so ive been messing around with a generic RTL-SDR V3 dongle for about six months now, mostly just scanning trunked P25 systems locally and doing some aircraft ADS-B stuff with dump1090. it works fine for that honestly. but ive been eyeing the SDRplay RSP1A and people keep saying its a massive improvement and i cant tell if thats just people justifying their own purchase or if it actually matters.

main things i do: wideband scanning, some HF with the direct sampling mod on the RTL, and ive been trying to get into decoding some weak signal stuff on lower HF bands. the RTL handles HF but its pretty mediocre, lots of noise floor issues and the dynamic range is kind of garbage when theres a strong AM broadcast station anywhere near what im trying to listen to. like last night i was trying to pull in something around 7 MHz and the 50kW AM station on 710 was just trashing everything in the neighborhood.

is the RSP1A actually noticeably better for that kind of thing or should i just save up and jump straight to a HackRF or something. i know the HackRF is transmit capable too but im not sure i need that, just want better receive.

the RSP1A is genuinely better than the RTL for HF, not even close really. the dynamic range difference is real and you'll notice it immediately if you're in a RF-dense environment. the 12-bit ADC vs 8-bit on the RTL makes a meaningful difference when strong signals are around. that AM broadcast problem you're describing is pretty classic RTL behavior and the RSP handles it a lot better with the built-in preselection filters.

that said if your main goal is just better HF receive i'd also look at whether you have a decent antenna first. the RSP1A wont fix a bad antenna situation and ive seen people upgrade the radio and still be disappointed because they're still on a random wire thrown out a window. for what it costs though, around $100 US, the RSP1A is a solid jump up from the RTL. the SDRuno software that comes with it is actually pretty capable once you get used to the interface, though i know some guys run it with SDR# or HDSDR just fine too.

skip the HackRF for pure receive use. it's a transmit-capable device and the receive performance is actually not that impressive, HackRF receive is worse than a decent RTL in some respects because of the architecture. it's meant to be a flexible dev platform not a high performance receiver.

yeah what he said about hackrf receive being kind of meh is accurate. i have one and i mostly use it for transmit experiments and signal replay stuff, not for actual monitoring. if you just want to receive better the RSP1A or honestly even the RTL-SDR V3 with a good upconverter for HF is a more sensible path.

one thing i'll throw in — have you tried running the RTL with SDR++ instead of whatever youre using now. the noise floor handling and DC spike suppression in SDR++ is noticeably cleaner than older software and sometimes people think the hardware is the problem when its the software pipeline. not saying dont upgrade, just maybe worth a try first so you know what youre actually gaining when you do buy something new.