[Premium-Rx] Help choosing HF receiver

[Bruce Gentry]

A Scott Philharmonic is quite good, but would likely be very pricey. A 
more practical and excellent sounding rig for BCB listening and SWL is a 
Hammarlund SP-400. If you want a great sounding consumer console 
receiver, the Philco 37-690 properly restored is awesome. I had both the 
Scott and the Philco, the Philco was hands down the better sounding one 
for oldies stations, it ROCKS!. The Scott has four 6L6s in push pull 
parallel, I always thought it sounded sort of harsh. the Philco and 
Hammarlund have variable coupling in the IF transformers so you can 
adjust the selectivity for exactly what suits the occasion. There is no 
doubt the Scott is the best for style. Be ready to replace all of the 
paper and electrolytic condensers in all of them, and test the resistors 
because they usually drift upward in resistance. Once you get any of 
them, power them with no more than 115 volts, or better yet, 110. They 
are all 70-75 years old, and power transformers are not as robust now 
and getting them rewound is pricey. For serious voice broadcast DX, a 
Collins R-390- NOT the 390A- sounds good if you take the audio from the 
"diode load" terminals on back. The built in audio is strictly 
communications quality. The 390A uses mechanical filters, they don't 
sound that good for music. With the changes in programming, there are so 
few music stations on AM today. Overall sound pleasure is very personal, 
if possible listen to and try a prospective choice. The right choice is 
the one that YOU enjoy, for sound and style.

    Bruce Gentry, KA2IVY










On 7/2/23 16:36, Joe Jesson via Premium-Rx wrote:
> I also like AM DXing and my favorite classic is the Scott Philharmonic
> crome-plated radio.  The Wj-8718 had terrible audio until I realized I had
> to match the radio's audio output of 600 ohm to a 3.2 ohm speaker. All was
> good after that.
>
> If you want to try BCB dxing on the latest SDR receiver (Airspy HF +
> Discovery) with an active regenerative loop, I think you will be surprised!
> Adding a klipsch speaker was like icing on the cake :-)
>
>
> On Sat, Jul 1, 2023, 4:34 PM Enrique Fernandez García via Premium-Rx <
> premium-rx at mailman.qth.net> wrote:
>
>> Dear group,
>>
>> After having some conventional receivers, Drakes, Lowe, AOR and a Winradio
>> SDR I have decided to make a step further and geting a professional
>> receiver, although I had already got a Racal 1772 and for my taste it was
>> quite noisy.
>>
>> I would be very pleased if the members of this forum could indicate me in
>> the right direction and throw some light in which receiver to choose since
>> I am a bit confused in this aspect.
>>
>> I am mainly interested in voice signals, not digital modes, mainly BCB and
>> SWL, digging tropical band stations out of the mud so audio recovery and
>> audio in general is quite important.
>>
>> After surfing the web and readind on eham and in forums, I have in mind
>> these receivers (in no special order):
>>
>>   -Racal 3791, but it is said that the audio is not as pleasant as the RA
>> 3701.
>>   -Racal 3701, on the contrary of the DSP version RA3791 is an analogic IF
>> design  and as indicated before its sound is ways better but it does not
>> have the additional independent IF BW options
>> - R&S EK895, with the quasi-continuous tuning fitted.
>> - WJ 8711A
>> - Cubic CDR-3280
>>
>>   Any help and thoughts are very wellcomed. Any other receiver apart from
>> the above?
>>
>>   Thanks in advance
>>   Regards
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