PL-880 vs PL-660: The Movie

[@vahanyazarian5582]

I like the 880 because I can listen to anything on air and not get tired from poor sound! Thanks for video!

[@user-wr1yh2zw6l]

Good job. I just ordered the 880 last Monday, can't wait for it to get here 😊

[@Kw1161]

Great comparison Blog or Die! My PL880 quit working on the AM side but still works on FM but did well on SW until it quit. My Belka All Mode (2022) requests to be an extra in your movie…😂! Have a Happy 2024!🎉🎉🎉🎉!

[@ditto1958]

In another 660/880 comparison, the reviewer has the silver 660, and it looks cheap. To my eyes the black one looks much nicer. Both are good radios. Excellent video.

[@kwdavids1]

I tend to avoid silver radios for this reason.

[@migalito1955]

Thanks, I have the 660. I also have kc2wvb as my amateur call sign. I've had nice Kenwood 100 watt transceivers and while the dialing in of the SSB signal might be a tad easier with expensive transceivers I have no complaint regarding the 660's ability to do so. Incidentally I don't listen often anymore, but as I remember the further away from perfect adustment you are with the BFO the higher the pitch, so the idea is to turn the knob in the direction of lower pitch until it seems like you dialed in the natural voice. Dialing in an AM station while in SSB mode is a good way to practice and become proficient with using the BFO adjustment. I actually have very few transceivers these days and only have two 10 watt kit built transceivers and one SDR receiver largely because they are fun to build and really require what interests me the most which are good antennas. You simply cant beat a good antenna and I would highly recommend a fan dipole in an inverted V configuration which is actually very easy to build. I seem to remember that I would select at least 40 & 20 meters as the two combined antennas in the fan configuration for if memory is correct that would give you a lot of receive capability because many other bands of interest would also have an impedeance at the feedpoint that coincides with the 50 ohms most radios have with respect to being the source when transmitting & load when receiving. Right now I have just a 40 meter inverted V and am fine with it alone because when I check it on the RSP1 SDRPlay receiver or with an inexpensive VNA I find it does a really good job of receiving on 60 meters up to about 17 meters or rougly from 5 to 21 MHz. 73s

[@davyhenry8985]

I have both of them and I am happy with both of them.

[@emiliehervieux3776]

If you have to choose? 2 of them. d808=100$ pl330=85$ pl660=195$ pl880=295$ (Canadian$) D808 and pl880 have a great battery 18650 with standard usb 5 volt. I find a dc/dc converter to transform 5v to 6v(4$). The pl330 is stuck with a small capacity battery. I think the 660 have good sound ( no digitalized) but the speaker hide this quality. Maybe a test with a good computer speaker set. We will hear the truth capacity. I can improve the speaker sound quality by plastifiy the paper cone and adding fiber around it. ( not as good as the pl880!) The d808 cost half the 660 and third th880 God bless.

[@ditto1958]

What if you had to choose?

[@rehanayasmeen928]

Thanks for such a comprehensive video, Greetings from Pakistan

[@JR-lx8nn]

Nice, well scripted, and organized review. Well done. Parenthetically, yes SOME, but not all, hams are very concerned about audio quality and I call them Hi FI Hams because they believe they can make a purse out of a sow's ear - that is, they feel they can get Hi Fi broadcast quality audio out of a radio designed to transmit roughly just 3000Hz of audio and RF bandwidth - mostly they end up emphasizing the lower (bass) frequencies at the expense of higher (treble) frequencies because it makes them sound thicker, fuller and more rounded. They do this, despite the fact low frequency speech sound (below 300 Hz) consumes more than 50-60% of speech energy, but conveys less than 5% of speech intelligence - i.e., the message, whereas the frequencies between 300 and 4000 carry the most speech information, and requires the least (less than 10%) of speech energy. The point is, they wanna sound like an FM DJ - so they do their best to get a rich sound on a rig designed for communications grade audio - 300 to 3000 Hz - as defined by ITU and manufacturer standards, as well as conforming to a century of audio research by Bell Labs and other entities leading to ITU standards - 300 to 3000 Hz - communications grade audio. Bottom line - those who sound thick and full and bass-y set their radios for this result - while others have a thinner, yet more articulate, more "crispy" treble sound, which audio scientists have proven cuts through the noise and poor propagation better - think about how airline pilot and military and Air Force pilots sound on the air - they use extreme communications audio - but it is proven to be more articulate and more intelligible - so overall we see some hams going one way for one result, and other hams seeking another result. And yet, as my favorite ham radio expert says - "It's all good." Just a comment in response to your comment on ham radio audio. TT

[@Greg-et2dp]

Blog or die your voice is awesome my friend

[@Greg-et2dp]

Blog or die your utube videos are awesome 🎉🎉😅😊

[@ominkan3129]

Excellent comparison.

[@ashusaini8]

Thank you so much

[@tech29X]

If I were stranded on an island... or if i were to have only one radio... I'd chose PL680. Battery recharging is no problem; I'd hookup the solar panel to a battery charger, and keep charging various types of rechargeable battery packs. there are many excellent rechargeable battery pack options with adapter tips available that can be used for various applications such as led lights, cellphones and yes, radios too. I would highly recommend everyone starting out the hobby to avoid DSP radios, and start with analog such as PL660 or PL680. After all radio broadcast was designed/built based on analog tuners for decades, after they learn the ropes they can go with whatever they want. After you mastered the basics on analog and learned about importance of antennas (often ignored) then if you still want a DSP, you might as well go straight to SDR.

