so ive been messing around with a cheap RTL-SDR v3 dongle for a few months now and honestly its been pretty impressive for the price, got it picking up ADS-B, some NOAA weather sats, even managed to decode some WSPR on 40m with the direct sampling mod enabled. but the HF performance is pretty underwhelming if im being honest — lots of noise, the dynamic range is just not there when there's a strong broadcast station nearby, and i keep reading that the SDRplay RSP1A or the RSPdx is supposedly a big step up for shortwave and ham bands.

my question is whether its actually worth the jump to something like the RSP1A which is what, $110-$120 now? or should i just try to improve my antenna situation first and maybe add an upconverter. i already have SDR# and GQRX installed, tried SDRangel too but that thing is a beast to configure. mostly interested in HF listening, some 2m/70cm monitoring, and maybe getting into decoding digital modes with WSJT-X piped through virtual audio cable. anyone made that jump from RTL to SDRplay and felt like it was worth it

yeah the jump is noticeable, not gonna lie. i ran an RTL-SDR v3 for about a year before picking up an RSP1A and the difference on HF is real — the noise floor is lower, the dynamic range handling is way better when youre near strong signals, and the 12-bit ADC vs the 8-bit in the RTL stuff actually matters more than i expected. that said your antenna situation matters a ton too so both things are true at once. i had a crappy wire strung through my attic and even with the RSPdx i was still fighting noise until i got the antenna outside and away from the house wiring.

for WSJT-X integration the SDRplay works fine with the virtual audio cable approach, some people use SDR-Console with it which has pretty decent CAT integration if you want to tie it to logging software. SDRangel is powerful but yeah the learning curve is steep, i gave up on it twice before it finally clicked. if your primary goal is HF digital modes and general shortwave the RSP1A is probably the right call at that price point.

HackRF is worth mentioning too if you ever want to transmit — it does 1MHz to 6GHz and you can do some fun stuff with it. the receive performance isnt as good as SDRplay for just listening though, its more of a do-everything tool than a best-in-class receiver. i use mine for exploring stuff above 2GHz mostly.