A friend bought a S350 for $50 at Circuit City.
After testing the the FR-200 I decided to take a
listen to her S350.
It is a POS.
The S350 has a bad drift problem, getting worse
as you go to higher freqeuncies. It does sound
good, and has good sensitivity.
The FM connector is a PAL instead of the "F"
connector that is more often found on receivers
in the USA. The FM sensitivity is OK, but
nothing to get excited over. AM/MW/BCB reception
is really good, not a GE Super-tuner, but good enough.
The selctivity on AM/SW is very ho-hum. The WIDE
is very wide and the NARROW is still way to wide.
For a first time listener, at $50 this radio
can be considered OK, but it is nowhere near as
good as a Radio Shack DX-398 for example.
She will be taking it back early next week. I was
able to trade a used DX-398 from a friend for an
unused WinTV card. She compared the S350 to our
DX-398, we both have one, and she really liked the
better selectivity the DX-398 offers.
Perhaps this is just a bad sample, and most other S350s
are decent radios, but, passed on my 1 hour listening
test of this S350 I am going to have to give it a big bad
minus. In many ways is reminds me of a Panasonic RF-2200.
But aside from a good sound, it is lacking in too many
ways to be a radio for a serious user.
The FR-200 is a much bettter radio from a stability and
selectivity viewpoint. It is easier to tune the S350,
but given the speed with which it drifts, the FR-200
is relly easier to use. Harder to find a specific
frequency, but when you find it, it does tend to stay put.
This test was made with a very stable, HP723, regulated
power supply. I suspect it will be much worse on the supplied
wall wart power supply.
Terry