Good receiver for AM on Ham Bands?

[Steve - K4HX]

I guess we disagree on what is plug and play.    There is also a big difference in sold on-line and sold at a hamfest. I find most eBay offerings a poor value when any sort of bidding occurs.

Anyway, I cannot recommend to the original poster to pay $1000 for a SP-600. As I see it, he's trying find a good receiver for AM. From the posts in this thread, it is clear that there is not anything approaching a consensus (not surprisingly). So, if he is to find out for himself, he'll need to buy a number of receivers and try them. Paying top dollar isn't the best value approach. It would be better to get a number radios in good working condition (not perfect or restored) for a lower price. If there are some he doesn't like, he can easily get his money back by selling them. If he finds one he really likes, and if so inclined, he can take the time or spend the money to resto as needed.

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Look at these articles: 

http://www.amwindow.org/tech/htm/slabrxreview.htm
http://amfone.net/ECSound/JNRECS.html

My choice:  the Hammarlund SuperPro (pre-SP-600) - SP-10, SP-100, SP-200, SP-400, BC-779, BC-1004

Ditto.

And since Ken specifically mentioned Fidelity, I'll third it! There are a few others out there that sound decent, like the SX-28, NC-240D, NC-183D etc, but the Super Pros (not including the 600) are at the top in my book too.

As far as SP-600 prices, $250-$500 seems about average for a decent, working unit. Original cabinet can add value if the buyer is interested in such things. It's a reasonably good receiver for what it is, and quite common. Online prices and real world(not online) prices do vary considerably. The difference is between what you are likely to find locally or at hamfests you travel to, from friends, Craigslist, etc, or buying online where you have to compete with far more parties. Doesn't mean they're worth more, just that one forum provides the possibility of higher visibility, bidding wars and so on.

And it shouldn't be any surprise that paying someone else to do your work for you would cost more. Still doesn't change the overall value beyond that example. No different than buying a car to restore or one already restored by someone else. If you have a vested interest in making money from it, you'll always support the higher selling price.

[w3jn]

Sorry Steve, I understand what you are saying, but your are incorrect. The last three SP-600's that sold online sold for over $600 & some others at $900. This is not speculation or guesses on my part. It's my business.

  The last three I see in the ebay completed listings went for $250, $430, and $1656, which seems to reinforce Pete's point. 

In my experience, you have as much chance of buying something online that doesn't work as at a hamfest, despite what the seller tells you.  However repairing the thing is often its own reward.

[W2VW]

What I will tell you is the SDR is probably the best fidelity option out of the lot. Now Dave, W2VW has his SDR's mixed up. The one I referred to is the Soft66LC2, which is not a "Softrock", but instead a complete receiver with its own front end. You do not have to use another radio's I.F. stage.

John, W2WDX

Yes I do have some of the names mixed up 

I still like to use the SDR with the ricebox as a front end even if it plays alone. Just easier for me.

Used to use a pair of R390A I.F. strips married to the ricebox too. I like cables.

[N6YW]

What I will tell you is the SDR is probably the best fidelity option out of the lot. Now Dave, W2VW has his SDR's mixed up. The one I referred to is the Soft66LC2, which is not a "Softrock", but instead a complete receiver with its own front end. You do not have to use another radio's I.F. stage.

John, W2WDX

Yes I do have some of the names mixed up 

I still like to use the SDR with the ricebox as a front end even if it plays alone. Just easier for me.

Used to use a pair of R390A I.F. strips married to the ricebox too. I like cables.

"I like cables" 

[K5UJ]

has there ever been a program at NEARFest where you all get around 10 vintage receivers in a room and conduct an audio quality demonstration?

I'm sure there'd be no problem rounding up several of the well known AM receivers for a side by side comparison.  In my opinion that would be one hell of a program and far more interesting than someone droning along about antenna modeling software or propagation.
of course you need a test signal source but in the northeast that should not be a problem.   Have the demonstration timed to take place during an AM net.  Any ham like me who will never be able to own and try dozens of receivers would love to be able to listen to some of them side by side without having to buy them.  I bet that would be SRO.

[K1JJ]

I was selling one for $300, plug and play.

