so ive had my IC-7300 for about 4 years now and honestly its been a great radio, no real complaints, but i keep looking at the IC-7610 and the Flex 6400 and wondering if im missing out on something. the dual watch on the 7610 seems genuinely useful for contesting and i do a fair bit of that but is it worth the price jump. the Flex stuff kind of intimidates me a little, i run a pretty traditional shack — dedicated monitor, logging PC, nothing crazy — and i feel like going full SDR might mean rebuilding everything around the radio instead of just dropping it in.

also ran into someone at a hamfest last month who swore by his Kenwood TS-890 and said the roofing filters are in a different league than the Icom stuff. i dont do a ton of weak signal work but i do run some FT8 and CW when conditions are decent. honestly i might just be in upgrade mode for no reason, my 7300 hears everything fine. does anyone actually regret making this jump or is it one of those things where once you go up you cant go back

the 890 guy isnt wrong about the roofing filters, that radio is seriously clean in a crowded band. i had a 7300 before i got my 890S and the difference on 40m during a contest is noticeable. that said the Icom panadapter implementation is smoother to use day to day, the Kenwood waterfall is functional but its not as snappy. if youre not doing serious SO2R stuff i honestly dont know if the 7610 dual watch justifies what theyre asking for it used right now. flex is its own world, great radio but yeah you kind of have to commit to the ecosystem, my buddy spent two weekends just getting his audio routing sorted before he could work a pileup comfortably.

i went from a 7300 to a 7610 about a year ago and i mean... it's good. the dual receive is nice when im monitoring two bands at once but if im being honest i probably use it like once a week. the real thing i noticed was the receive feels a bit cleaner on 80m late at night but whether thats worth the money difference i genuinely dont know. your 7300 is not holding you back is what im trying to say