In article ,
"mike maghakian" wrote:

In a recent receiver article, Phil of R75 fame made some negative
comments on the TT RX-340. I asked my friend who is an RX-340 expert
to comment. these are not my comments but the source is someone whose
opinion is above question on this subject. Unless you have really
used and understand the 340, you don't know what you are talking
about.

here is what he wrote me: *********************************

What is he talking about? He NEVER has tried an RX-340, or any of
the other radios he compares in his charts OTHER THAN that OVERRATED
R-75. He has his head up his ass on the following issues:

1. The RX-340, he says, has poor dynamic range. This declaration
is deceptive! In truth, the dynamic range of the 340 is excellent in
almost every aspect except in one type of monitoring condition in
which it IS poor: in VERY CLOSE-IN conditions--less than 2KHz--under
extreme duress. In those instances, yes, the d r is poor! He's
right only in these instances. Fortunately for any RX-340 user, these
conditions rarely are encountered because the filtering is superb,
the front end is excellent, and blocking is good. Here's an example
of where the RX-340's d r WILL behave poorly. Let's say you have an
RX-340. You have it attached to a high-performance, outside antenna.
You are tuned to 882 kHz trying to hear a very weak
transatlantic/transpacific medium wave signal from half-way around
the world at s3 or s4 on your meter. You are located in Eastchester
NY, only 6 miles away from 50 KW WCBS NYC on 880 kHz, just two kHz
away from the weak station you are after and they are hitting your
s-meter at 80 db over s-9. (BTW, that's a rock-crushingly strong
signal next to a weakling of a signal.) With this being the case the
340 will, very annoyingly, splatter out the weak signal and will most
likely "de-sense" for about 5 kHz on either side of 880 kHz. Not
good. So, yes, Phil is right to criticize the 340 as having poor d
r, but only under these circumstances. It is a limitation of the 16
bit DSP processor in the 340 being compromised in this aspect of
performance.

Compared to other analog radios the dynamic range specification is not
good but in practice it is OK. Keep in mind that this is a hybrid radio
with an analog front end and DSP back end so the specifications don't
translate the same as a comparison between two analog radios.

In actuality I have not come across a situation where the dynamic range
caused a reception problem.

2. Phil says the RX-340 has fair audio. Never having had any
real-world, hands on experience with an 340 he relies on a
discredited internet report by written by Jan Alverstad of Norway.
This report was discredited by REAL RX-340 owners because Alverstad
admits to not spending the proper amount of time needed to adjust and
learn the radio!! So he makes a report slamming the audio in narrow
SSB as poor when he didn't know that the AGC, the Variable IF Gain
control and the PBT MUST be "set-up" BEFORE you can recover good
audio. He would have had better results if he bothered to spend time
reading the manual. No, the 340 is not hard at all to use. It
doesn't take a lot of time to learn it. But you cannot just use it
out of the box like you can with most other radios. The first-time
340 user HAS to read the manual first--it's friggin' common sense on
a complicated, unconventional radio!! The audio, especially in SSB
is not just good, it is outstanding. Refer to Larry Magne's review in
PWBR in regards to what he calls "breathtakingly low distortion in
SSB."

The report of fair audio is absolutely incorrect in all respects. The
audio is excellent on AM and SSB. The SSB audio is the best I have
heard.

Yes you do have to adjust the radio to get good audio. No it is not
hard to set the radio up to get good audio for AM or SSB. The radio is
very straight forward to operate.

3. The SAM is fair, Phil says. In my opinion, he's right to a
certain extent. But it isn't ALWAYS fair. Most of the time, about
80 percent of the time, the SAM works well, but not as well as the
R8-B. The 340 synch quirks has been well-documented by PWBR, 340
"gurus" Albert Belle Isle and Carl Moreschi, and by myself on eHam.
And as for the remaining 20 percent of the time? The SAM is indeed
only fair. This is because when the desired signal goes into a
rapid, deep fade, the synch "lets go" of the signal causing a
disruptive clicking which grows tiresome and distracting. Using a
long hang time setting helps iron this out considerably. There is
another situation--part of the 20 percent--that causes the SAM to
misbehave. When there is an extremely, key word: extremely, strong,
nearby signal 5 kHz away from the one you are tuned to, the synch
throws a fit. It starts to "pop" and "screech" loudly. Really no
excuse for a great radio to have. TenTec failed on this. But
overall the synch is just OK. This feature is the 340's major fault;
it's ONLY major fault luckily. What redeems the 340 and prevents me
from hating it for its fair synch is that the radio delivers
outstanding manual ECSS, better than any other radio I have ever
owned. When all of the parameters are properly adjusted--PBT, AGC
speed, IF Gain setting, BW--the recovered audio is similar to the
audio of the HF-225 with its synch on and in the HiFI mode.

The sync does lose lock on rapid deep fades. If you are in the side
band selected sync mode you can get some pop-ing noise in the audio on
rapid deep fading condition but not in DSB sync mode. Fiddling with the
AGC functions can help.

I never had a nearby station cause the sync to squeal.

The sync is satisfactory 95% of the time.

4. The internal speaker is poor. No qualms here, he's right. But
big ****ting deal. Who wants to use a small 3" top-firing speaker on
a $4,000 radio? Put a REALLY good speaker on the 340--I use and LOVE
the Sounds Sweet--and you'll be happy.

The internal speak is convenient to use when moving the radio around.
No the sound is not great but it is OK. I just use a Sony book shelf
speaker or headphones with the RX-340 same as I do with the Drake R8B
and the AOR7030+ I own.

5. The display, Phil says, is fair. WHAT??? The display is a thing
of beauty. The readablitlty is great; the S-Meter is very large and
pleasing and esay to read and is professional and accurate. The
contrast/brightness is fully adjustable. The read-out is HUGE. Why
does he say that the display is fair? He never sat in fron of a 340
so where does he get his info from?

The display is great with all functions shown at the same time, it
looks good, and is easy to read at a distance. My only gripe is that
they used a bulb for the S meter that can and did burn out. I replaced
the bulb with LEDs and that problem is solved.

Phil, not having any hands-on, real-world experience using an 340,
takes ANECDOTAL information from PWBR and on-line reviews and
publishes them out of context. This is the most egregious thing to
do when claiming to be writing a review of receiver performance
specs. It is a disservice to the hobby!

Quoting bad information on the web and not using the radio himself
makes for a lame pointless review.

I've own this radio for years now and am very happy with it. I don't see
the price going down on it either.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California