth for shortwave. 9 is fine for MW not SW. The 880 doesn’t flip the SSB format for the ham bands; the 990 and 330 does. As far as reception is concerned, it’s a Tecsun: one is like the other. Definitely like the ETM+. It’s a huge improvement over the original ETM on some other Tecsun radios. And as far as I’m concerned, the “sync” on all those radios is a useless feature. The “sync” is really probably only an ECSS function. My only radio that the sync ever worked on was my Sony ICF 77SW.
I saw a lot of reviews, and its confusing to me: First you all guys say that the PL880 is worse than the PL660 and now the 880 is better than the 990x ?? So the 990X is more worse than the 660 ? ARE YOU KIDDING ME ??
I had the pl660 for several years, and now the Pl880, IMO the PL880 is much better than the 660. I am not a Pro, or expert, I just believe the sound, ease of use, and solid format of the Pl880 is better than the 660 which I never really warmed up to like I have with the 880. Thanks to Dan for saving me on "upgrading" to the 990x...seems like a downgrade to me...
Really appreciate the video, saved me a load of money, just proves the 990 isn't any better than the 880 which is a disaster due to poor implementation of DSP. Bad AGC issues leading to distorted sound on SSB, SYNC is bad on the 990, Tecsun should have left it in a hidden menu like the 880. I got stung on the 880 and S-8800, I won't get bitten again however, the PL-680 is a good traditional non DSP analogue radio, sounds really great and you can use ECSS because SSB performance is so good, can't do this on the 880/990. I sold my 880 and 8800 and bought the 680, really great radio. To anyone not familiar with ECSS , when listening to a LW/MW/SW station with an interfering station or noise close by you press USB/LSB, then tune the BFO until the sound is natural sounding and this interfering station can be greatly reduced or eliminated altogether, it really works wonderfully with the glorious sound and really helps to pull a weak station out over a stronger one. I've no idea why Tecsun decided that these Poor SSB issues are acceptable, they'd be better off improving a traditional superhet design but why bother ? they just release the same radios in different packaging and add media playback and call it a new radio and put "DSP" on the radio to give it that modern look lol . Shame, I had high hopes for the 990.
If we still heard in this video how ssb works in both receivers, it would be just great, but instead the author suggested that we listen to Chinese radio stations .... Awesome!)) 😂😂😂
Thanks Dan, You saved me lots of $$! The PL880 Still Rocks! If 990x had airband, and maybe weather, and line IN, iI would consider it...I will stay happy now with my PL880 and Crane SSB... Great Videos...A New Subscriber here
What camera do u use to have top quality of 480p and not at least 1080p. Good video. Good information. Thanks. I'm waiting for the 990x to come in the post.
I always look for advice on forums as to buy something or not . What I do see though is there are £4.000 radios that people don’t like and come up with faults . I am going to give the 990x a try and see how it works .
Don’t know about that explanation about the SD card. The Retekess V115 has a record option, and Tecsun does manufacture a radio with the SD record feature. So what gives?
I was raised on synch with the likes of a Lowe hf-150, Grundig/Drake (Eton E1/Satellit 800) and an AOR 7030+. Spoiled I suppose, but these radios had synchs that improved the actual fidelity and created an improved listening experience, so much so, that I could feed a stereo amp and produce a high fidelity signal that was unbelievable.. The ability of the synch to "lock" on to a sideband and actually "pull" the signal out of the way of a source of interference was magic. Granted, There were many, many more major broadcasters blasting this way so the variety was impressive. I also purchased an 880 and am still impressed with the fidelity on am (synch in this 880 seems worthless). . Not much impressed by the synch on the 990x. I would submit that the pl 660 may have the better synchronous detector of the 3 Tecsuns. Thank you, Dan, for working the radios in a very comprehensive initial testing.
Gaeill I agree 100%. Tecsuns best Sync is on the 660. I find it very curious why modern (even expensive) radios have inferior sync systems. I have an Icom 8600 and its sync is not as good as my Sony 2010 or even the Tecsun 660.
