so ive been running my 7300 for about two years now and honestly its been a great radio out of the box but i kept reading about the front end mod where you bypass or improve the filtering before the ADC and i finally took the plunge last weekend. ended up following that writeup from the guy over on radioreference, the one where he replaces a couple of the input components to reduce IMD on crowded bands.

the difference on 40m during the evening hours is actually noticeable, like strong broadcast stations that used to bleed in a little are just gone now. i was skeptical honestly because i thought it might be one of those mods where you talk yourself into hearing a difference. but comparing recordings before and after with the same strong local signal nearby, yeah the noise floor behavior is cleaner. hard to explain but the AGC seems to react less aggressively now.

only thing is i had to reflow a couple of joints because my soldering iron tip was getting old and i wasnt confident about two of the pads. took me longer than it should have. anyone else done this one or something similar on the 7300? curious if people went further and did the band pass filter work too

yeah i did the front end work on mine maybe six months ago, slightly different approach though — i went with the toroid swap on the input transformer rather than the cap replacement path. similar results from what you describe. 40 and 80 are the big winners for sure, the ADC on that radio is good but it really appreciates having a cleaner signal handed to it before it even starts working.

the bandpass filter mod is a whole other thing, that one takes more time and you need to be comfortable pulling the board partially. i started it and then chickened out when i realized i had a contest weekend coming up and didnt want the radio in pieces. still havent finished it tbh. the improvement from just the front end work was good enough that i havent felt urgent about it.

one thing i'd say — if you havent already, recalibrate the IP3 reference point in the menu after doing hardware mods. not sure it actually changes anything but it felt like the right thing to do and at least a couple people on the icom groups swear it matters.

im always nervous about voiding warranty stuff but the 7300 is old enough mine is out of warranty anyway so maybe its time to look into this. does it require any special tools or is it mostly just fine tip soldering and patience? i have a hakko 888 which should be fine i think but some of those surface mount components on icom boards look tiny