AR-DV10 Internal images and tests

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MStep

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.............. I would not be surprised if this whole mess will be their end in the near future...............
As I surmised in another thread, this very well could be the death-knell for AOR. I have been a member here on the RR forums for many years, and have followed radio equipment reviews for many more. I cannot recall another single piece of equipment (DV10) which has generated so much negative press in such a short period of time, except perhaps for the AOR Alpha, which got scathing reviews on YouTube.

Obviously, this radio was "not ready for prime time" when AOR decided to release it, perhaps because of the impending competition from Icom and Uniden, both also introducing new portable receivers in the same general time frame.

There is not much more that I can add which has not already been said. At this point, it would appear that AOR has just decided to "ride out the storm" and hope for the best.
 

marlbrook

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AOR reaction

There is not much more that I can add which has not already been said. At this point, it would appear that AOR has just decided to "ride out the storm" and hope for the best.

It went much further than 'hiding their head in the sand' and 'riding out the storm'. Certain people, provably affiliated to the Company went on to the attack, denying the evidence regarding the most serious frequency stability/drift problems in particular, and intimating the people who were posting about the problems were fabricating the proven facts, and were doing so out of malicious intent or affiliation to other Radio Manufacturers.

AOR themselves took 'punitive' action where they could against customers who brought these things to the Public's attention, and adding threats of legal action to many in their emails.

As I have said before, I sympathise with AOR, the top Management were clearly deceived into believing the DV10 was ready for release, when it was not. However the fact remains, that decision was wrong.

It is AOR's subsequent actions regarding the DV10 that beggars belief. AOR should have quickly accepted the consequences and should have acted 'correctly' if for no other reasons than to protect their reputation, and hopefully by withdrawing the current DV10's and re-issuing 'fixed' units, to re-coup the financial losses that would have initially incurred.

I still cannot quite believe that AOR's top management are being fed the real information, and thereby cannot see the only sensible 'long term' solution. I realise that there will be those in Middle Management and below who would be desperate to try to get the 'toothpaste back into the tube', and pretend the faults are fabrications by a few so called 'AOR Haters' on the Internet. Totally short sighted and futile of course, since the DV10's problems cannot remain hidden as every imperfect Unit sold is a potential 'advert' for the existence of them.

Even though the DV10 costs almost twice that of its nearest competition, mainly due to the well deserved success of the AR-DV1, it should have been a Market success. It STILL could be, if only AOR would do whatever is necessary to fix the hardware, and abandon the futile attempts to persuade Customers they are something that can be mended with firmware updates.

Admitting mistakes may temporarily shake some people's belief, but is more likely to enhance a Company's reputation quite quickly, if they then adopt the 'right' courses of action.

I 'believed' in AOR as a great Company, and in fact 'still do', because of almost all of the other superb products they released. I doubt if I am alone in 'hoping' AOR 'see the light', abandon this short sighted attitude towards the DV10 in its current form, do whatever is necessary to re-release a DV10 that will bring them the credit we expected, more success, and re-establish their reputation.
 

woodpecker

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It was never on AOR USA it’s distributed by Yaesu, who claim to have partnered in the design of the junk.
 

MStep

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Not that it is a big deal, but has anyone noticed at the AOR USA website the DV10 is no longer listed or shown on their products page.

Yes, I did notice that it is not listed there, but was it EVER listed there? In the United States, I believe that Yaesu is the official distributor of the DV10, so it may be more of a issue over sales and technical rights than anything more "sinister". Agreed however, that it is a little conspicuous in its absence.
 

concord1982

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Yes, it was shown on the AOR US site, without much technical description and a comment about proudly represented in the US by Yaesu and a hyperlink to Yaesu listing of DV10
 

c0ne

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“The AR-DV10 is the worlds most advanced wide-band...” you gotta love marketing.
 

woodpecker

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Having started to analyse how AOR have tried to sort out the frequency error and drift in firmware its clear its a dismal failure.

The adjustment profile is wrong, the manual offset is useless, as soon as the frequency or temperature changes its wrong again.

As many of us said months ago, this can't be fixed in firmware, the product is a total failure.
 

TMac20

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Having started to analyse how AOR have tried to sort out the frequency error and drift in firmware its clear its a dismal failure.

The adjustment profile is wrong, the manual offset is useless, as soon as the frequency or temperature changes its wrong again.

As many of us said months ago, this can't be fixed in firmware, the product is a total failure.

Still waiting on the explanation from AOR and the dealer to the latest mess, no one has responded. It's remarkable and such a let down that this situation has occurred when everything was in writing that they would have it all corrected.

I think all of us can say we tried, and clearly it has failed so far.

