RadioBanter - Grundig S530 vs CCRadio plus?

In article 2004050211290116807%ldawson@beatricenecom,
says...
Does anyone have experience with both of these radios and can compare
AM/FM performance?

The CCRadio+ is very well built. It offers digital tuning with 1kHz
resolution. It is quite capable of room-filling sound. It offers five
presets for each band (AM/FM/Weather/TV). It does a decent job on the
built in antennas, but is subject to very serious overload problems when
connected to a good external antenna. The "handle" is nothing more than
a recess on the back of the radio that does not provide an especially
secure grip. (If you plan on moving it around a lot, I would recommend
getting the outrageously expensive carry case. The price is ridiculous,
but it's worth it to get a secure carrying handle.)

The S350 is also reasonably well built, though definitely not to the
same quality as the CCRadio+. (It does, however, have an excellent
shoulder strap/handle built right in.) It is an analog radio with
digital frequency display. Due to being analog, there are no presets
available. It has very good sound, probably a bit better than the
CCRadio+, but is not capable of acheiving truly room-filling sound
levels. (My test for "room-filling" is whether I can clearly hear the
radio over the sound of the shower.) The S350 can handle very strong
signals much better than the CCRadio+, though it does suffer from image
problems primarily due to it being a single conversion radio. This
doesn't show up much on MW (at least not for me), but you will probably
find images of local MW stations throughout the lower portion of the SW
band.

I don't do a lot of FM listening so I can't give you a good comparison
on that point. The FM band where I live is pretty crowded. Both radios
pick up all the local stations I listen to without any problem.

On MW it's somewhat of a toss-up. The CCRadio+ has only one filter that
is a bit too large to allow good pick up of DX signals crowded between
strong local signals. It's too bad Sangean didn't add a second narrow
filter. The narrow filter offered on the S350 makes picking up the
crowded weak signals a bit easier, though, as with most radios in this
price range, the filters have rather wide skirts and strong adjacent
signals will still bleed through to some extent. (Kiwa offers filter
upgrades for the S350 which are probably a good idea if you plan to do
any semi-serious DXing.) The analog tuning on the S350 allows you to
tune off to the side a bit and can make reception of signals crowded on
just one side a lot better. The CCRadio+ also allows this, but is
limited to a 1kHz tuning step. Usually this is sufficient, but the S350
does give a bit more flexibility in this.

IMO, the CCRadio+ is a well-constructed radio that gives above average
performance on MW. It is, however, much too expensive for what you get.
It would be a bargain at half the price, but at $160, I think there are
better values to be had. Unless you need the weather band or the TV
band, or need to listen in a noisy environment, I think the S350 offers
the better value for the money. It's as good as if not better than the
CCRadio+ on MW performance and offers SW reception as well. The SW
reception is more than a bit on the drifty side, but is adequate for
casual listening. If you think of the S350 as a good MW radio that also
gets SW you won't be disappointed.

- Jay