so ive had my 7300 for about three years now and honestly its been a fantastic radio, no real complaints, but i keep looking at the IC-7610 and the Kenwood TS-890S and wondering if im leaving something on the table. mostly do CW and some SSB, occasionally dabble in FT8 when the bands are cooperating. the 7300 handles all of that fine but the dual watch on the 7610 seems really useful for contesting, which ive been getting more into lately.

the 890S has that roofing filter setup that people seem to lose their minds over and i get it, when things get crowded on 40m during a contest the 7300 can struggle a bit with close-in interference. not terrible but noticeable. anyway my shack is pretty basic, alpha antenna, a P3 panadapter that i barely use now since the 7300 has the built in waterfall, an LDG tuner. wondering if anyone has actually made this jump and whether you felt it in your operating or if its mostly just gear acquisition syndrome talking.

made almost this exact move about 18 months ago, went from a 7300 to the 7610 and honestly for contesting it made a real difference. the independent receivers are the main thing, you can actually work a second band while keeping an ear on your run frequency and once you get used to that workflow going back feels limiting. the noise floor on the 7610 also seemed a touch better to me but im not sure how much of that was real vs placebo, hard to do a rigorous comparison when youre swapping rigs not just swapping antennas.

if CW is your main thing though i keep hearing that the 890 roofing filters are genuinely ahead of both Icom options at 500hz and tighter. never owned one myself so cant speak from experience but the guys in the CW skimmers group seem pretty unanimous on it. if budget is a factor the 7610 usually comes in a bit lower street price than the 890S last time i checked.

honestly the 7300 is such a good radio that the jump to anything else is kinda hard to justify unless youre doing serious contesting or you just want new stuff (which is a valid reason, no shame). ive seen guys with 7300s work DX all day long that guys with much fancier setups couldnt because the antenna situation was better. that said the 890S roofing filter thing is real, i borrowed one for a weekend and the difference on a busy 40m saturday evening was not subtle at all, it was like someone turned the blender off.