so ive been using a cheap RTL-SDR V3 dongle for about a year now mostly just scanning around VHF/UHF and doing some APRS decoding with Direwolf, pretty happy with it honestly. but i keep reading about the SDRplay RSP1C and RSP2 and people saying the dynamic range and sensitivity is way better especially on HF. im running mine with an upconverter right now (the Ham-It-Up) and it works but the noise floor is kind of ugly below like 10 MHz.

my actual question is whether anyone has used both and can say whether the jump to an SDRplay is actually noticeable in day to day use or is it one of those things that looks great in benchmark charts but you dont really feel it sitting there turning the dial. i mostly just want to monitor 40m and 80m when im not transmitting, maybe do some digidecoding with fldigi or WSJT. not doing anything serious just curious what the bands are doing.

also is SDRuno still kind of a mess or have they cleaned it up, last time i tried it was like 2 years ago and i ended up just using SDR# because it felt less crashy

yeah the difference is real, at least on HF. i ran the RTL-SDR V3 in direct sampling mode for a while before getting an RSP1A and it wasnt even close on 40m. the RTL just gets hammered by strong local stations and you get all this intermod garbage showing up where it shouldnt be. the SDRplay handles that a lot better, the RSP1A has those extra front end filters and it shows.

SDRuno has gotten better but i still use HDSDR with the ExtIO plugin for the RSP because im just used to it. SDR# works fine too if you install the right plugins. honestly the software is kind of whatever once you get it configured, the hardware difference is the part that matters. if youre doing WSPR or FT8 monitoring on 40m and 80m the cleaner noise floor on the SDRplay is going to make you happy. probably worth the $130 or whatever they go for now.

I went the HackRF route instead of SDRplay and kind of regret it for pure receive work. the HackRF is great if you need to transmit or do wideband stuff but the receive sensitivity is mediocre compared to a dedicated rx-only SDR. for just monitoring HF the SDRplay or even an Airspy HF+ would eat it alive. just something to consider if you see the HackRF pop up used and think its a good deal for the money, depends what you want to do with it.