Thank you so much Nick for the review which tells me everything I needed to know. I'm heading straight to eBay to hunt (or rather rekindle the flame) with an old E1 whose goo has been dissolved. I am planning a trip to the far east Gaspe Coast this October and I need a good portable and the E1 will work perfectly. No airband, no RDS, no HD but at least, I know what I'm getting into since I had three of them in past years. With close to 700 views, you are doing the SWL community a great, great favor with your early bird review. I am not touching this box with a ten-foot pole (let's call it a box shall we). The two-second delay on antenna switching alone hints at the amount of digital processing going on inside (and for what reason other than cost cutting on physical components...). And the saturation (bleeding), wow! Even the PBT button (which doubles as a Squelch?) mutes, how bad can that be! This radio makes hunting for airband traffic in the 8800 KHz band totally pointless. And with that amount of DSP, they couldn't support a selectable delay AGC, Really?. You know what would (will) be funny though, is that sometime in a not so distant future when this radio sells for the junk that it is, some good modder will buy it for the case, pull the guts out of a sticky E1 just to pluck it inside this box just because it looks good. I bet all the pots and pads align just right. Anyway, thanks again for steering me away from a 1000$ CDN disappointment. Eton and retailers can recall this radio all they want, no one's gonna fix flaws inherent to such pathetic design.

Really appreciate your brief review and displaying the new radio for us. I've owned hundreds of receivers over the past 50 or so years and was so looking forward to purchasing this one. I've heard that Eton has a few design changes in store, however that being said, I have cancelled my order for this one, at least for the time being. The muting thing is a killer for me, so will stay with my Satellit 800 and othes for now. Looking forward to seeing other reviews soon. Thanks again for this very informative video. FYI am also in the DFW area.

Thank you for this. The LW test at 26.20 was extremely revealing. As with most DSP equipped radios LW performance is poor, usually because these radios lack a proper LW coil wound round their ferrite rods aerials. Here in the UK , I often listen to such LW stations as BBC Radio 4. on 198 khz and RTE on 252 khz. The older radios are usually much better than relatively newer sets like the D808, R108, and Satellit Executive.

I can't believe that a radio in this price range mutes while tuning

Thank you for the honest evaluation and actual demo

Extremely disappointing product that's just completely lazy. It's an extremely basic implementation of the SI4735 chip + an FM HD chip + an airband receiver. Circuit board photos show no filtering (which is why it overloads and gets images). This price point demands filtering and, at a minimum, the hybrid setup in the Sangean and Tecsun radios where demodulation is done by the DSP chip, but tuning is done with PLL circuitry (which avoids the muting inherent in using the SI4735 chip to tune - the tuning knob in DSP radios is just instructing the DSP chip to re-tune, which is why the audio mutes). Ideally Eton would have branched out from the SI4735 to an in-house design to justify the $599 price point. A Tecsun H-501X plus a Sangean HDR-14 and an airband receiver will give you all of the capabilities of this radio for about $400 (plus AM HD) and a better experience (albeit with 3 separate radios).

I'm just not seeing anything here that warrants the $600-$700 price tag (they're obviously riding the fame of the e1 with a mediocre product). Now if it was an SDR based receiver (an SDR based receiver is not as limited as a DSP based receiver, and heck SDRs are cheap now days), full color touch screen with spectrum waterfall, fully adjustable filters (including notch filters), and a audio DSP to help clean up the noise from a signal, not to mention a much broader frequency range then it would be worth that price (think of a receive only version of an SDR based Yaesu or Icom, or a more advanced version of the Malahit SDR). Heck for $600-$700 you're getting into the higher end Ham transceiver price range. the elephant in the room, muting during tuning, not for $600-$700. What exactly was they doing for that long of a time developing this only for it to be that bad.

Thank you so much, very useful! Felt like buying this radio, but will rather, for the time being, stay with my original Eton E1XM radio, which I have two (I liked it so much, so bought a backup). It also has flaws, such as no bar antenma on LW and MW, but for the rest performs amazingly well, being my favourite portable. It definitely outperforms Sony Icf-sw77, Sony Icf-2001d, Sangean ats-909x and without x. Only one serious rival appeared recently - Elecraft kx-2. But synchro and dsb of course. The elite Eton looks attractive, but it seems it needs some refinement by the manufacturer.

I like that green display. Looks good. I hope they can solve the issues. I hope you have a good working model. Looking forward to your reviews on the radio. Have a good night my friend. 😊

That pot under the batter cover adjust the LCD contrast! That what it did on the original E1

Eton put a very cheap radio inside a large nice looking case !

There is no internal bar antenna for medium wave. It is because the display makes too much noise and messes with the reception. The same with the original Eton E1

Already all of them have been recalled.

Thanks for your review!

A high contrast grey scale for the screen that doesn't rely backlighting would be easy to read and easy on batteries.

From a dx-ers point of view: this is a bad receiver.