Yep, I KNOW that SP-600 was a plug and play receiver cuz it was mine before I traded it to Steve towards an FT-1000D SS amp module. I replaced about 40 caps, aligned it and used it for 7 years - up until the swap.  Steve let it go for a very fair price. Actually the guy got quite a bargain.  

Why did I get rid of it? Replaced it with an HPSDR 160-6M rig.  No more commercial boat anchors in the shack - but plenty of homebrew BA's ...  

T

[Jim, W5JO]

Most receivers and I say most, even single ended versions, can have good fidelity provided the reproducer is capable of the frequency response.  Today a good quality reporducer for mid band is difficult to find in the 8 or 10 inch size.  That is for a reasonable price.

[N6YW]

Most receivers and I say most, even single ended versions, can have good fidelity provided the reproducer is capable of the frequency response.  Today a good quality reporducer for mid band is difficult to find in the 8 or 10 inch size.  That is for a reasonable price.

You can find wide range speakers between 8" to 15" inches for a reasonable price. The Jensen Mod series speakers are inexpensive. Also, Celestion makes a lower priced line of speakers that would work perfect for this application. These can be found at Antique Electronic Supply.
 A coaxial speaker would be the real game changer, and those made for car stereo systems can be had at bargain prices, and can handle the power easily. Craig's list can be useful for finding them.
I once took a 6X9" Jensen coaxial car stereo speaker and mounted it in tuned port enclosure to use with my HQ-129X. I was thrilled at the sound that issued forth. Huge difference from the stock 10" general purpose speaker that was in the Hammarlund cabinet.
Here is a real bargain. These little KLH 2-way bookshelf speakers that are found at Costco or Sams Club, are like 20 bucks each or for the pair. I don't remember which. They sound fantastic for the money and produce a rich full spectrum sound field. Go to a local second hand thrift store and you are likely to find stereo system speakers for dirt cheap. Sometimes, the foam surround on the woofers has deteriorated. Easy fix. You can buy replacement surrounds and glue them on yourself without having to recone the entire speaker.
Because I am a professional guitarist and build guitar amplifiers for a living, I use speakers that are tailored for the guitar. Well, guess what? The sound spectrum that is most desired for guitar falls right in the area where communications speakers are most useful, between 200hz to 4khz, with a useful bump in the upper mid range. This is where we get "articulation" in both speech and music. So, a guitar speaker like the Jensen Mods that I referred to is ideal for this. Wire in a tweeter with a proper crossover capacitor and you're better still. My amplifiers use the ultra sensitive Celestion Alnico Gold's and are prohibitively expensive for this application but would certainly blow your mind if hooked up to your radio set.
If you want to keep your present vintage speaker cabinets in service, then just remove the old speaker and box it up for safe keeping. Install a more efficient modern replacement and kick back and enjoy the sound.
Also worth mentioning, are the newer family of Neo Dymium magnet equipped speakers being made today. They are super efficient, plenty loud and better yet, LIGHT WEIGHT!

[N6YW]

For example from my last post:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Jensen-MOD8-20-20W-8-Replacement-Speaker-8-ohm-/190598575818?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c608f76ca
And here:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/KLH-970A-Main-Stereo-Speakers-/280781966529?pt=Speakers_Subwoofers&hash=item415fe8ccc1
And if you really want to go top shelf:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Tannoy-System-1000-/160690104544?pt=Speakers_Subwoofers&hash=item2569e068e0
This Tannoy is a concentric (coaxial) two way speaker that is spectacular to listen to. It is also a time aligned speaker meaning that the tweeter and woofer are designed such, that the highs and lows arrive at the listening position at the same time. This greatly helps hearing coherence.

[Pete, WA2CWA]

I generally find "high fidelity" type speakers annoying to use for listening on short wave or ham bands. Nothing like high fidelity buzzes, pops, static crashes, adjacent frequency QRM, and assorted other atmospheric garbage to rattle your teeth and nerves. I find headphones the most enjoyable plus I can monitor myself when I'm transmitting. I leave the speakers for Frank, disco, and good jazz.

[N6YW]

I generally find "high fidelity" type speakers annoying to use for listening on short wave or ham bands. Nothing like high fidelity buzzes, pops, static crashes, adjacent frequency QRM, and assorted other atmospheric garbage to rattle your teeth and nerves. I find headphones the most enjoyable plus I can monitor myself when I'm transmitting. I leave the speakers for Frank, disco, and good jazz.

