[Boatanchors] Audio Quality Comparison

[Robert Nickels]

On 2/5/2014 7:51 PM, Rob Atkinson wrote:
> the audio quality coming from that single 6K6 output stage in the CR88.
I have to agree with you on that, Rob, plus it gives me an excuse to 
tell my AR-88 story ;-)    I got the AR-88 for "free", but had to pay 
the shipping cost from a boys school in the UK, which obviously wasn't 
anywhere cheap.    This was back in the very early days of the original 
BA List, and the seller indicated that the receiver had seen service in 
the codebreaking effort of WWII.   So, without a shred of additional 
proof, my own imagination has always conjured up a vision of it once 
being operated by the skilled ladies of Station X...feeding intercepts 
to the codebreakers that helped win the war.

But to my ears, nothing quite equals the sound from an S-20R.  Not 
because it's anything special, but because it's the first shortwave 
receiver I ever heard, and you can't un-make that initial impression.   
While I was mostly confined to using headphones to avoid annoying the 
grown-ups it belonged to, I well remember the harsh buzz of the jammers, 
shortwave channel-marker recordings, WWV (when it was still in 
Beltsville, MD), and of course hams talking on AM in their own strange 
and exciting language.

73, Bob W9RAN