I’m curious, are there some modern portable shortwave radios that do have good sync? My Sangean does a great job of modifying the controls so the radio keeps the signal at a good constant rate. My apologies if my questions sound parochial, I’ve been interested in HAM radio and shortwave DXing for about 15 years as I bought up some nice portables. I saw that the big names that make the radios we love won’t be making higher end radios like this within a couple years. I hope I’m completely wrong though. Here’s a thought I just had, how many people still has a standard radio in their home? It’s simple to shutdown radio stations but the citizens don’t see the true picture.
I have the 880, I purchased a 990x from Amazon, tried it out for a week then sent it back. IMHO, the 880 is a way better radio, much better audio, everything else was exactly the same I didn't see the point in buying the 990x.
Awesome review. From what I saw there is limited improvement over the 880 and the high price is a show stopper for me. Thanks for your review. Do you mind if I show my viewers your review?
So why did they change the speaker? Seems like they had a real winner with the 880's audio. You'd think they would want to keep that advantage, but instead they put in cheaper parts, add a few minor "features" and kick the the price way up. However, this is a Chinese product and we're not exactly on the best trading terms right now, so I guess it makes sense.
The same noisy si4735 with a converter. But this time with an mp3 player. Is it really worth so much money? The last one of interest was the PL-660 (680). At least they could have been independently adjusted and brought to a level of decent quality. 9455 kHz would be appropriate to use to demonstrate the operation of the sync detector. What is the point of showing that it operates at a pure frequency?
This guy doesn't tell the truth the sync is completely useless horrible not fixed at all and the biggest problem with both 880 and 990 is distorted sound on ssb which he was afraid to switch to he avoided the biggest issue .if he as honest he would say buy the 660 or 680 the last acceptable models tecsun made
After being burned with quality control issues and poor reliability on several purchases of Tecsun radios, I am very reluctant to take another chance on them. I'm also not a fan of the MW performance of any of the Tecsuns I've owned.
Dan please dont forget the tecsun pl 8800 which is a great radio. Pleade compare those two . i believe you will be surprised with the results. Thank you. Ron. Z.
Poor SYNC performance is a deal-breaker for me. Other reviews seem to show large amounts of distortion on deeply fading moderate strength signals. (OffcialSWLchannel, 3 minutes past the 2hour mark of the live unboxing Sept 25, 2020)
please, i need help to decide whether to buy a TECSUN, PL 880 or PL 990X recepor ?? Is the new Tecsun worth the investment so much higher than the PL 880? thanks
x stands for export version. No x means its for the inner Chinese market. With x means its for the non Chinese world. That's all. No technical differences are known yet.
Your thougths about recording from radio to MC card made me smile. Since when will chinese people care about copyrigth? I guess they do not even have a word for that in their language.
Same dsp chip with bad agc issues on the 990 as the 880. While distortion might be reduced on the 990 its still there as is the harsh noise on sync and ssb, these dsp radios are really bad. I sold my 880 and s8800 and got the pl-680 and boy what a radio, good traditional analogue design with much better sound than the 880 and s-8800. If you're a true SW dx'er then get the 680 because you can use usb/lsb to reduce noise from a close by interfering station you can't on the 990,880 and s8800 becaue they sound so bad. Believe me, the 680 is a lot better radio with much better sound, sync that works and usb/lsb that sounds good. It would be a real shame if newcomers to the hobby thought the 880 and 990 were radios worth buying and even worse if they think that their poor sound and performance is normal.
Did we really need all the blah-blah at the beginning. Why didn't you start the test right away. We don't need the presentation, we can read the box by ourselves.
Frankly the key improvement, the sync detection, honestly appears like something that could be fixed by releasing a firmware update for the 880 even if they charged some sort of upgrade fee for it I think alot of us would be interested in it as I think the 880 still is the more attractive radio with better sound, the 990 looks kind of cluttered and an sd player seems pointless without a record function. If it had a record function that actually would make this something closer to warranting its high price. SD players are kind of a mark of tacky features and usually included with cheaper receivers as something to make them seem more functional as an mp3 player. People spending this much on a receiver want to listen to international broadcasts from in many cases weak and hard to receive transmissions, not mp3s.
It's a matter of personal taste. As far as my taste goes, I prefer the looks of the pl-990x. As far as the audio goes, that's a matter of personal taste also, as I prefer more treble for the spoken word on sw, but prefer the 880's sound for fm music.
Well said!
