Since this model was mentioned upstream in this thread, thought I'd mention that I just returned an Eton Satellit to Amazon, and here's why. After a couple of years with my PL-880 playing shelf queen from terrible AM-band intermod due to its wide-open front end, I noticed that the Executive Satellit was on sale.
I read the reviews again and again, and eventually bought one from Amazon using Jay Allen's affiliate link (support him!).
MW and SW reception are pretty much as others have described; probably class-leading and definitely superior to the PL-880 in my locale. Just like the Traveller III, the Satellit has absolutely no images throughout the AM band.
Now for the negatives.
1.The first runs of the Satellit got dinged over build quality, and the subsequent reports indicated a visible improvement. With my "Executive" model I see evidence of Chinese QC creep. Subtle things: Chips in the silver paint at the edges of some keys on the keypad. Dust behind the LCD bezel. Mottled chrome plating on the telescopic whip. Of course I can live with these; however, in view of what I note below, I wonder whether the ugliness now goes deeper than the skin.
2.The leatherette case, while pretty, is totally non-functional (i.e. gets in the way). Worse, it reduces the audio quality because it covers the back grille. Not to mention the ugly magnets embedded into the rear panel of the radio, visible when you remove the leatherette.
3.Speaking of audio - whoever posted that the off-the-speaker audio of the Satellit was as good as the Tecsun, must be more deaf than me. There is NO comparison: the Satellit is thin and tinny and obviously optimized for voice rather than the general-purpose design of the Tecsun which sounds quite nice playing music.
4.The sync detector is even more useless than the Tecsun, which wasn't even advertised as having one. At least on my specimen, it takes a signal having full-scale strength to get the sync to lock. Even local fringe stations are beyond it, leaving you with a "locked" state resulting in the original signal being buried in prominent white noise. So, in short, the only stations in which the sync detector would function, are those for which it would probably not be necessary in the first place. Back to ECSS, I guess.
5.Few have commented on FM. I didn't plan to use this much for FM, but a glaring issue is tough to ignore. In between stations, mixed with the static, is a high pitched whine that appears to be coming from the timing circuit that turns off the dial LEDs. It becomes louder when the light is on, and softer with the intensity of the LEDs, and goes away when they are off. With headphones I can even hear it while a station is being received. Just when I thought "well, I could live with that" I noticed a warbling S9 birdie at 89 MHz having the same characteristics. Reviewers have commented on the "done right" design of this DSP radio, in which parts placement and shielding are laid out so as to minimize stray noises creeping into the audio. In FM this seems to be a glaring issue, unless it is just my specimen. But I think not - buried in the recent Amazon reviews, someone called Eton over the same issue and they insisted - notwithstanding this experienced radio hobbyist's results on numerous other radios - that this was normal and he should adjust his antenna, etc.
6.There are numerous reviews which favor the reverse-orange display characteristic of the LCD's that Eton has used on recent models. I agree it looks cool, until (#5) you have to use the radio with the back light turned off; it's a challenge to see anything. At least, with traditional LCD displays, they are relatively legible when not specifically illuminated.
I emailed Eton about the FM issue, and the president said he had relayed my question to the engineering dept. Never received a response, so I polled Jay Allen. He told me that, of the 3 generational specimens he'd tested, none exhibited this behavior; I must have a bad one. But the other Amazon "bad one" review was so recent, that I balked at doing an exchange and playing "did I get a good one" roulette. So I sent it for a quick refund before the return window expired.
I really wanted to like this radio - such that I was actually starting to come up with excuses for holding onto one that was clearly misbehaving. If the discontinued black version - sans anti-functional leatherette case - ever goes on sale, I might give that a try, but I'm in no rush.