[@tech29X]

Also, I would recommend everyone to read excellent information and comments on your blogpost site under the "/2023/06/ssb/" (Edit: I don't want to paste the entire URL because youtube algorithm might think of it as spam)

[@vahanyazarian5582]

I find DSP to be superior for F.M. but prefer analog for everything else.

[@Greg-et2dp]

Blog or die your new tecsun pl 880 mw lw fm sw ssb 5 band portable receiver is awesome my friend

[@justy303]

Hmmm, I want the 880, but also the 660/680 for the airband.

[@Paul8276]

I have a PL-660 which was great for what I wanted. The disappointing thing was that the battery contacts rusted to the point that made battery operation useless and a external battery pack will be needed to connect into the AC port.

[@kwdavids1]

This condition usually means a battery leaked. You should be able to clean the battery contacts with contact cleaner and perhaps some sandpaper if it's really bad. Others suggest baking soda and water.

[@london19657]

Hi Techmoan uses fresh lemon juice on an cottonbud to clean. Works well.

[@emiliehervieux3776]

If you have to choose? 2 of them. d808=100$ pl330=85$ pl660=195$ pl880=295$ (Canadian$) D808 and pl880 have a great battery 18650 with standard usb 5 volt. I find a dc/dc converter to transform 5v to 6v(4$). The pl330 is stuck with a small capacity battery. I think the 660 have good sound ( no digitalized) but the speaker hide this quality. Maybe a test with a good computer speaker set. We will hear the truth capacity. I can improve the speaker sound quality by plastifiy the paper cone and adding fiber around it. ( not as good as the pl880! BUT...) The d808 cost half the 660 and third the 880 God bless.@@kwdavids1

[@timm7524]

For viewers in the future (2024), my recently purchased 880 has a USBC charging port. Only 1 A, but at least USBC. It's my first SW radio, but I'm having great luck with it in the SF bay area. Also just sounds really good as an excellent FM radio in the home office!

[@Greg-et2dp]

Blog or die tecsun p660 mw lw fm air sw ssb 6 band portable receiver is awesome my friend

[@dougstout3663]

The usb is now type C on the 880

[@briancaldwell7342]

Received my 880 a week ago and it has type C USB also. Bought from Amazon.

[@realstreetuk]

Hi I am torn between the pl990x and pl880... if I'm not bothered about the Bluetooth, sd card for audio and the speaker( as I believe the audio on both are not that dissimilar) would you tell me to go for the pl880? I do like the look of the 880 but can afford the pl990x. Any advice would be appreciated thanks

[@kwdavids1]

I don't have a PL-990X to compare, but let me suggest this video on the PL-990X: kzbin.info/www/bejne/d5a5fHt-rdmVd6M. That channel has quite a few videos on the PL-990x (he doesn't own a PL-880 that I know of). One weakness of the PL-880 is that it lacks synchronous tuning (there is a hidden feature, but it's awful). Synchronous tuning on the PL-990X is a button, not hidden. It is reported to be better than the PL-880, but still not all that good. Another weakness of the PL-880 is that the external antenna jack can't be used for LW/MW. Again there is an incredibly convoluted hidden feature for this, but it doesn't work on models shipping now (most likely it wasn't a hidden feature, but a bug). The PL-990X has a hidden feature to switch the antenna that actually works and is easy to use, exactly like on my PL-330. As the video I suggest says, portable radios these days all get the same stations. The PL-990X appears to have the operational conveniences that I like on the PL-880, but also refinements in SSB. Good luck.

[@kwdavids1]

ROFL. Trying to answer your question resulted in some research. I looked into the PL-990 some and it does seem attractive. I found a used one from Kaito USA (the US Tecsun distributor) on eBay for $169 so I grabbed it. However, with that radio, there's no reason to keep the PL-880 so I'll sell it.

[@realstreetuk]

Just to let everyone know I opted for the pl880 as had good reviews yes ssb audio can seem a little distorted but overall a very nice radio and I think it'd the best looking one at the moment

[@mohammadrihan3886]

Pl 880 is an overpriced device ... nothing is significant, not sensitive enough

[@kwdavids1]

@@mohammadrihan3886 I've bought a used PL-990 for about the same price as a new PL-880. It should arrive this weekend, and I will be comparing the two.

[@tlebryk]

Can these radios use SSB on the Mediumwave (AM) Band to get away from adjacent interference??? Stations are now routinely using much more than 5kHz bandwidth to transmit a nicer sounding signal, but that causes interference of distant weaker signals.

[@kwdavids1]

The Tecsun PL-880 and PL-330 can be put into SSB mode on the MW band, perhaps other radios. I don't have anything to test it with.

[@RJDA.Dakota]

Yes they can.

[@gmorgan1118]

Have an 880 and a 680; I use them interchangeably about 80% of the time, but yeah, there are differences. Both perform respectably, according to my needs.

[@sidneycavalcant]

Qual sua opinião sobre o 680 ?

[@tech29X]

@@sidneycavalcant I would recommend everyone to start with PL660/PL680. D808 is, like most DSP radios, too much chuff-chuff-chuff.

[@Kukilo_Kumo]

❤

[@markmurto]

You sound like William Cooper!

[@kwdavids1]

Ouch! I've had a long career debunking conspiracy theories online.

[@Rassian639]

660 однозначно лучше

[@kwdavids1]

да!