@@carlboches4090 exactly but shortwave doesn’t really have much fidelity for music. But I still like the music bc. on Radio Nacional do Amazonia. The Voice of Greece is another great example. WTWW is also good. If I really want to do this though I’ll use an external speaker system. And those rubber stoppers will get lost fast. Don’t really like to use a kickstand. Those break real fast too. The lack of a record on the SD is something of a luxury to me. Record function would be great. The 990 is calibrated very easily. Watch OfficialSWLChannel video on calibration of the 330/990.
UPDATE: As I found after doing this original review, the 990x has a simple re-calibrate function, similar to the H-501x and PL-330
realy best regards from saudia arabia for you dan
Thanks for the review. From what I have seen from 3 or 4 recent reviews on the 990, I am not impressed. Especially when the people who have actually bought them have paid $400+ . You are spot on about the 880’s strong and weak points. The 990 seems to exceed the 880 in marginally better filters and sync. The new switch placement is desirable, but at twice the price?? And the sound of the 990 is a noticeable down grade. Again, I appreciate your review (all of them!). Keep up the good work
The PL880 has too much bass. That hurts when you’re trying to find weak, or obscure stations. A real communication receiver isn’t going to have any bass. The 990 is good middle ground. I think even my new 330 is much nicer than that 880. Don’t need all that bandwidth for shortwave. 9 is fine for MW not SW. The 880 doesn’t flip the SSB format for the ham bands; the 990 and 330 does. As far as reception is concerned, it’s a Tecsun: one is like the other. Definitely like the ETM+. It’s a huge improvement over the original ETM on some other Tecsun radios. And as far as I’m concerned, the “sync” on all those radios is a useless feature. The “sync” is really probably only an ECSS function. My only radio that the sync ever worked on was my Sony ICF 77SW.
I saw a lot of reviews, and its confusing to me: First you all guys say that the PL880 is worse than the PL660 and now the 880 is better than the 990x ?? So the 990X is more worse than the 660 ? ARE YOU KIDDING ME ??
I had the pl660 for several years, and now the Pl880, IMO the PL880 is much better than the 660. I am not a Pro, or expert, I just believe the sound, ease of use, and solid format of the Pl880 is better than the 660 which I never really warmed up to like I have with the 880. Thanks to Dan for saving me on "upgrading" to the 990x...seems like a downgrade to me...
@@KayakMark34 😂😂😂
@@KayakMark34 tried the 660 it had weak audio.
The 990x should have airband to justify the higher price somewhat imo. Thanks for the review, appreciate it 👍
Great review, really for both Radios... tnx for taking the time to make and post this excellent video..... LM
Really appreciate the video, saved me a load of money, just proves the 990 isn't any better than the 880 which is a disaster due to poor implementation of DSP. Bad AGC issues leading to distorted sound on SSB, SYNC is bad on the 990, Tecsun should have left it in a hidden menu like the 880.
I got stung on the 880 and S-8800, I won't get bitten again however, the PL-680 is a good traditional non DSP analogue radio, sounds really great and you can use ECSS because SSB performance is so good, can't do this on the 880/990. I sold my 880 and 8800 and bought the 680, really great radio.
To anyone not familiar with ECSS , when listening to a LW/MW/SW station with an interfering station or noise close by you press USB/LSB, then tune the BFO until the sound is natural sounding and this interfering station can be greatly reduced or eliminated altogether, it really works wonderfully with the glorious sound and really helps to pull a weak station out over a stronger one.
I've no idea why Tecsun decided that these Poor SSB issues are acceptable, they'd be better off improving a traditional superhet design but why bother ? they just release the same radios in different packaging and add media playback and call it a new radio and put "DSP" on the radio to give it that modern look lol . Shame, I had high hopes for the 990.
If we still heard in this video how ssb works in both receivers, it would be just great, but instead the author suggested that we listen to Chinese radio stations .... Awesome!)) 😂😂😂
Ao passar dos anos se mantém com a mesma opinião sobre o PL 680
Thanks Dan,
a great review.
Regards from Italy.
73. Giuseppe.
Thanks
Thanks Dan, You saved me lots of $$! The PL880 Still Rocks! If 990x had airband, and maybe weather, and line IN, iI would consider it...I will stay happy now with my PL880 and Crane SSB...