Thanks for the video. Up to now we have endured negative rants with no video to back them up or negative rants from people that have not gotten the radio and just parroting others. Please do some more testing and report back to us your findings. At this point I trust you and Universal Radio. I wish Universal would put out more info for the people who pre-ordered it.

After my Satellit800 I was hankering for a tabletop, not a portable, so I bought an IC8600 which I am very pleased with. Otherwise I many have bought an Elite Satellit. U don't care about stereo? Try some external speakers; I use them w/ my 8600 & they're better than the radio's speaker. U'll get stereo, too (unlike the monaural 8600). Bose makes a nice pair. Of course, I see u have other radios, too, like a 9500! Nice!

I am in shock at how bad this is. I can’t even recall a product that many were waiting on with anticipation, only for the manufacturer to let everyone down. Universal Radio has apparently said they’re doing a firmware update. Will be curious to see what % of the problems this update fixes. Definitely not ordering one for now. What a debacle.

Thanks, it was very interesting. It would be very interesting to see a comparison with something like old Sony.

These were recalled. Dealers were told not to sell any more of these. A newer version was released later. Not sure which you have there. Probably one of the recalled ones. I'd get advice prior to reviewing on youtube.

Hit the FM button twice and the radio should lock up !

I think the antenna is the old Belling-Lee connector also known as a PAL connector. Seems like they've taken the old E1 chassis and turned it into the E 1/2. $200 would be a good price to tinker with. $700 they are flippin' nuts. Get a used Icom IC-7300 for that price. I think you can use that Equil whatever it is to straighten the 10051? They call it a bandpass but it's more of a fine tuning.

I have a dozen shortwave radios or so, my favourite is the Sony ICF-SW77 for just its featureset. Oddly enough, I have a Sangean 505 that is about as basic as shortwave gets (I think it has upper sideband, otherwise, its basic just tuning thru the whole band) that is the best sounding radio I have (good mix of bass and treble, just a joy to listen to). I just got my hands on the Sangean 909X2 yesterday and its just a joy to use for scanning around (to be honest, its not much different than the Sony SW77 featureset wise, its just in a smaller form factor and in my opinion, is much easier on the ears, having a bit more upper mids for making talk easier to listen to at lower volumes). I always wanted the Eton E1, but not at the price point of $900+, and the mute tuning on this new model is a no go for me. I enjoy scanning around to see what weird shit I can pick up and mute tuning makes that impossible. This is NOT a good radio choice for people who are not intimately familiar with specific stations to listen to. This is one place I give Sangean a lot of credit, their radio has several hundred preset shortwave stations already preprogrammed. I think we need to talk about the elephant in the room. Its time for these radios to catch up with the times, starting with a proper OLED touch display. This doesn't mean doing away with hardware buttons, but for heavens sake, imagine being able to customize the display to you and your tastes, including theming, moving indicators around, etc. How about user serviceable firmware updates with USB connectivity? Sending a radio in to the manufacturer for firmware updates? Really? The killer feature all these radios are missing? Microsd card slots with wave audio recording capability. We can't have a csv or XML file that is editable that allows for unlimited favourites to be stored? Things like per channel attennuation / filters that could even be programmed based on the time of day (or even more fancy, based on local sunrise / sunset times). Why there is a simple dx/local switch instead of a user adjustable gain setting is beyond me, and the same goes with filters. I should be able to set the gain to 20-30 db and the filter to as much as 10 Mhz in 1 khz steps if I want to, this should not be hard to do. And while on the subject of filters, why can I not set a filter with different values above and below the frequency I am tuned to using two different values, so I can notch out bleed from other channels? I have a channel I listen to, 790 Mhz on the AM side, which often is interefered with by another local channel, 780 Mhz. Being able to set the filter to something like 787 Mhz to 795 Mhz would be a killer feature. At the price points these radios are being sold at, there is opportunity for big improvements and unfortunately, we don't have any companies willing to take any big technological leaps in advancing the technology.

The only way I would buy this is if it was as cheap as dirt. Obviously not up to the Tecsun H 501x.

I heard they actually stopped shipping these. I assumed it was because they realized they screwed up and were going to make adjustments. But I havent found anything else to confirm this.

thanks for the review

I received my Eton HD on 8/20/22 and shipped it back the very next day ! It’s a very big piece of JUNK ! It kept locking up and I would have to disconnect the power to reset it and lose all memory and clock function ! The only thing good is the filters and the sound quality. Tuning is terrible and so is the sensitivity ! Don’t buy this radio unless you want headaches !!

Interesting the adaptor is called an F female to phono adaptor they are common in UK for domestic satellite connection

I've never understood why people thought this would be good. They don't have a year warranty for a reason. The 909x is one of the top radios and it's still broke.

