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Last night, I received my Degen DE1123. My opinion of the radio follows.
For a small radio, it seems to do an adequate job of receiving the high power SW stations. FM reception is just fair. MW reception is interesting. It doesn't seem to handle high signal levels very well. This could be content-related, though. It does do a fair job on medium level signals. The strong signal issue relates to a locally generated signal from a small AM transmitter here at my shop. The transmitter sounds perfectly clear and good quality on most of my other radios (primary exceptions are the 20's model TRF radios with no ALC), but on the Degen, it's very choppy with audio levels changing constantly. This may, again, be content related. The DSP may not be able to handle the relatively wider dynamic range of my little transmitter over that of a commercial station. Setup is not difficult, but not too intuitive, either. I like the 12/24 hour clock and the switchable 9/10 KHz channel spacing on MW. SW tuning is not fast, but is helped to a degree by being able to step through the international SW broadcast bands with a push of the band button. The internal recorder is handy, but they really should have added a built in mic for the voice recorder, rather than having to plug in an external mic to the headphone jack. The audio quality with the internal speaker is, understandably, very poor. With the stock ear buds, it's worse still. I received a pair of "upgrade" ear buds with my radio, these are perhaps the worst sounding in-ear earbuds that I have ever heard. I need to dig out the $3 cheapies that I got with my Toshiba Gigabeat and see if they sound any better. ANY response under 500 Hz would be nice... The radio comes with a USB cable that supposedly will allow recharging of the included AAA NiMH batteries through the USB port on your computer. This has so far not worked for me. The computer sees the device when plugged into the USB port, and the AC/charge icon on the radio comes on, but after 18 hours, the battery level indicator remains unchanged. It does not come with an AC adapter, though one is shown in the manaul, which is written in both Chinese and English. Overall, for such a small radio, which would fit very well into a shirt pocket, it does fairly well, but don't expect it to perform like a Grundig YB400 or equivalent radio. I kind of like it, for it's size and relative utility, and for it's extended (64-108 MHz, which includes the Russian and Japanese FM bands) FM band. Not so sure it wouldn't be a better radio without the DSP, though. -- Say no to institutionalized interference. Just say NO to HD/IBOC! |
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