Great Videos...A New Subscriber here
What camera do u use to have top quality of 480p and not at least 1080p. Good video. Good information. Thanks. I'm waiting for the 990x to come in the post.
I always look for advice on forums as to buy something or not .
What I do see though is there are £4.000 radios that people don’t like and come up with faults .
I am going to give the 990x a try and see how it works .
Don’t know about that explanation about the SD card. The Retekess V115 has a record option, and Tecsun does manufacture a radio with the SD record feature. So what gives?
I would like to know how it compares on MW, and approx. actual price.
Excellent comparison of SW.
📻🙂
I was raised on synch with the likes of a Lowe hf-150, Grundig/Drake (Eton E1/Satellit 800) and an AOR 7030+. Spoiled I suppose, but these radios had synchs that improved the actual fidelity and created an improved listening experience, so much so, that I could feed a stereo amp and produce a high fidelity signal that was unbelievable.. The ability of the synch to "lock" on to a sideband and actually "pull" the signal out of the way of a source of interference was magic. Granted, There were many, many more major broadcasters blasting this way so the variety was impressive. I also purchased an 880 and am still impressed with the fidelity on am (synch in this 880 seems worthless). . Not much impressed by the synch on the 990x. I would submit that the pl 660 may have the better synchronous detector of the 3 Tecsuns. Thank you, Dan, for working the radios in a very comprehensive initial testing.
Gaeill I agree 100%. Tecsuns best Sync is on the 660. I find it very curious why modern (even expensive) radios have inferior sync systems. I have an Icom 8600 and its sync is not as good as my Sony 2010 or even the Tecsun 660.
Hah -- right, well those classic receivers have excellent sync. I have 5 AOR 7030+, two E1s and still a SONY 2010.
I’m curious, are there some modern portable shortwave radios that do have good sync? My Sangean does a great job of modifying the controls so the radio keeps the signal at a good constant rate. My apologies if my questions sound parochial, I’ve been interested in HAM radio and shortwave DXing for about 15 years as I bought up some nice portables. I saw that the big names that make the radios we love won’t be making higher end radios like this within a couple years. I hope I’m completely wrong though.
Here’s a thought I just had, how many people still has a standard radio in their home? It’s simple to shutdown radio stations but the citizens don’t see the true picture.
Is it possible stream radio audio over bluetooth? Thanks
I have the 880, I purchased a 990x from Amazon, tried it out for a week then sent it back. IMHO, the 880 is a way better radio, much better audio, everything else was exactly the same
I didn't see the point in buying the 990x.
Hello. Is there a way to use the external antenna for Medium Wave on the PL 880? I found some conflicting information online.
Awesome review. From what I saw there is limited improvement over the 880 and the high price is a show stopper for me. Thanks for your review. Do you mind if I show my viewers your review?
utiliza qual rádio ?
i agree whith you tecsun 880 more clear then tecsun 990 and that is meaning (OLD IS GOLD)
I'd love to see the S-8800 comparison and some Ham SSB/CW. Your review was much better than OfficialSWL guy. Thanx!!
So why did they change the speaker? Seems like they had a real winner with the 880's audio. You'd think they would want to keep that advantage, but instead they put in cheaper parts, add a few minor "features" and kick the the price way up. However, this is a Chinese product and we're not exactly on the best trading terms right now, so I guess it makes sense.
Hello from Prague, can you make some comparisons test Tecsun 880 or 990 vs Sony SW100. I see SW100 box in picture😁👍🏻
Sorry I have not been able to do a comparison with SW100 yet but will try
The same noisy si4735 with a converter. But this time with an mp3 player. Is it really worth so much money? The last one of interest was the PL-660 (680). At least they could have been independently adjusted and brought to a level of decent quality.
9455 kHz would be appropriate to use to demonstrate the operation of the sync detector. What is the point of showing that it operates at a pure frequency?
This guy doesn't tell the truth the sync is completely useless horrible not fixed at all and the biggest problem with both 880 and 990 is distorted sound on ssb which he was afraid to switch to he avoided the biggest issue .if he as honest he would say buy the 660 or 680 the last acceptable models tecsun made
Hi Dan! What firmware version does your 990x have?
