Icom IC-R9500 vs Kenwood TS-890

[@MrSFraasch]

Synchronous AM detection is only offered in a few ham transceivers: the Flex series, and older models such as the Yaesu FT-1000MP. I wish more manufacturers offered it, as I am an avid AM operator.

[@myradiovideos]

Sorry!!! I have NEVER had a microphone hooked up to my 890S, Except when I first got it to make sure the radio was 100% operational,,, I am like you, I listen 99% of the time.. The last time I talked on my Flex 6600M radio was a year ago.. Your methodology on testing is the best as it is Real World.. The 890 is a radio designed for hams, with specific bandpass filtering done for the ham band, not for SWL.. BUT!! The 890S can be placed into SWL Mode, giving you a Analog dial reminiscent of the old day radios,, Very Cool feature.. Having a front firing speaker would help as the Kenwood is lower in overall audio.. SYNC, definitely a very important feature for deep fading signals.. My Flex has Sync, but if I want to listen to a station for a long time, music or news, and it is fading a lot, then I turn on my Drake R8B receiver as it has a great Sync Detector... Having multiple radios can help in many ways, definitely enhances the FUN FACTOR! Same goes for Multiple Antennas... Having a nice 911 Porsha is defiantly sporty and fun, but sometimes the only Fun you can have off road is with a 4X4 Jeep!! I was fortunate to get a job for 47 years before retiring at age 72, that allowed me to get these toys, something I only dreamed of when I first got into the hobby when I was 10 years old growing up in upstate New York.. Thanks for doing this! It is Greatly Appreciated.... BTW, my garbage man is on his way to Texas right now,,, LOL 🙂 Robert

[@dieselten01]

Robert did you see in the video where I put the 890 in SWL mode? I did that just for you. Personally I think it’s just a gimmick

[@myradiovideos]

@@dieselten01 Yes I did,, But it allows you to check out all SWL bands in a matter of minutes... Saves a ton of time. Also you can have the band scope on in SWL mode, that adds to the observation of SWL bands very effectively I would disagree that it is a gimmick, very useful.. The SWL mode in the Kenwood TS-990 radio with its round linear center tuning knob, is the icing on the cake.. Robert

[@myradiovideos]

Even after 1 year I still enjoy the video. And the TS-890S does have IF shift capabilities. Just called something different.. I wanted you to know I finally have Given Up!! I have been outside your home every trash pickup day for the last year, and still no TS-890S radio in the trash... BTW, I think it is time to place the Malahit DSP2 SDR Radio up against the IC-R9500 receiver.... Come On Lets Do It!!!!! 🙂 Robert.....

[@dieselten01]

@@myradiovideos can’t let that POS DSP2 desecrate the hallowed ground of the 9500. Besides, my fingers and brain would get too tired trying to figure out which button to push on the dsp2 just so that there is no bleed through like an artery that was hit by a bullet!

[@PrecisionGroupYT]

Not sure off the top of my head how old the Icom 9500 & R8600 ( still great radios!! ) are but I can’t wait to see perhaps one day the Updated radio Icom will release to replace and update these! A larger version of an updated IC-R8600 that has more buttons like the 9500 ( perhaps a hybrid radio Super heterodyne/SDR about the size of my 7610) Thanks for the videos! 73

[@jeffreydechellis]

I soooo friggin enjoyed this head to head receiver shootout vid, bruh! 😝

[@Homer19521]

Woulda been nice to see what 890 RX EQ U1 was set to. And a front firing speak also helps & reduces muffling. But I am not surprised the 9500 is better. IF filtering on the 890 is not optimized for AM DXing. BTW, I have a 890. Look up: 3D_Printed G90 Speaker Redirector Hood to help redirect the top firing speaker towards the listener. I always use external speakers on my radios.

[@dieselten01]

Thank you for the recommendation

[@dieselten01]

I am doing a video tonight on the Icom 75 and my 890 is right next to it. I will show a screen shot of the RX EQ U1 so keep your eyes open!

