Personally, I think the D-219 sounds best on all the bands you tried. I got a D-220 for my birthday, and so far I'm really impressed by the stations it pulls in!
@@LamarFaciane Hi Lamar, these two have different uses, in my opinion. The D-219 is much easier to operate and it is a real DXing radio. It is very sensitive and you can easily find signals. The D-220 is, in my opinion, equally sensitive, but with that tiny dial space all the signals are packed very tightly together, so it is much harder to find excacty what you are looking for. It is kind of like a treasure hunt when you DX with the D-220. Great fun, because you never know what you will get. It's always a surprise. I really enjoy the D-220 for that reason, it is not a "serious" DXing radio, but it is a really fun radio, just to see what you can get, because it is so sensitive. It's the one I use when I do some very casual band scans.
Thank you for your comment! The first two stations were kind of a coincidence, they happened to be the strongest at the time of my recording. Some of the only MW (AM) channels that are still on air here in South Africa are religious channels. Here in Johannesburg we have only three MW channels. One is Christian, one is Muslim and one plays oldies music.
Excellent video. The D-368 sounds best, but I actually prefer the D-219 because I have hearing loss, and the tinny sound actually makes the speech easier to understand.
Thanks! The D-368 certainly sounds very smooth and warm, it has a nice sound. I think, in the end, everyone will have a very personal favourite here, but they are all quite good, in my opinion.
In other videos, I've expressed that the d-220 needs an extra (nighttime) shortwave band on it. I still do. But it occurs to me that it would make a pretty decent everyday-carry emergency radio, because of its pocket size and the shortwave it already has on it.
Hi Jean, you are right, it could be a great little everyday emergency radio. But I also use mine quite regularly for DXing, I find it a lot of fun to see how many stations I can pull in, for the very reason that everything is squeezed so tightly together. It's a bit like opening a lucky packet every time, you never know what you will hear. An extra SE band would have been nice indeed, you are right, but I still enjoy this radio.
Personal preference- I would use the D-368 for general non-fatiguing day to day longer duration listening, the D-219 for DX chasing, and the D-220 for "ultralight" DX chasing. The D-219 for FM, but I'm not a FM guy, so that's kinda moot for me. Thanks for the compare.
My pleasure John, thanks for your comment! You and many others here seem to agree on the D-368 for general listening :-) The D-219 is certainly a great choice for DXing, it is such a sensitive little radio.
Hi Liam, thanks! All the Madagascar signals usually sound like that here in South Africa, sometimes even clearer. The transmitter is only about 2000 km (1250 miles) from me. That's why I chose it for this comparison, I knew the signal would be clear :-)
Hi Brent, that's a great way of looking at it. It is very true, the broadcasters don't broadcast just to DXers with the best possible radios and antennas 😀 There are many regular listeners with inexpensive radios.
I personally like the sound of the D 219. And plus it is a very well designed radio for starting shortwave radio listeners, and old timers like me who could always try to find something else new or exciting to listen to. Good for the SWL meter bands.
I agree with you about the D-220, it really is a well-designed radio and perfect for starting out with shortwave listening. For old-timers like me also it is a lot of fun to find signals in that very limited band space, I really enjoy the chase on this one! Also a very nice radio for both MW and FM listening. It is just a very good little radio overall!
I have all three radios too I personally love the D-219 the best but the lastest D-220 is amazing for picking up shortwave stations but I also like the fact that the D-368 has the rechargeable battery..im kinda buying smaller radios at the minute and have just purchased a radio called a Joc Tg-77 read couple reviews and they were decent and was for no money so see what it's like when it arrives ...Great review brother btw ..Ged in Ireland 🇮🇪
Hi there Ged, thanks for your comment! That Joc TG-77 looks very interesting, it actually looks quite a bit like the D-220! It would be interesting to compare these two. Like you, I also have a particular soft spot for small radios, I find them fun to use and they are great to carry around anywhere. My Clooblut RD218 has become a regular, daily companion when I take my dog for his walk. It's just the right size to carry along to do some scans outdoors, while I am walking. The Clooblut is just slightly bigger than the D-220. I would say my other favourite small radio at the moment is the D-220, I really like it, it's fun to try to find interesting signals on it.
