so ive been using a cheap RTL-SDR v3 dongle for about a year now mostly for VHF/UHF scanning and some ADS-B stuff and honestly its been great for what it is. but ive been wanting to get more into HF and the direct sampling mode on the rtl-sdr is... fine i guess but it really shows its limits once you start getting into crowded bands. dynamic range just falls apart.

been looking at the SDRplay RSPdx and it seems like the obvious next step but its like 8-9x the price depending where you find it. ive also seen people mention the HackRF but from what i understand thats more of a transmit capable thing and the receive performance isnt actually as good as the SDRplay? someone correct me if im wrong on that.

mostly want to use it with SDR# or maybe HDSDR, and i do run a modest noise floor at home (semi-rural, not terrible). is the SDRplay actually worth jumping to or am i better off just getting a better antenna setup first before spending money on the radio itself. genuinely not sure which is the bigger bottleneck right now

yeah the HackRF thing is a common misconception — its a great device but the ADC resolution is only 8 bit and the noise figure is pretty mediocre so for pure receive the SDRplay blows it out of the water. HackRF makes sense if you actually want to transmit or do RF testing stuff, not really if HF listening is your main goal.

the RSPdx specifically has that notch filter for MW and the broadcast FM band which makes a huge difference on HF if you're anywhere near a strong station. i went from an rtl-sdr with an upconverter to the RSPdx about two years ago and honestly yeah the jump was noticeable, better sensitivity and the software (SDRuno) has come a long way although i know some people still prefer SDR# with the SDRplay plugin. antenna matters too obviously but at a certain point the dongle really is the limiting factor on HF

dont sleep on just trying a ham-it-up upconverter with your existing rtl-sdr before you spend the money tbh. got me through like another 6 months before i finally caved and got a proper SDR. depends how patient you are i guess. that said once i did move to an RSP1A i was kind of annoyed i waited so long lol, the difference on 40m at night especially was pretty obvious