Degen DE17 test

It seems that this radio has been lost as my daughter uses it quite often

for dancing with some FM dance radio stattions...She esily forgets what sshe does!

Short comparison between 108 and 17 : 108 is loud with direct amplifier audio without att to the earphone the while 17 has much lower audio . 108 has linear audio while 17 is quite trebly. 17 has better AM filtering. 108 can operate for at least 40 hours with earphones and the switch can change between antenna and earphone cable on FM.

-----

A review of degen de17

....and comparison with 108 and 1126 ….

Degen DE17 is my last radio as a successor and replacement of the nearly 'defunct' DE108,

As noticed in the de108 page of this site solder inside the PCB is possibly broken causing the radio to lose its AM (MW and SW too) sensitivity. I could temporarily restore this problem by pressing along the sides or on the volume control on the rear side . Due to SMD technology , it is beyond my abilities to repair it.

Looking on the web and especially in blogordie I found the De17 having the same design with 108 and still using the now 'famous' all in one DSP circuit SI 7434IC used by Degen /Tecsun in their latest models .This made me more curious on replacing my de108 with this .

Although my questions in blogordie have not completely replied, this made me purchase this model form the same provider as with my previous orders . The cost of it with shipping charges is $32 for a registered parcel and delivery was exactly the same as with the previous times : 3 weeks exactly

The pack has been thrown immediately after the receipt of the package , for many reasons and with the help of a work mate I have made the first test , by putting the batteries of de108 into it . The first impressions were rather bad except two important points : The high selectivity on all bands and the very low effects /spills from strong FM signals on SW and FM that cause loss of sensitivity on FM or produce garbage on SW

Inside the packing there are also earphones and a USB cable for charging batteries it will be discussed on the end of this article

This article is comparison between De17 108 and 1126

First the visible comparison

The design of 17 is the replica of 108. The only visible difference is only the color!

All buttons have added features comparing to 108.

-LCD shows more features:

With radio powered off, the LCD shows time in HH MM SS format, compared to HH MM format of 108 .

Powered on ,the frequency , memory and time is shown .

In frequency or memory change , for ca 5 seconds a tick is heard every one second , this is due to signal check by the DSP .After this time the memory is shown IN the picture below the signal strength is shown wit the antenna folded !

Have not tested yet but I wonder if the signal strength is actual dbu units as shown in PL380 or 360 Not to mention that 360 and 380 have different signal strength (dbu) readouts!

-The former alarm (in 108) button is now used also for changing SW bands. The frequencies are inside the bands for easier navigation

-The band button is now used for changing between MW and FM

-Stereo /mono switch is now used for antenna change. By this way you can either select between the telescopic antenna or the earphones ! IN practice for shortwaves the telescopic antenna cannot do its job.

-The volume control is very smooth comparing to 108’s but with very low total volume. Its earphone volume is lower than the internal speaker’s . Consider that 108’s volume control is very huge even in the ¼ th of the turn !I could prefer a compromise between these two. This is the reason that 108’s batteries could last about 3 months with ca 3 hours per day of usage . 1600 mAh batteries used for first time have been dropped to nearly the half after ca.20 hours of operation.

This radio adds some more interesting features

- 225 memories 100 for SW , 100 for Fm and 25 for MW

- ATS , battery charging

- and all in one DSP tech !!!

AM reception : (for both MW and SW ) comparisons with 1126

- Narrow pass band , close to Degen’s De1126 ie 2 or 3 kHz of bandwidth . This results to poor audio quality

- High self AGC that amplifies internal circuitry’s noise to quite high levels in vacant frequencies. This 'garbage' may affect poor to fair signals too (up to 25 dbu ?).

- Sensitivity . Rather poor sensitivity Moderate signals that can be heard clear with DE1126 can’t be heard with this radio As for example my favorite station WaiFM on 9835Khz with moderate signal (S7) can be heard clearly with DE1126 but cannot be received in DE17 Testing the radio near to R75 or coupled to horizontal antenna I could hear the station however

With newer tests de17 is close to 1102’s sensitivity. RTM could be received OK and weaker stations cold be received

- FM spills can .still be heard in shortwaves but in lesser level . Our antenna farm is about 10 km from the center of the city. This can happen using the earphones as antenna Most effected bands are 15-17mHz and the signal can come from very nearby stations as eg 1431 kHz the students station of 500 W and ca 200-500 m far.

- No overloading in shortwaves if connected to external wire antenna as with most DSP radios!!

- The AN 20 MW loop greatly enhances AM reception and cleans vacant frequencies from radio’s 'garbage' (in contrast to 1126 that seems nearly non effected )

- Close sensitivity between De17 and 108 in MW

FM reception

- Sensitivity: Good . Most stations can be received in the city without unfolding antenna . The same occurs with more ‘DX’ signals as for example Asteras 90.6 mHz a pirate station of signal ca 6 dbu (as shown on the LCD) from Veria ( direct distance of 40 km ) ON 904 and 908 there are two signals of 40 dbu

- High selectivity as with DE1126 PL360 and PL380 due to DSP circuit verifies the above test on 90.6 .

- No loss of sensitivity due to strong signals as happened with DE108 . All stations are heard in the clear

- Once I have found spark sounds on FM near to generators

- Audio is terrible with any class earphone tested . One of its worst features

Audio :

- Poor quality on Am due to narrow passband ,

- Rather poor fidelity on FM using earphones . Very trebly with nearly no bass . DE108 has more ‘linear’ audio response.

- Low earphone audio levels (significantly lower than DE108) The built in speakers have higher audio level. Full audio level is sufficient in walking in the city

- Same speaker audio quality with DE108 in FM

Earphones : Bad audio with lower volume than AKG 309 . Lacks bass AND cuts higher trebles above 5kHz . Just by using the ‘bassy’ Sennheiser headphones the sound seems sufficient

Sleep time : This is a new feature compared to 108 . The sleep time can be adjusted with radio switched off by pushing the + or - button from 0 (continuous) up to 90 minutes

Battery : this radio drains much faster the battery than its predecessor De108 as notices above 20 hours of operation reduced 1600 mAh batteries to nearly half

USB charge and batteries : the radio can be charged via the supplied USB cable.

Changing batteries can lead you to fake 'non-function' .

This is what happened to me after changing batteries . On the start I have used standard alkaline batteries . After reading in the users guide that the radio can operate with rechargeable batteries and charge them, I replaced the alkaline with rechargeable. I was quite shocked looking at a dead radio !! I thought it was my mistake to put one of these two batteries in reverse but I was wrong . And finally I found that the radio required a reset in order to work properly !!

he reset button in the rear part of the radio . ON 108 is in the same point!

A notice about the cable . The radio does not have the standard mini D USB socket as other recent Degen or Tecsun models, but by following the design of DE108,it uses a classical rounded socket .

And the funny of it , with positive pole in the ground as with most Chinese /Taiwanese gadgets!The cable provided for charging is a USB to

Charging batteries is very slow At 150 mA is 9 hours for charging 1300 mAh . I have put 2700 mAh batteries …

Verdict 3.5/5 : This radio has a rather poor design and suffers from high levels of inner garbage (as with 1126 ) in AM bands with rather good sensitivity FM however is quite better but it suffers from lack of audio fidelity. This radio is like using a very strong engine is a low class car!

I increased the rating from 3 to 3.5 due to 17's AVC

Update : De17 as far as i understood from its operation , possibly features audio normalization (AVC). Compared to PL360/380 that have soft mute and the volume is dropped down. DE17 retains the volume in same levels even if soft mute is activated . Good move!