@@swlistening the D-220 I really like them too and I'm bk fishing Sunday after a crazy couple months so I'm going to take that radio the D-220 and throw a wire up the tree and when the fish are not biting il be buzzn on that will do a video ..Gud to hear from ya brother..
I have both the D219 and D368. I think the audio is a little deeper on the 368, but both are really good considering the size of the speaker. Thanks for the video.
Hi Anthony, thanks for your comment. I agree, both these, and the D-220, have quite good sound, considering the small speaker size. The D-368 definitely has the warmest and deepest sound of all three these radios.
I was quite enjoying that show on the SA national broadcaster. I will have to see if they have an Internet feed. I guess the batteries last longer with radios with analog dials?
@Hiram8866 Hi Glen, SAfm has a website where you can download podcasts and stream them online. The website is a bit erratic though, it seems to be down quite often. The address is safm.co.za As Stratman has commented, the batteries do last for a very long time! The batteries in all my DSP radios with analogue dials seem to last forever.
Thanks André for this comparison 👍 to my liking, I think I'd prefer the D-368, with its sound being simply fuller - more bass (even though I listened on my phone, which doesn't give much bass either), and more highs on FM, albeit no significant difference between all these radios on AM in this regard. The D-219 & D-220 sounded quite tinny on FM 🙄 in fact, I couldn't spot any difference anywhere between the D-219 and D-220. Actually, with Radio Pulpit, I didn't see much of a difference between any of the three radios. Was that woman speaking over a phone? That wouldn't be the best audio source to compare radios and speakers due to its range of frequencies even further limited than most radio speakers can respond to. But in any case, the sound of all three radios is very crisp & understandable, so obviously others may have different preferences.
BTW just after your video, a RUclips recommendation suggests me a new video of a HanRongDa HRD-737, made by a popular ham radio RUclipsr here in Poland. It seems to be as small as the XHDATA D-220, but it has a digital display. From what I've seen & read earlier about HanRongDa radios, they weren't particularly sensitive, so I wonder how the D-220 and the HRD-737 would compare. And throw a PL-368 to that comparison, for good measure 😅
OK, I just watched. It can only do so much with a 30cm telescopic whip on SW, but a supplied piece of clip-on wire (maybe 3m long at best) does raise signals from nil to a fairly good level. He don't try a longer wire or a full-size EFHW he uses for ham radio, so we don't know how prone that HanRongRa would be to overload. And it doesn't seem too sensitive or selective on FM, he did pick up a few stations on auto seek, but none from a very high-power site a dozen kms away 😮
The D-368 uses the higher performance Si 4836-A10 tuner DSP, which supports FM stereo and bass/treble output controls. The D-219 is fitted with the cheaper Si 4825-A10 DSP which doesn't allow for sound control. The D-220 has an unknown Chinese designed DSP, presumably copied from the Si 4825-A10. If this is so then the D-220 will roughly sound like the D-219.
@ArnieDXer Hi Arnie, thanks for your comment. I think many people seem to prefer the warm and deeper sound on the D-368, it does sound quite a bit fuller than the other two. Personally I like the crisp sound on the D-220, although not many people seem to share my liking :-) I thought that the D-220 and the D-219 sound almost 100% alike on FM, but on MW and SW the D-220 sounds a bit different to me. Still sharp and clear, but with a bit of warmth, which the D-219 lacks. I like that the D-220 is quite crisp, but a bit warm, or full. The Radio Pulpit announcer, as far as I could gather, was not speaking on the phone, it was an announcer in the studio, I think. But I might be wrong there. About the HRD-737. I have seen this radio on Ali Express many times. Ali Express always recommends it to me, as well as the HRD-757, a much bigger radio. I haven't seen many reviews about these two radios, so I really don't know much about them. I don't think I'll buy one myself, but if HRD contacts me and asks me to review them, I will gladly do so :-)
Andre I ordered the D-220 the same time that I ordered the Tecsun PL-368. Unfortunately, my Olive Green D-220’s MW band did not work at all. Amazon just sent me an email that my replacement will arrive on this Saturday. I sent my D-220 the very next day after a one day delivery, but the replacement takes two weeks….go figure…😊! 73! Have a great day!
Hi Paul, yes, I just used the microphone on the V115. Because this is a speaker test, I did not follow my usual method of recording sound via the earphone jacks and an audio cable.
