Red Wave Radio

Which one would you buy or not buy and why or why not.

Well the "+3" wasn't around when I made my purchase...

...but I went with the 8500.  The reasons are that it is
a good solid piece of equipment, well designed, and focuses
more on doing the basics right than adding fancy features.

The marks against the downside were classic AOR ergonomics
and suspicion on the quality of construction, another AOR
weakness.

HOWEVER... the AOR does have several things going for it.
It wins the "bang-for-the-buck" contest hands down, and has
far better filtering in it than the ICOM.

Would I still stick with the ICOM?  yup.  The quality of
construction and design are why.

Eric

--

"Nature abhors a vacuum tube." -- J. R. Pierce, Bell Labs, c. 1940

I used both for awhile and also went with the Icom. It seemed much more
solid and even though Icom is not known for ease of use, the 8500 was easier
for me to operate. I agree with Eric, it has more basic features, but it
does them all very well.

I think most people from recent posts about the differences between the two
preferred the AOR, as it has more bells and whistles, but they don't justify
the added cost IMHO, and I still think the 8500 is more of a solid
'workhorse' reciever. It is an excellent performer in all bands and is built
like a tank.
Besides, my experiences with AOR products  (the 8200 in particular) have
taught me that they would rather build a reciever with mediocre performance
and a lot of features, than one with excellent performance on fewer
features - seems backwards to me.

I think it bears noting too that Icom has been very helpful in tech support
and operational questions for the 8500, while AOR has consistently given me
wrong answers and even ignored my questions or service problems all
together, an experience shared by many of the 8200 owners I know.

John Porter

I've owned both receivers and for me, what it came down to was the AOR was a
good receiver with scanner-like abilities and the Icom  a good all around
receiver, esp. if you want to listen to SW, but a so-so scanner. Both were a
pain in the ass to work with, having to listen to the click/clack relays.
Also, software for both really suck. That is based on an expectation that a
$1400-$1800 radio should have all of the capabilities available to the
typical $300 scanner with a PC interface. The software that AOR and Icom
offer for these scanners is a joke and the third-party software is mediocre
at best.

Both are really over-priced if all you want to do is listen to the cops,
fire, neighbors and cell phone users. Neither is much of a scanner, in the
true sense of the word and neither compare to scanners selling for 1/4 the
price.

If you want a good scanner, go with the BC9000 or PRO-2042/2006 with an Opto
board. If you also want to listen to SW get a decent SW radio and in the end
you'll pay a lot less than either the AOR or Icom.