I believe you that the quality is better, without having heard it. Just the maximum volume and the immense distortion at higher volumes is it, what drives me crazy with all the consumer electronics. Only a few $ more for a better speaker, a better amplifier and some acoustic design, and the scanners or ham handhelds would be just fine for everydays use.ASTROMODAT wrote:As a matter of fact, with the latest firmware load, I'd say the PRO-96 sounds noticably BETTER than the XTS-5000 on IMBE conversations as the AGC performance of the PRO-96 is much better, and the IMBE recovered audio is much crisper. The ONLY issue is that the audio power level capability of the PRO-96 is not quite as loud as I'd sometimes like it to be, but this is not a major issue, IMHO.
For $500 brand new (and "they" keep saying it's going to soon drop), how can you possibly justify the cost of a legit XTS-5000 (equipped with IMBE) over the PRO-96?
Then again, individual opinions are what make the world interesting, so Enjoy!
Regarding the costs of a XTS5000, it is absolutely overpriced. The much cheaper waris radios perform almost as good (of course just analog, and only when viewed without the prejudices against them). Seems the same with the german BOS radios, the radios used by police, rescue and fire brigades. In earlier times they had been expensive because they were exclusively developed for their needs. Nowadays the hardware ist standard (jedi or waris), just a modified firmware, and they are still expensive. The XTS look aimed to the official/governmental users in the US., they love them and buy them in huge amounts without looking at the price, so they are expensive. Period.