Interesting comparison, André, but for once I beg to differ. To me, the D-368 has a vastly superior speaker but this test doesn't do justice to it by only tuning to talk radios. I do understand that having music in RUclips videos is not something you want to do, but in my opinion this biased the comparison against the D-368 that sounds the best by far when listening to FM music, and it sounds just as great when playing MP3s or when used as a Bluetooth speaker. If we're only considering talk radio and mostly on SW, then I do agree that it's more or less a tie between the D-220 and the D-368. However to me the D-219 really lacks bandwidth and produces a very tinny and somewhat muffled sound. This is the only gripe I have against this otherwise wonderful small radio.
Hi there Alain, thanks for your comment! I think you are right, for music listening the D-368 will beat the other two here by far. I should have made it more clear in my video commentary that this test is more aimed at DXers than at music listeners. I do mention this in the video description, but I should have mentioned it in the video itself, just to make it clear what I am doing here. I am very careful not to play too much music, if any at all, on any of my radios during tests and comparisons. It is just too risky. RUclips is really strict about music copyright, so I'd rather not risk the future of my channel through copyright infringements. Anyway, it's OK, as my channel's main focus remains DXing and radios for DXing. Having said all this, most of the people who have commented here agree with your assessment of the D-368, even for voices :-) Most people seem to prefer the D-368 sound, a few like the D-219, and a few like the D-220.
Personally, I think the D-219 sounds best on all the bands you tried. I got a D-220 for my birthday, and so far I'm really impressed by the stations it pulls in!
It's quite remarkable how many stations that little D-220 pulls in!
Would you pick one over the other? I have the d-219 and am considering the d-200. Thanks for your reply!
@ I prefer the 219. It is somewhat easier to locate stations, but the dial is still pretty small.
@@LamarFaciane Hi Lamar, these two have different uses, in my opinion. The D-219 is much easier to operate and it is a real DXing radio. It is very sensitive and you can easily find signals. The D-220 is, in my opinion, equally sensitive, but with that tiny dial space all the signals are packed very tightly together, so it is much harder to find excacty what you are looking for. It is kind of like a treasure hunt when you DX with the D-220. Great fun, because you never know what you will get. It's always a surprise. I really enjoy the D-220 for that reason, it is not a "serious" DXing radio, but it is a really fun radio, just to see what you can get, because it is so sensitive. It's the one I use when I do some very casual band scans.
Even though i own all three of these, it was still helpful to watch this comparison. Thanks for all you do on this channel.
Thank you so much for your comment and thanks for watching!
I also love the channels you chose to demonstrate the sound quality. Brotherly greetings from Canada!
Thank you for your comment! The first two stations were kind of a coincidence, they happened to be the strongest at the time of my recording. Some of the only MW (AM) channels that are still on air here in South Africa are religious channels. Here in Johannesburg we have only three MW channels. One is Christian, one is Muslim and one plays oldies music.
Excellent video. The D-368 sounds best, but I actually prefer the D-219 because I have hearing loss, and the tinny sound actually makes the speech easier to understand.
Thanks! The D-368 certainly sounds very smooth and warm, it has a nice sound. I think, in the end, everyone will have a very personal favourite here, but they are all quite good, in my opinion.
In other videos, I've expressed that the d-220 needs an extra (nighttime) shortwave band on it. I still do. But it occurs to me that it would make a pretty decent everyday-carry emergency radio, because of its pocket size and the shortwave it already has on it.
Hi Jean, you are right, it could be a great little everyday emergency radio. But I also use mine quite regularly for DXing, I find it a lot of fun to see how many stations I can pull in, for the very reason that everything is squeezed so tightly together. It's a bit like opening a lucky packet every time, you never know what you will hear. An extra SE band would have been nice indeed, you are right, but I still enjoy this radio.
Personal preference- I would use the D-368 for general non-fatiguing day to day longer duration listening, the D-219 for DX chasing, and the D-220 for "ultralight" DX chasing. The D-219 for FM, but I'm not a FM guy, so that's kinda moot for me. Thanks for the compare.
My pleasure John, thanks for your comment! You and many others here seem to agree on the D-368 for general listening :-) The D-219 is certainly a great choice for DXing, it is such a sensitive little radio.