[@Homer19521]

I mostly use HB1 or HB2. But I also have some user EQs too. I also built my own monitor speaker. Just sold my R75 last year. Been using my HQ-180 in the torture chamber lately.

[@myradiovideos]

@@dieselten01 Nick, place the 890 in SWL mode and activate the full screen Spectrum scope tonight.. Thanks!!!! Also, be aware that the Kenwood due to roofing filters and other things, normally needs Preamp 1 activated most of the time for SWL listening, especially below 15 MHz. My Flex is the same way.. RSL

[@dieselten01]

@@myradiovideos robert I made the video before I saw your post here. I will mess around with it.

[@hectorvazquez7929]

I really enjoy the shootouts. Icom R9500 great receiver!

[@dieselten01]

Thank you Hector

[@ShawnDienhart]

The 9500 makes them all look bad, LOL. A Lear jet flying among the Cessna's.

[@ftlaud911]

Thanks you for the video. Hold in filter button on 890 and you can customize filter settings. Makes a huge difference. That Icom is incredible on RX, but TX is absolutely terrible. Smiling!!! 73

[@dieselten01]

I am well aware of how to set filters on the 890. The problem is the choices Kenwood offers are all crazy. For me they don’t even make sense. And in application they don’t work half as good as the 9500. And I assume you’re joking about TX on the 9500. Since I am not a ham that is actually a good thing! Thanks for your comments

[@ftlaud911]

@@dieselten01 - was a joke. I know there is no TX. 9500 is an amazing receiver as it should be for the price. Would love to see how it compares to the 8600 which again isn't really a fair fight.

[@dieselten01]

@@ftlaud911 i have a video on 8600 vs 9500, look through my videos

[@buckygeer]

Try using the receiver equilizer on the TS-890.....results in nice improvement on my TS-590. Also internal speakers are usually poor.

[@alfestrela]

Please adjust the tonality on the receiving equalizer on the 890 for better sound comparation. Anyway you are comparing a 3500 us to a 10000 us dollar, I Own a 890 and a Icon 7800 and in difficult situations my tendency go for the 7800. Thanks for all your videos. 73's. Victor. CT1AKD

[@germibestia]

amateur radio equipment is not optimized for AM broadcast, it is just there for narrow amateur transmissions. You even don't have the option of a wide 10 or 12 kHz filter. Question: I see that the filter of the 890 seems shifted to one side, like if you had IF shifted ON. Is it the case? Very often, a great deal of difference between receivers is given by their loudspeakers. In order to take that out of the equation, in my station I route the line/audio output of all radios to a mixer and then its output goes to a good active loudspeaker -in my case a Marshall-. This way you have the double advantage of using the same speaker for every receiver and the possibility to easily equalize -simple high/mid/low- the signal in order to get the best out of them.

[@dieselten01]

Let me address your speaker question first. I don’t want to take anything out of the equation, this is a comparison of 1 radio to another. I fully agree with your comment about Ham radios not being optimized for AM broadcast, I found this out the hard way. After buying them! Finally the filter shift of the 890. I noticed that also. The passband automatically shifted while I was adjusting the filter options in the settings, i was unable to control this. I thought it was weird. The only real reason I still keep this 890 is because of the beautiful screen/scope. Same with my Yaesu FTDX 101MP, it has even less adjustment in AM, but the scope is beautiful. My Yaesu 5000 is different, it allows full user adjustability in AM and is therefore an great AM receiver, but the scope is marginal - better than nothing but still marginal. Thanks for your comments!

