Thats false. I live in Phx and my 536HP is fantastic. The 996P2 is decent also (with some messing around) but my 536HP is almost as good as my SDS100 and 200.
Ok, let's be more specific. The SDS100 was
specifically designed to receive P25 simulcast systems with less LSM distortion than any consumer grade scanner that came before it, primarily by using SDR technology. That certainly doesn't mean that a 536 or 996 is incapable of any monitoring of P25 simulcast systems. By saying "almost as good" you seem to be admitting that your SDS100 handles this job at least somewhat better than your other scanners.
Earlier generations of scanners capable of decoding P25 systems
often suffered from significant LSM distortion that caused the receiver to miss or poorly decode received transmissions
some or
much of the time, but
not always. The SDS100
generally performs better in each of these categories than any consumer grade scanner that came before it.
That said, some people report no trouble with LSM distortion based on their location, the system they are monitoring, the particular location of towers and the specific effect of overlapping simulcast signals at their location, among other factors, even with older generations of scanners. Other people have reported significant trouble with LSM distortion on their systems of interest at their location using older scanners, but less trouble (or no trouble) using the SDS100. Still others have reported trouble using older models, and no significant improvement using an SDS100. Ironically, Phoenix is a city that seems to have a disproportionately high rate of people reporting significant LSM distortion on 536, 996P2 and other scanners that don't use SDR technology to reduce LSM distortion, and some of those people report significant improvements with the SDS100 and some do not. The point is, it varies for everyone.
But I think it is fair to say that
more people report that the SDS100 performs better on P25 simulcast systems than earlier generations of P25 consumer grade scanners did, and that makes sense, since the SDS100 was
in fact specifically designed by Uniden to handle P25 simulcast LSM better than the 536 and 996P2 does.
I have spent a lot of time monitoring P25 simulcast systems in Tucson, Phoenix, Atlanta, and elsewhere, and I currently do or have in the past owned a 436, 536, HP2, 996, 996P2, SDS100, Unication G5, and BKRadio KNG2-P800, among others. In my experience in all of these locations, there are three clear categories. Using descriptive words rather than any sort of numerical testing (which I haven't and can't do), in my experience (1) the 436, 536, HP2, 996, and 996P2 each did "just ok, some of the time, in some locations" on these systems, (2) the SDS100 does "much better, but not perfect, most of the time, in most locations covered by the system", and (3) the Unication G5 and KNG2-P800 perform almost flawlessly, almost all of the time, at all locations covered by the system, with a slight edge to the KNG2-P800 (which, of course, is a public safety grade radio with receiver and software decoding components on par with a Motorola APX radio).
If your 536 and 996P2 work really well for you in Phoenix,
that's awesome! Just understand that you are very much in a minority. I hope you recognize just how fortunate you are to feel satisfied with your scanner monitoring experience on those scanners monitoring those systems. Most of us have suffered greatly trying to monitor systems like PCWIN, TOPAZ and RWC on those models. We've found significant improvement in experience with an SDS100, and I have found even more improvement with a Unication and a KNG2-P800. But again, everyone's experience seems to vary a bit.
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