so ive had my TS-590SG for going on 7 years now and its been rock solid, no complaints really. but i keep seeing people rave about the IC-7300 and more recently the IC-7610 and part of me just wants something with a waterfall display built in because im running an SDRplay as a panadapter right now and the whole setup is kind of a mess of cables on the desk.

my main thing is HF, mostly 40 and 20m, some 15m when the band cooperates. i do a little contest work but nothing serious, maybe a handful of weekends a year. the 590 honestly outperforms what i need it to do but i keep thinking about how clean a single box solution would be. the 7300 seems like the obvious budget pick but ive read the roofing filter situation isnt ideal for crowded contest conditions and the 7610 jumps up quite a bit in price.

anyone made a similar jump? did you actually notice a real difference in daily operation or is this just GAS getting the better of me

honestly sounds like GAS to me but i get it. i went from a 590 to a 7300 about two years ago and day to day on 40m ragchewing and some dx chasing its great, the waterfall alone is worth a lot just for situational awareness. but i did notice in the SS last november that things got a little rough when 20m was packed, the 590 handled that better in my experience. if your contesting is light though probably wont matter much.

the cable cleanup alone might be worth it if that stuff bothers you, my shack looks way better now and thats not nothing when you spend a lot of time in there

the 7610 is a different animal from the 7300, dual watch, better dynamic range, its not really a fair comparison price wise but if you stretch the budget its closer to what your 590 does in terms of handling a busy band. i made the jump last year and havent looked back but i also do more serious contesting than you described so maybe overkill for your use case. what does your antenna situation look like, sometimes thats where the real difference shows up anyway