Very nice comparison there Andre. That Vatican Radio signal sound like a local MW station. To me I think the D-219 is the best
Hi Liam, thanks! All the Madagascar signals usually sound like that here in South Africa, sometimes even clearer. The transmitter is only about 2000 km (1250 miles) from me. That's why I chose it for this comparison, I knew the signal would be clear :-)
I like SWL on inexpensive radios, because the broadcasters themselves are not out there to broadcast just to those with expensive radios.
Hi Brent, that's a great way of looking at it. It is very true, the broadcasters don't broadcast just to DXers with the best possible radios and antennas 😀 There are many regular listeners with inexpensive radios.
I personally like the sound of the D 219. And plus it is a very well designed radio for starting shortwave radio listeners, and old timers like me who could always try to find something else new or exciting to listen to. Good for the SWL meter bands.
I agree with you about the D-220, it really is a well-designed radio and perfect for starting out with shortwave listening. For old-timers like me also it is a lot of fun to find signals in that very limited band space, I really enjoy the chase on this one! Also a very nice radio for both MW and FM listening. It is just a very good little radio overall!
I agree, the D-220 sounds the best to me.
Thanks for the review
Thanks Matt, and my pleasure!
I have all three radios too I personally love the D-219 the best but the lastest D-220 is amazing for picking up shortwave stations but I also like the fact that the D-368 has the rechargeable battery..im kinda buying smaller radios at the minute and have just purchased a radio called a Joc Tg-77 read couple reviews and they were decent and was for no money so see what it's like when it arrives ...Great review brother btw ..Ged in Ireland 🇮🇪
Hi there Ged, thanks for your comment! That Joc TG-77 looks very interesting, it actually looks quite a bit like the D-220! It would be interesting to compare these two. Like you, I also have a particular soft spot for small radios, I find them fun to use and they are great to carry around anywhere. My Clooblut RD218 has become a regular, daily companion when I take my dog for his walk. It's just the right size to carry along to do some scans outdoors, while I am walking. The Clooblut is just slightly bigger than the D-220. I would say my other favourite small radio at the moment is the D-220, I really like it, it's fun to try to find interesting signals on it.
@@swlistening the D-220 I really like them too and I'm bk fishing Sunday after a crazy couple months so I'm going to take that radio the D-220 and throw a wire up the tree and when the fish are not biting il be buzzn on that will do a video ..Gud to hear from ya brother..
@@corpo33 Sounds a bit like here on my side Ged, the past few months have been crazy also. Much quieter now. Enjoy the fishing trip!
I have both the D219 and D368. I think the audio is a little deeper on the 368, but both are really good considering the size of the speaker. Thanks for the video.
Hi Anthony, thanks for your comment. I agree, both these, and the D-220, have quite good sound, considering the small speaker size. The D-368 definitely has the warmest and deepest sound of all three these radios.
I was quite enjoying that show on the SA national broadcaster. I will have to see if they have an Internet feed.
I guess the batteries last longer with radios with analog dials?
Analogue DSP radios generally use basic DSP tuners with ultra low power requirements, so in that regard yes, batteries last longer.
@Hiram8866 Hi Glen, SAfm has a website where you can download podcasts and stream them online. The website is a bit erratic though, it seems to be down quite often. The address is safm.co.za
As Stratman has commented, the batteries do last for a very long time! The batteries in all my DSP radios with analogue dials seem to last forever.
Thanks André for this comparison 👍 to my liking, I think I'd prefer the D-368, with its sound being simply fuller - more bass (even though I listened on my phone, which doesn't give much bass either), and more highs on FM, albeit no significant difference between all these radios on AM in this regard. The D-219 & D-220 sounded quite tinny on FM 🙄 in fact, I couldn't spot any difference anywhere between the D-219 and D-220. Actually, with Radio Pulpit, I didn't see much of a difference between any of the three radios. Was that woman speaking over a phone? That wouldn't be the best audio source to compare radios and speakers due to its range of frequencies even further limited than most radio speakers can respond to.
But in any case, the sound of all three radios is very crisp & understandable, so obviously others may have different preferences.
