I doubt it!
Nothing has knobs on it anymore but ham radio stuff.
They will go to touch screens and so on, like all the new cell phones, etc.
yeah, then after that they will go out of business. Too many buzzards like me still around who won't buy a rig with nothing but a touch screen.
To get a really good display of the spectrum, which is a very useful tool, it would be very hard to go back to being blind, you need a screen, a nice hi res 22 inch monitor is stunning with the sdr radios.
Some little crap screen is almost useless, and not having one is unthinkable after using any sdr.
Really. I've used a flex radio and been quite happy to go back to my old technology, "being blind" as you put it. Why? Two reasons: 1. My stuff works every time. No surprises. I won't name names but I know a few Flex owners who can't say that. 2. When I'm in a QSO I want to only do one thing--listen to what the other op is saying. All that stuff on the screen of a Flex Radio is just a distraction to me. I find it a nuisance.
I have no problem at all with the flex 5000 performance, even if its old tech.
Its good enough to be 3rd on the Sherwood list which is not bad from a raw performance standpoint, plus all the fantastic features none of the other radios on the list even have...
I don't know from lists. But all these rx spec rankings mean nothing to me. Usually a hot rx means that someone pw calling me will be barely audible instead of in the noise which is what I prefer. As a social operator I just want a ragchew and I don't care if the other ham is in Indiana or India as long as he is armchair copy.
Rob