so ive had my 7300 for about 3 years now and honestly its a fantastic radio, no complaints really, but ive been doing more serious contesting lately and starting to mess around with SO2R ideas and i keep running into the walls of what a single mid-range radio can do. not saying the 7300 is bad, its just... i dunno, i feel like ive kind of maxed out what im gonna learn from it.

been looking pretty hard at the IC-7610 mostly because of the dual watch and the two independent receivers on the same band which would help a lot when im trying to work split or monitor a second frequency without a second radio. but the 7610 is a pretty significant jump in price and i keep second guessing myself. the other option ive been kicking around is just grabbing a used TS-990 because you can find them at reasonable prices now and the filtering on that thing is supposedly incredible for contest environments with a lot of QRM.

anyone been through this decision or gone from a 7300 to either of these? curious what actually changed day to day in the shack and not just spec sheet stuff

went through almost exactly this about 18 months ago, was sitting on a 7300 and eyeing the 7610 for a while. ended up pulling the trigger on a used 7610 and honestly the dual watch receiver situation alone was worth it for contesting. the way you can park one ear on the run frequency and still be digging around for mults with the other — its hard to go back once you've used it that way. the roofing filters on the 7610 are meaningfully better than the 7300 too, real world difference in a pile-up, not just on paper.

i looked at the 990 briefly but the size of that thing was a problem for my desk and also i just wasnt sure about Kenwood's support situation going forward, nothing against them just a personal hesitation. if you can find a clean 7610 in the low-to-mid 2k range used its probably the cleaner upgrade path from where you are.

the 990 is a beast but its also a boat anchor, thing weighs like 30 lbs i think? my buddy has one and the DSP and filtering is legitimately impressive especially on 40m when its a warzone at night but you kind of have to commit desk real estate to it. also the UI is very kenwood circa 2013 which takes some getting used to after the 7300 touchscreen stuff.

not saying dont get it, just depends what your shack looks like and how much you care about ergonomics vs raw rx performance. personally id probably go 7610 in your situation just for the continuity with icom and you already know how to drive it.