God, this isn't just disappointing, it's heartbreaking. This was supposed to be at the very least the return of the E1, if not a modernized E1 built to compete with modern SDRs like the SDRPlay RSPdx, or a Malahit or Belka. But they somehow failed to even reach the level of the old E1, with poorly designed menus, bad receptions, and an insane price exceeding the Tecsun PL990 and Sangean 909x2 by two or three times. The price already made this a hard sell for me when you can get portables (SDR, DSP, and even triple conversion superheterodyne), both new and used, which can compete with older communications receivers for $200-$300 USD, but given that it doesn't even seem to be on-par with my CountyComm GP-7ssb, and probably can't compete with the CCrane Skywave SSB. I hope they fix this, because for radio nerds, this is one of the biggest imaginable disappointments.

Radio been taking off the market send it back! There many issues with them.

Hello the little knobs inside is for screen brightness. Also the top knobs is for the external speaker if you should attach one . I use my for a stereo hd receiver it sounds great and works perfect. Best regards Ron z.WA3090SWL.

Yikes, that muting when tuning.. big no from me.

I had the same thing with the Sangean 909x..the muting when tuning on SW....it is the irritation of it .. Plus no VHF marine Band also..it should have the whole VHF Band (108-175mhz)... not just the Air Band

I'll wait for the $99 liquidation sale. Muting while tuning is inexcusable.

Sony needs to come back into the Multi Band Radio Market....I have the Sony icf 7600gr and the Sony icf 2003... built in the 1970s and 1980s those two will do circles around this......if this one has defect so do the rest of that brand... same with Sangean....I had the Sangean 909x...it had the same problem... also it would freeze...than the Display went out all together...I am having a hard time about investing in a radio because of this...a 400 dollar radio should not be doing that...

European type plug, phillips and many others used them, not very good, to bad Eton could not get it right on that radio..

Thanks for posting your initial findings on this radio; looking forward to a further review/comparison. Just wondering whether the "EQUIL" button might set the AGC level when AGC is in the "on" position, or perhaps it's an attenuator?

Where is my Posting, yesterday I wrote?

Even cheapo ATS-25 after update to 5.2 fw have no that huge muting, for sure not as this Eton, huge disapointment...

PLEASE turn the mystery potentiometer inside of that front door. I really need you to satisfy that curiosity for me.

I've just seen this radio on sale again. Does anyone know if all the bugs have been sorted out yet?

The only interesting thing with this receiver is the case. In all other respects it's just a conventional DSP portable with the usual artifacts and distortion associated with the SiLabs chipset. What was Etons thinking here ? Did they truly want to make an E1 followup with similar performance to the old E1 or was it just some marketing gimmick all along ?

Too many negatives for me....muting, for example, is a deal nixer for me. Hope the company rejigs it with the next reboot ...was looking forward, but I'll wait.

Thanks for both the review and you're paying for this nightmare and not me. This is a huge disappointment tbh. Not a great release is the understatement of the year. My Tecsun pl-368 and my Eton Elite Executive perform better than this mediocre product at a price point that is absolutely criminal.

Well hello Nick. I like your videos but I have to say your mistaken. I say this because of my 5 HD RADIOS THIS RECEIVER DOES HD THE BEST. SO IT IS THE BEST HD RADIO I OWN SORRY.

It's an "F" connector.

Hi Nick. I need your expertise here. Since you already have a lot of videos comparing the receivers of many radios, I 'd like to watch if possible, a comparisson between ic 7610 vs ic 7000, that is if you have one. Or even better, comapre it with your top of line R9500. I do not mean the audio quality, but the capabilities of the receiver section, since it has many if not all, of the specs of a decent receiver. Thank you in advance, Michael

How can I listen to stations that I have memorized on the TECSUN S2000

That looks like an F connector used for satellite dishes

the old one was way better,why they dont just reproduce it..

Well hello there. I have two questions about this radio. First, does this radio receive FM HD signals. At this time, I have no interest in any other bands. I'm also wondering about the price range and the model number for this radio. I will appreciate any information you can provide.

I’m glad it’s not too bad… but what raises the stakes higher is it’s price! Do you think it’s so much better than the rest that it should justify it costing $600-$700 ?

Just buy 6 tecsun pl 660 one for each band eton should be , f,,,,, d up big time if they fix that box it should sell for 200 dollars to say sorry to their loyal fans

MY BARF BAG JUST BARFED!!🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮

A Junk Radio....it is a bummer that make a nice looking unit...and it gets interference from the the Digital display....

This my SW Friends is the definition of a "cash grab"

I sold my XHData D-808 due to muting while tuning, so this alone is enough for me NOT to buy this radio.

A butt-ugly graphical display layout. Looks like a quick & dirty display a firmware developer would whip up before the layout design and fonts were finished. So much wasted, empty space.

Dang, I thought that they’d try to change the 40 year old radios design a little bit but obviously it’s a repackaged pOP!

Wow! What a serious disappointment.

Looks ugly I'm thinking of getting the tecsun h501x

Ужасный приемник просто отстой