Living the Dream With the Tecsun PL-660

 

This all started when out of the blue I'd decided I really had to have a small portable multiband radio to take with me on the go. After much searching and reading of reviews, I'd decided on the Tecsun PL-600 (see my review here). But, after taking it to work one day, I found it worked too good there to ever bring it home.

I was back at square 1. I still needed my 'on the go' radio. The easy choice would've been to pick up another PL-600. But being a maverick, I decided to order a Tecsun PL-660 instead.

If you haven't already, I'd suggest reading my review of the Tecsun PL-600 before continuing below.  What follows will make more sense as I will be making comparisons, and it also somewhat explains the conditions I tested both radios in.  Also, it should be noted, I used the same earbuds on both radios.  Go ahead and read it if you need to, we'll wait here.

The Reception

On FM, the 660 had decent sensitivity and selectivity, at least as good as the 600.  The major exception being that FM on the 660 has a hiss underneath it that won't go away. I want to mention that I always run off batteries, so this isn't being caused by the AC adapter.  No matter how good the reception was, or where I tried it, the hiss was a constant.  Going from FM Stereo to Mono, Bass to Treble, DX/Local/Normal didn't do anything to drop the hiss.  It was minimized somewhat on Mono, but it was still there.  It might not be enough to bother some people, and I honestly don't know how much I'd have noticed or been bothered by it if I hadn't had the 600 right there. At first I could just tell there was a difference between the FM quality but it wasn't enough to put my finger on immediately.  If it weren't for the hiss, I think the FM would be really good.

AM on the 660 is about the same as the 600, although there are two big exceptions.  First, the AM through the speaker sounds a lot better on the 660 than it does on the 600.  Again, I listen through earbuds 99% of the time, but I mention it because I know the muddy/distorted AM through the 600's speaker was a turn off for many.  It's not a problem here.  The second exception is that the 660 has AM Sync. I didn't have a lot of cause to use it, but I did experiment with at home in the evening when the AM band can get a bit crowded.  Sync works good.  It's not going to be a miracle worker and draw a weak station out of the ether, but it will separate out a decent sounding station that's getting crowded out. It holds the lock pretty well too.

On SW, the 660 had about the same sensitivity as the 600.  However, the selectivity didn't seem as sharp.  It felt like the Narrow/Wide bandwidths were a  hair wider than they should be.  It's really not that big of a deal, unless you're trying to listen to something that's right next to another station. The only practical problem I found with it was one night some Tennessee preacher was walking all over the Cuban Numbers Lady, but neither had a message I wanted to hear anyways. 

SSB was great, and very easy to use.  I liked the selectable USB/LSB option over the 600's single SSB button, and the BFO on the 660 is sensitive, but in a good way.  I found just a little off from center to the left worked well for most signals.

Airband on the 660 is a lot of fun.  This is the first radio I've had with it, but I've read a lot of complaints about Airband in general.  I live less than 5 miles away from a good sized regional airport, and I was able to get several clear signals, from pilot transmissions to an automated recording giving current weather conditions.  I'm looking forward to listening to their annual air show this summer.

As far as LW goes, well, I didn't hear anything so I have nothing to say.

The Handling

The PL-660 isn't rugged, but it's got a good build quality.  Those little buttons don't wobble and have a nice feel to them.  The knobs aren't all loosey-goosey. Overall, the controls have a nice tactile quality.  My only grip here is that the antenna is a bit wobbly.  The 600's is nice and tight, and stays where you put it.  The 660's is a bit less so.  When fully extended, it can have problems staying where you want it.

ATS might be a good feature to have when you're traveling, but I wasn't very impressed with its implementation on the 660.  In my office, where I can get 10-12 FM stations, the 660 found 79.  Of course, these weren't 79 stations, these were 79 spots on the dial that the 660 thought I'd enjoy.  10 of them turned out to the be the same listenable stations the 600 was receiving, the other 69 were about a half dozen unlistenable stations, and a whole lot of WTF.  60+ hits on frequencies that not only had nothing on them, but weren't even viable for an FM station, like 102.00, and so forth.  I'm thinking it will still be useful for some, but I think I'll stick with manual tuning.

Overall though, the controls should be familiar or easy to learn for anyone who's used a modern small portable.

The Inevitable Comparison

I'm not going to go into all the differences between the PL-600 and PL-660, but I will mention the ones that made a difference to me as a user.

Aside from what's already been mentioned above, the other big difference I found was the way the two radios scan memory or bands.  The 600 has general Up/Down buttons on it, and you can use these to easily move through memory stations, or scan backwards/forwards through the bands.  Frustratingly, on the 660 you're only able to move through the memorized stations using the tuning knob, and the lack of general Up/Down keeps you to only scanning forward through a band.  I'm sure for some this isn't a deal breaker, but I'd expect the more expensive radio to have at least the same functionality as the lesser one.

They both have nice, well lit displays.  They both have the annoying 'feature' of having both alarms showing on the display when the radio is off, even if you don't use the alarms.  They also both keep the time and display running when the radio is turned off.

And really, from my practical usage, that's about it. They're similar enough in appearance that you might think they're the same radio but with some different features, but they're both fairly unique in usage.

Where the Rubber Hits the Road

Reading through the review, it sounds a bit like I'm favoring the PL-600 over the PL-660, and in some ways I am.  But I think that's only because I had the PL-600 first.  I think if I'd originally bought the PL-660, I would've had a different review, because the PL-660 is a really good radio in its own right.  The AM Sync and the SSB implementation are great. The 'problems' I mentioned above aren't real problems, just things that are less preferable to the PL-600. 

If someone was in a quandary over which to buy, and wanted features that were unique to the PL-660, I'd say get the PL-660.  If Sync or SSB  implementation wasn't an important factor, I'd say get the PL-600. 

I like them both, and I'm glad I have both.  The 600's going to be a great radio to have on my desk at work, and the 660's going to be a great radio to slip into a bag or carry around with me when I want to mess around with a radio.

I bought both of these radios through Amazon.  The 600 was $69.99 and the 660 was 109.99 (now dropped to $99.99).  As a consumer I don't think the 660 is worth an extra $30, let alone the extra $40 I paid for it.  I would set the price at $89.99 for the 660.  Thinking in economics alone, I think the 600's a more cost effective package.

As a radio user, I'm enjoying both the radios for what they are, and remain impressed by Tecsun on the whole.