Frank Zappa or Frank Sinatra?

[Jim, W5JO]

Please excuse this old man but those bookshelf or computer speakers don't cut it for me either.  The sound is tinny and hollow.  I have one similar in a Icom SP 23 that has the filters built in.  Sound is not at all good no matter what button I push.  As for the Jensen, I didn't see the frequency response published with it.  I have looked all over for one that is good from ~ 50 to 6-7K and the prices for the only one line Jensen makes is over $100.

I can buy a case of whiskey for that amount and not care about sound.  Most reasonably priced (below $50) 8 and 10 inch speakers I have found cut off at about 4K, way too bassey for guys who use audio compression, equalizers and such.  I have an R 46 that had a bad speaker and one of my students brought me a speaker like the one on ebay.  It is not comfortable listening.

[K6JEK]

I generally find "high fidelity" type speakers annoying to use for listening on short wave or ham bands. Nothing like high fidelity buzzes, pops, static crashes, adjacent frequency QRM, and assorted other atmospheric garbage to rattle your teeth and nerves.
...

Pete,  I'm with you.  I never thought I'd use it but I often do, a Sounds Sweet speaker.  It's claim to fame? lousy high frequency response. I switch to a mid-fi (Boston Acoustics) speaker when I can but I often find myself using the Sounds Sweet. http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/2754

PS: You know you're losing it when you read a review, agree with it and discover you wrote it.

[Pete, WA2CWA]

I generally find "high fidelity" type speakers annoying to use for listening on short wave or ham bands. Nothing like high fidelity buzzes, pops, static crashes, adjacent frequency QRM, and assorted other atmospheric garbage to rattle your teeth and nerves. I find headphones the most enjoyable plus I can monitor myself when I'm transmitting. I leave the speakers for Frank, disco, and good jazz.

Frank Zappa or Frank Sinatra?

Sinatra of course. 

[kb3rdt]

Here my NC-300 with some mods done by WA3JS

[The Slab Bacon]

I generally find "high fidelity" type speakers annoying to use for listening on short wave or ham bands. Nothing like high fidelity buzzes, pops, static crashes, adjacent frequency QRM, and assorted other atmospheric garbage to rattle your teeth and nerves. I find headphones the most enjoyable plus I can monitor myself when I'm transmitting. I leave the speakers for Frank, disco, and good jazz.

Ya know, there is something to be said for this. (for a rare change, I actually somewhat agree with Pete) Limiting some of the high frequency response in a receiver's audio is not always a bad thing. A lot of hiss, crackle and background noise can be a bit fatiguing after a while. Limiting the highs without causing the mid bass to sound muddy can be a good thing at times.

I have an old military receiver, IIRC it is a RBS. It has very specific bandpass filters in the audio section. IT IS NOT HI-FI. But it is the quietest receiver I have ever used. You hear little or no background noise, but the incoming voice just leaps out at you. Sometimes on noisy, crappy nights, it can be a real pleasure to listen to. With all of the hiss and static filtered out of the audio, sometimes you wind up checking to see if it is still running.
I wouldn't want it as my only receiver, but sometimes it is a real pleasure to listen to. It somewhat reminds you of listening to FM.

However, Pete..........................I hate headphones and trying to listen to myself through headphones drives me NUTS! ! ! ! ! 

[Pete, WA2CWA]

Ya know, there is something to be said for this. (for a rare change, I actually somewhat agree with Pete)
However, Pete..........................I hate headphones and trying to listen to myself through headphones drives me NUTS! ! ! ! ! 

[Steve - K4HX]

How many highs could there be with an IF bandwidth of 6-8 kHz?

No need to bring the speaker into. Any cheapo speaker will be FB at 4 kHz.

[N1KK]

Thank you for this information.
It does sound interesting and for the price it's affordable just to play
with. 
Setting the audio aside, what's the negative of this SDR.  Not comparing
it in this case to a tube radio but the technical performance against
all Ham Radios. Sensitivity, overload, selectivity, etc. 

