third0f3 wrote:
Does anyone have any opinion about the Sangean PT-80 ?? It seems
interesting with its manual as well as ditigal tuning. Sangean has been
around for more than thirty years ... do they compare well with Sony ??
I've heard that Sony is getting out of the " World Band Reciever "
business. They're laying off 10,000 employees worldwide.


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The recently reported layoffs are in Sony Electronics of which
shortwave receivers are but a tiny component. Given that the both
number of shortwave models offered by Sony and the number of companies
offering any shortwave radio have both declined precipitously over the
past decade it would be no surprise to see the latest Sony 7600 be
Sony's swan song.

The Sony brand name has a tough road ahead because for decades they
promoted Sony as the maker of precision Japanese electronics and were
able to command somewhat of a premium price. Those days are gone
because every electronics company offers precision electronics now and
they are cheap. Even Sony is making many of it's products offshore in
China. So the uniqueness of the Sony brand name has all but
disappeared and they have a serious challenge to reinvent the Sony
image.

Grab those Japan labeled Sony 7600's now, because they will probably be
the last of the old Sony shortwave receivers as we know them. How
things have changed for the company that brought us the ICF-5900, 2010
and the long running 7600 series. It is ironic that their Chinese
competitor Degen is offering the successful DE-1103 which has more than
a passing resemblance to the less-than-successful Sony 7700 with the
analog LCD display.

While the 7700 was by design limited in it's coverage and therefore
interest to most SWL's, it was not released with the number of design
errors that are packaged in the DE-1103. Indeed I think it would have
been inconceivable for Sony to release such a product at the time.
That buyers will overlook such errors if the price is right is
certainly a sign of the times.