The 880 has better sound
Hello dan .the pl 880 has what is called a mylar type speaker system.
Sometimes those speakers are made from Kevlar fabric.
How long did the PL 990x take to arrive after purchased? tnx gain.... LM
I still use my old Sony ICF-2001D. The synchronous detection is awesome.
Жаль что не добавили подсветку клавиш.
MP3 для такого радиоприемника считаю лишним так как данный радиоприемник всё-таки предназначен для dx работы
Для dx работы никогда лишним не была возможность записать mp3 этой самой работы! Или он не пишет эфир?
Ну как сказать лишним...я на отдыхе на море своим детям на ночь включаю аудио сказки.
Судя по обзору, 880 намного увереннее принимает. Уже на 990х нацелился. Теперь сомнения...
_Is the new 9900x more sensitive to AM and SW band than PL8800._
After being burned with quality control issues and poor reliability on several purchases of Tecsun radios, I am very reluctant to take another chance on them. I'm also not a fan of the MW performance of any of the Tecsuns I've owned.
Dan please dont forget the tecsun pl 8800 which is a great radio. Pleade compare those two . i believe you will be surprised with the results. Thank you. Ron. Z.
He does in this video
Poor SYNC performance is a deal-breaker for me. Other reviews seem to show large amounts of distortion on deeply fading moderate strength signals. (OffcialSWLchannel, 3 minutes past the 2hour mark of the live unboxing Sept 25, 2020)
please, i need help to decide whether to buy a TECSUN, PL 880 or PL 990X recepor ?? Is the new Tecsun worth the investment so much higher than the PL 880? thanks
PL-680 would fit you better. Save a lot of money and get a better radio to suit your needs.
I have just bought pl-660
Yes the 660 or 680 are way better than this new distorted junk
Which one sounds better and which one receives better?
The led is number 5 key
Qual a função prática da função sync ?
Is it different to PL 990(without “x”)?
x stands for export version. No x means its for the inner Chinese market. With x means its for the non Chinese world. That's all. No technical differences are known yet.
Aqui no Brasil está caro. ainda não está acessível. 73!
I can't see much of a difference in either value or performance between the 990x and my older PL660 which has Sync Detection and a $129 price tag.
This seems to have locusts bugs breathing in it horrible noises I think the 660 is still best what about the warble distorted ssb is it fixed
Pl 900 is unreasonably expensive in Russia
What is the actual difference between the 990 & 990x?
If you go to anon-co dot com and look up the 990x they have a chart of all the differences.
@@twohandsandaradio Yes ty 990x is better latest firmware.
Sync mode on the 880 sounds like digital signal processing problems. Nasty and unusable.
Your thougths about recording from radio to MC card made me smile. Since when will chinese people care about copyrigth?
I guess they do not even have a word for that in their language.
Same dsp chip with bad agc issues on the 990 as the 880. While distortion might be reduced on the 990 its still there as is the harsh noise on sync and ssb, these dsp radios are really bad.
I sold my 880 and s8800 and got the pl-680 and boy what a radio, good traditional analogue design with much better sound than the 880 and s-8800.
If you're a true SW dx'er then get the 680 because you can use usb/lsb to reduce noise from a close by interfering station you can't on the 990,880 and s8800 becaue they sound so bad.
Believe me, the 680 is a lot better radio with much better sound, sync that works and usb/lsb that sounds good.
It would be a real shame if newcomers to the hobby thought the 880 and 990 were radios worth buying and even worse if they think that their poor sound and performance is normal.
The xhdata d08 beats out the tecsun pl880 but maybe the newer pl 990x is better then both of them
See my later review of the D-808 on SWLing Post
The PL880 has better sound, a more compact body and less weight. Yes, and sensitivity. pl990x is not a successful model.
thank you dan from saudia arabia ........ i wish you becam a Muslim becouse you are agood man
👍 Very intresting video.. THANKS
444 likes
Did we really need all the blah-blah at the beginning. Why didn't you start the test right away. We don't need the presentation, we can read the box by ourselves.
And where was SSD test ,All his stations were to low down to listen to.
Again a complaint from someone that has no content. Why don't you make some videos to suit whatever you want.
I heard a video with PL990X set on BASS on the switch was closer to 880 .