Since you restore the oldies, how would you rate the tube receivers
you worked on

Have you ever worked on a 75S-1.  I have one, believe it or not
it was at my local dump and one of the workers gave it to me,
I cleaned it up and checked all the tubes with just an Emission checker
tube tester.  All the Tubes checked good but I noticed the sensitivity
is way down on 15 and 10m compared to my IC-735/IC-746. 
I use an Ameco PLF-2 Preamp on 15/10 and it brings it very close to the Icom's
in sensitivity.  On 80,40,20 sensitivity seem fine.
I don't know what to expect for this receiver. Could be normal for
low sensitivity on 15 and 10m.

Ken
N1KK

Ken,

I restore old tube receivers for a living. I have a Collins 74A-2a on the bench right now along with a Hallicrafters HT-37 transmitter, and a Collins R390a in waiting. I know most of the radios mentioned here inside and out. I'm listening on an SP-600 and an HQ110a right now.

What I will tell you is the SDR is probably the best fidelity option out of the lot. Now Dave, W2VW has his SDR's mixed up. The one I referred to is the Soft66LC2, which is not a "Softrock", but instead a complete receiver with its own front end. You do not have to use another radio's I.F. stage.

Here's and image of the board for this SDR which comes full assembled and tested. It comes with a little case that you have to cut some holes in for the connectors and LED.

It has an SME antenna input, a USB port, and an audio line out. It is powered by the USB port (FYI: It doesn't seem to have the ground loop problems or RF hash problems reported on other SDR's using USB). All you need is a decent stereo audio card and you can have whatever bandwidth filters you want 22k, 6k, 9k, 25k 41k ... it just depends on the sampling rate of your sound card and its driver. I use the M-Audio Delta 44 which works amazingly well at $150. But you can use the built in soundcards as well.

Here's and image of the board in the case (less front cover). Behind it you can see the bottom part of the software, in this case its the WinRad software.

Here's a link to a YouTube video of it working. Mind you its a Japanese Ham, but you can see how it works here. The radio in the video is the version just before the 66LC2, called the 66ADD. The Soft66LC2 is the current model. Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_9UUkptQwM&feature=player_detailpage

You can use WinRad software to control this and it is simple to use. You get a visual display of the band. and you can see the spectral display of the signal your listening to on that. I believe there is a way to use the Flexradio (PowerSDR) software but I haven't figured that out yet on this SDR. (BTW, Has anyone tried that yet with this SDR?)

You can purchase it directly from Kazunori Miura, JA7TDO at his website via PayPal. The fully assembled unit which requires only the holes in the case is $118 including shipping. The link to his site is http://zao.jp/radio/order/#soft66ad

As far as how it sounds relative to a old tube radio, its much clearer. And since you can see the signal, you can contour the filters to match the signal your trying to receive. And you can use Synchronous Detection to help reduce fades. It's really cool. It's just not Vintage!

John, W2WDX

[The Slab Bacon]

Always remember that receivers are like Jello, there's always room for more!

      

[WA3VJB]

Have you ever worked on a 75S-1.  I have one, believe it or not
it was at my local dump and one of the workers gave it to me,
Ken
N1KK

Hi Ken, I don't have much interest in the junior Collins models like the 75S because my operating emphasis is on AM.  I have a 51S-1F that works well on 10 meters AM, and it is a nice tabletop receiver. But I wouldn't have gone out and bought it, having come my way sort of like your 75S.

So unless it's taking up space or tying up some money you could use toward one of the senior Collins models, just keep it around and use it for CW or other voice modes that it was tilted toward.

[KB2WIG]

"  PS: You know you're losing it when you read a review, agree with it and discover you wrote it. "

I'd worry more when I start to disagree with myself.


klc

[Jim, W5JO]

How many highs could there be with an IF bandwidth of 6-8 kHz?

No need to bring the speaker into. Any cheapo speaker will be FB at 4 kHz.

Speakers for what I want should be 250 C - 8 Kc.

[Steve - K4HX]

Then just about any speaker will do.   

If not, just add the right cap(s).

How many highs could there be with an IF bandwidth of 6-8 kHz?

No need to bring the speaker into. Any cheapo speaker will be FB at 4 kHz.

Speakers for what I want should be 250 C - 8 Kc.