[@germibestia]

​@@dieselten01 thanks for the answer and congrats for the many interesting videos and the out of the ordinary line up of expensive receivers. Professional receivers, are usually made for monitoring purpose. It was not uncommon to have them delivered -we are talking about agencies which bought them from a few dozens to several hundreds- with a peculiar audio filter and/or speaker. The focus was given to intelligibility of the voice, while the performance of music reproduction was not a factor. One example is the excellent RFT EKD300, probably the best am/sync receiver ever made. Its speaker let you understand voice way better than most other radios, but low tones are inexistent. Once you connect the line out to an active speaker of good quality, with the ability to equalize, this changes drastically the quality, if you listen to broadcast and especially music. You can see this to great extent comparing the Lowe 225 and 235. This is basically the very same radio but the first was declined into a consumer product and the second as a monitor receiver. While the 225 produces a full sound, perfectly suited to broadcast and music, the 235 has a very different audio reproduction which is way better for understanding a voice with low and noisy signals. Using the mixer allows to easily switch from one to the other, add some equalization, while a good active loudspeaker gives you the latitude of extracting the most out of any receiver. In a typical monitoring station, the operator would have at least four receivers, which audio was routed to a mixer and its output connected to an amplifier for the single headphone. Panning one receiver to the left and the other to the right of the headphone would make thing easier. kzbin.info/www/bejne/oHa1XqiCm7t5jqc

[@ralphnunn3]

@@dieselten01 It seems to me that the IF Shift on the Kenwood would accomplish the same thing that the Pass Band Tuning would do on the Icom. I'm not 100% sure, since I don't own the Kenwood (wish I did. If you do 'kick it to the curb', I'd love to be there!!!). And, as has already been pointed out, you're probably not going to find Synchronous Detection on a ham radio transceiver. We hams usually transmit, and receive in single side band, and rarely on AM. That's more of an SWL thing...

[@dieselten01]

@@ralphnunn3 thanks Ralph. As I learn more I realize the Ham radios are great, but not as great as the dedicated premium receivers.

[@ralphnunn3]

@@dieselten01 Especially that IC-9500. Most of us can only DREAM of owning a receiver like that! So, we get to live vicariously through you when you do these comparisons!

[@boydmasonlake1995]

If you want to sell the kenwood let me know

[@chesterjohnson4504]

Nice radios. I had a R8600. Mixed feelings about that radio. I am wondering about your antenna set up. How High and long?

[@dieselten01]

I have a Wellbrook loop about 10 feet off the ground

[@LeeShand]

Let me compare a Rolls Royce Phantom to a Mini cooper. They both can drive to 70MPH but boy you can hardly hear the road noise in the rolls. What a stupid comparison.

[@ivanigorpollick6690]

icom is much better

[@robertdickson6317]

Have you used the swl option on the side menue on the ts 890 no spectrum scope I would expect the ic 9500 to still out perform just curious as to your thoughts

[@dieselten01]

I have used the swl option. It is a gimmick. It adds nothing to performance, it only makes the radio screen look like an old radio.

[@robertdickson6317]

@@dieselten01 ok fair enough seen it on my 890 will give it a try I expect I will use it once and never again thanks for the fast reply

[@paulmitchell4421]

they should be playing thru the same speaker if there's no direct audio

[@dieselten01]

This is a shootout. A true street race. No laboratory boring crap. If it has a speaker thats what I use. This is a true end user experience. Turn it on and listen.

[@paulmitchell4421]

@@dieselten01 and since we cant turn on and listen but instead are limited to your microphone placement in relation to the speaker it only makes sense to at the very least use the same speaker, the tonal quality is distorted your way, the kenwood is hollow and boomy in midrange and the icom sounds like a plastic bathroom toy radio. neither one sounds like this in real life

[@dieselten01]

@@paulmitchell4421 I disagree. I’m not changing anything so maybe you should just go watch all the other Icom 9500 vs Kenwood 890 videos. Or make your own so we can all see your point of view

[@IZ0MTW]

