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! 

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!