BTW just after your video, a RUclips recommendation suggests me a new video of a HanRongDa HRD-737, made by a popular ham radio RUclipsr here in Poland. It seems to be as small as the XHDATA D-220, but it has a digital display. From what I've seen & read earlier about HanRongDa radios, they weren't particularly sensitive, so I wonder how the D-220 and the HRD-737 would compare. And throw a PL-368 to that comparison, for good measure 😅
OK, I just watched. It can only do so much with a 30cm telescopic whip on SW, but a supplied piece of clip-on wire (maybe 3m long at best) does raise signals from nil to a fairly good level. He don't try a longer wire or a full-size EFHW he uses for ham radio, so we don't know how prone that HanRongRa would be to overload. And it doesn't seem too sensitive or selective on FM, he did pick up a few stations on auto seek, but none from a very high-power site a dozen kms away 😮
The D-368 uses the higher performance Si 4836-A10 tuner DSP, which supports FM stereo and bass/treble output controls. The D-219 is fitted with the cheaper Si 4825-A10 DSP which doesn't allow for sound control.
The D-220 has an unknown Chinese designed DSP, presumably copied from the Si 4825-A10. If this is so then the D-220 will roughly sound like the D-219.
@ArnieDXer Hi Arnie, thanks for your comment. I think many people seem to prefer the warm and deeper sound on the D-368, it does sound quite a bit fuller than the other two. Personally I like the crisp sound on the D-220, although not many people seem to share my liking :-) I thought that the D-220 and the D-219 sound almost 100% alike on FM, but on MW and SW the D-220 sounds a bit different to me. Still sharp and clear, but with a bit of warmth, which the D-219 lacks. I like that the D-220 is quite crisp, but a bit warm, or full. The Radio Pulpit announcer, as far as I could gather, was not speaking on the phone, it was an announcer in the studio, I think. But I might be wrong there.
About the HRD-737. I have seen this radio on Ali Express many times. Ali Express always recommends it to me, as well as the HRD-757, a much bigger radio. I haven't seen many reviews about these two radios, so I really don't know much about them. I don't think I'll buy one myself, but if HRD contacts me and asks me to review them, I will gladly do so :-)
Andre I ordered the D-220 the same time that I ordered the Tecsun PL-368. Unfortunately, my Olive Green D-220’s MW band did not work at all. Amazon just sent me an email that my replacement will arrive on this Saturday. I sent my D-220 the very next day after a one day delivery, but the replacement takes two weeks….go figure…😊!
73! Have a great day!
That's a pity, it is lucky that you were able to replace it via Amazon. Some good things are worth waiting for 😀
The D-119 just sounds cleaner and clearer than the other two.
Many people seem to like the D-219 sound 😀
Knowledge has indeed increased and we are of one language (English Internet)
That is true!
got the green 220 for less than us $11.20 shipped and that a lot of radio for that.
I agree. It's small, inexpensive, and remarkably good. The green one looks great 😀
Good and funny "sound review" at all, André,.. From all this capable "babies",. my ears say: the winner is D-368.. Good SouthAfrican day 😂 👌🙋
Thanks! I think many people agree with you about the D-368 😀
You were just using the internal microphone of the V115?
Hi Paul, yes, I just used the microphone on the V115. Because this is a speaker test, I did not follow my usual method of recording sound via the earphone jacks and an audio cable.
Interesting comparison, André, but for once I beg to differ. To me, the D-368 has a vastly superior speaker but this test doesn't do justice to it by only tuning to talk radios. I do understand that having music in RUclips videos is not something you want to do, but in my opinion this biased the comparison against the D-368 that sounds the best by far when listening to FM music, and it sounds just as great when playing MP3s or when used as a Bluetooth speaker.
If we're only considering talk radio and mostly on SW, then I do agree that it's more or less a tie between the D-220 and the D-368. However to me the D-219 really lacks bandwidth and produces a very tinny and somewhat muffled sound. This is the only gripe I have against this otherwise wonderful small radio.
Hi there Alain, thanks for your comment! I think you are right, for music listening the D-368 will beat the other two here by far. I should have made it more clear in my video commentary that this test is more aimed at DXers than at music listeners. I do mention this in the video description, but I should have mentioned it in the video itself, just to make it clear what I am doing here. I am very careful not to play too much music, if any at all, on any of my radios during tests and comparisons. It is just too risky. RUclips is really strict about music copyright, so I'd rather not risk the future of my channel through copyright infringements. Anyway, it's OK, as my channel's main focus remains DXing and radios for DXing.
Having said all this, most of the people who have commented here agree with your assessment of the D-368, even for voices :-) Most people seem to prefer the D-368 sound, a few like the D-219, and a few like the D-220.