Hi Nick, I was looking for some TS890 videos and I came across this one of yours. As a Ham operator I would have appreciated a bit more of cw and ssb but that's for my taste. By the way I wanted to point out that I belive you never used the shift/width controls on the Kenwood? I might be wrong as I jumped a bit over the entire duration. Those controls grately affect the audio response and many times I saw the lower cut quite high, cutting out some meat from the bass. You know the PBT on the Icom, those would be the same. Just in a different fashion. On KNWD you can narrow and shift on ICOM you have direct control over the single cut-off freqency, higher slope and lower slope, by the two knobs. Is just a matter of getting used to it. Th KNWD on CW instead function as HI CUT/LOW CUT, much like Icom's PBT. Hence the double lable on the concentric knobs. (Top right corner btw) Best wishes Diego

[@dieselten01]

Hi Diego, thanks for your input here. I eventually found out about the 890’s abilities by deep reading the manual. Unfortunately this was after the video was made. I will say now that the 890 has abilities but to me, a non-ham and novice SWL, the 890 is much much more complicated to operate snd manipulate the filtering and the pass band adjustments. Icoms are dead simple. Even I can operate them and get good results immediately. So for this reason the 890 sits on a shelf because it is too complicated for me to operate when I have a Formula One Race Car (Icom) sitting right here

[@IZ0MTW]

@@dieselten01 I understand Nick, Icom is really simple and intuitive. Well structured menu system and excellent layout of the front panel. You’re lucky to have that beauty. I haven’t seen many around. I might put my hands on a Racal, 3702, dead simple but effective.

[@dieselten01]

@@IZ0MTW Diego, another dead simple excellent radio is the Racal 6790. I have a couple videos on it.

[@IZ0MTW]

@@dieselten01 I’ve seen them already 😉 those professional radios are rare to find though.

[@hectorvazquez7929]

Can you do the Kenwood TS-890 VS. Icom R8600 shootout? That would also be a great one.

[@dieselten01]

I will see what I can do. I do this for fun obviously and it is hard to get motivated to do a vid on 2 radios that I am bored with!

[@hectorvazquez7929]

@@dieselten01 I will be getting an 8600 soon! Really looking forward to it

[@dieselten01]

Hector, check my videos 😊 in 30 minutes

[@myradiovideos]

Robert Who??????????????????????????????????????????? 😞 LOL BTW, the 890S does have pass band tuning...

[@exploringearth3223]

one is 4k the other is 14k not a far comparison

[@joedidit3233]

Kind of like complaining because the 9500 costs three times as much but still can't transmit. All of the money spent on developing the 9500 was devoted to the best possible receive. The 890 had much of the money, although less than 1/3 as much of the 9500 was spent on the transmitter section of the radio. If the receive quality of a $4000 transceiver was even close to the quality of a $14,000 dollar 9500 receiver, it would reflect badly on the 9500.

[@makskk6spm275]

I like your videos and I love Icom radios, but in my view comparison is not fully made according to scientific methods. If we're comparing two different radios then we should use the same external audio output or the same speakers which should be directed in the same direction at least. Because R9500 has a front speaker and TS-890 has only a side this already affected to output sound.

[@dieselten01]

Why should the 9500 be penalized or handicapped for providing you an excellent user experience? Why should Kenwood be assisted or rewarded for providing an inferior user experience so they can advertise a smaller package? Why don’t we just put 2 huge 6 foot tall studio speakers and a huge amp on both radios just to let the Kenwood have a better chance? Buy a radio, plug it in, turn it on. How does it sound? This is a true actual user experience for the radio as you buy it. Why doesn’t Kenwood ship an auxiliary speaker with the 890 to make up for its ill placed upward firing speaker? And, in case you hadn’t noticed, I am not a scientist. I am an end user

[@makskk6spm275]

@@dieselten01 Fair enough. My point was to give it a chance to Kenwood. But you are 100% right. A transceiver for such a price should sound great right out of the box.

[@robertbotman4881]

Wow....the Kenwood does not sound good compared to the Icom.

[@johnmcclish2735]

Look at the price difference between the Kenwood 890 = F-16C that Icom 9500 = F22A