Wow! I just picked up a Tecsun PL-880 (firmware 8820) and they got it *nearly* perfect. So far no qc issues, but we'll see how that goes as my 909x died a year or so back.
Outstandingly clean and LOUD audio should you wish. Boneshaking bass if you hold it in your hands. The bass/treble control is kind of superflous since I leave it with full fidelity. It could use a tad more high end, but unless one is an audiophile, that won't be a big problem with this radio.
I got it for my grab-n-go setup and charge it with either my Anker 8 or 14 watt folding solar panels. Using 5v usb input to charge the li-ion battery means I'm no longer carrying my AA / Maha charger setup around - as much as I loved those. I'm slowly converting my portable setup to the simplified 5vUSB > Li-ion when I can.
Tuning for cw / ssb is the best I have ever encountered in a portable going all the way back to my Sony in 1979. Bandwidth selection actually works great.
The only issue that bugs me is that on cw / ssb is the agc-attack is too slow. So for moderately strong signals, the start of each transmission is distorted until the agc kicks in. Reducing the gain switch helps, but you end up with a worse s/n ratio, so you have to take your pick.
So sure enough, it can't even come close to the CommRadio CR1a. Still, that is apples-to-oranges difference.
For FM, be sure you didn't accidentally change the hidden 50/75us FM deemphasis. I must have done that while playing around (hold the #5 key down to toggle) and my high-end returned.
You can leave the display light enabled even when off, so be sure to check that in case you don't notice it and throw the radio into a drawer for a year.
Overall, I REALLY like this thing, but cw/ssb is kind of just goofing around until they fix that agc-attack delay. Reminds me of the analog Tecsun S2000 / Grundig 750 problem, but hopefully a software tweak could tighten that agc up.
So far, this is a keeper, but will it live a decade or more like my 7600gr? Time will tell.