Without clear openness from AOR directly to everyone, with the possibility of a recall on affected units (which appears to be all units sold to date), I just can't see anyone going near them as a company again.

At first I thought it could just be a single batch country/region specific, however, all data so far from the users that have been open from the USA, Europe, Asia, Australia indicate exactly the same issues on all units.

The most astounding thing of all is that you can ask any dealer to conduct the basic or detailed tests and they will balk at doing it - none have done this so far and openly commented on the results.

That says a lot, you would think that any dealer would be concerned not just on quality, but on reputation and doing business again in the future. The tests are very easy to replicate.
 

c0ne

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Still waiting on the explanation from AOR and the dealer to the latest mess, no one has responded. It's remarkable and such a let down that this situation has occurred when everything was in writing that they would have it all corrected.

I think all of us can say we tried, and clearly it has failed so far.

Without clear openness from AOR directly to everyone, with the possibility of a recall on affected units (which appears to be all units sold to date), I just can't see anyone going near them as a company again.

At first I thought it could just be a single batch country/region specific, however, all data so far from the users that have been open from the USA, Europe, Asia, Australia indicate exactly the same issues on all units.

The most astounding thing of all is that you can ask any dealer to conduct the basic or detailed tests and they will balk at doing it - none have done this so far and openly commented on the results.

That says a lot, you would think that any dealer would be concerned not just on quality, but on reputation and doing business again in the future. The tests are very easy to replicate.


I think certain dealers did the tests and came to a conclusion that's just as bad a yours and mine. The only difference is, they are sitting on a stock they want to sell ;)

I think we reached the point where we should give up, Woodpecker and i analysed large portions of the code and kinda came to the conclusion that its hopeless. The current auto temp adjustment causes the radio to wobbling all over the frequency. That's also why decoded audio still sounds like complete crap due to this high error rate. It might be a decent analogue receiver, but digital definitely not! Also being able to see the code made me realize that this is not what i want to pay for.. so mine is for sale.. 750 euro and i trow in a free COSPAS to make up for the trouble.
 

TMac20

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I think certain dealers did the tests and came to a conclusion that's just as bad a yours and mine. The only difference is, they are sitting on a stock they want to sell ;)

I think we reached the point where we should give up, Woodpecker and i analysed large portions of the code and kinda came to the conclusion that its hopeless. The current auto temp adjustment causes the radio to wobbling all over the frequency. That's also why decoded audio still sounds like complete crap due to this high error rate. It might be a decent analogue receiver, but digital definitely not! Also being able to see the code made me realize that this is not what i want to pay for.. so mine is for sale.. 750 euro and i trow in a free COSPAS to make up for the trouble.

Well, I have to say this openly, Woodpecker motivated me to rejoin RR after all these years and it was his initial and subsequent posts that kept the enthusiasm going in the search for answers, even though I have not agreed at times with him.

I have to openly say thanks again for the work,effort and posts because Woodpecker, yourself and others have helped blow the lid off all this.

I have and did reach out to AOR on many occasions and asked them outright do they want help from any of us - it was ignored. It makes zero sense when all of us can offer them a potential path forward to turn what has been terrible to something not so terrible.

Again, thanks to you all.
 

c0ne

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Well, I have to say this openly, Woodpecker motivated me to rejoin RR after all these years and it was his initial and subsequent posts that kept the enthusiasm going in the search for answers, even though I have not agreed at times with him.

I have to openly say thanks again for the work,effort and posts because Woodpecker, yourself and others have helped blow the lid off all this.

I have and did reach out to AOR on many occasions and asked them outright do they want help from any of us - it was ignored. It makes zero sense when all of us can offer them a potential path forward to turn what has been terrible to something not so terrible.

Again, thanks to you all.

Many of us offered help to AOR including myself, and yes indeed.. it was always ignored. It's almost like they don't want a satisfied customer. Instead they do thin air promises and say stuff like "we will try to make it an even better receiver in the future" and more of that kinda stuff.

For now my advice to any who's looking into this device, to NOT buy one. It's simply not a finished product, and it's totally unknown if it ever will work as advertised. Buy a product that works today, don't count on the future.

TMac20, i would also like to thank you for your efforts.
 

woodpecker

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AOR seem to be beyond help, they don't want to accept what's wrong with the product, they think by adding useless features that customers will accept the drifting mess.

If they can't accept and address the issues they should shut up shop, it is now impossible to trust any of their new products for frequency accuracy, something which is key to any good receiver design.
 

G7HID

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Difficult one for publishers, if they slate the DV10 and list the problems there is a chance that advertisers of the DV10 might slim down their advertising with the magazine. If they give it a glowing report and get prooved wrong they become unreliable in the readers eyes, leading to lower sales..

Mike
 

woodpecker

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Difficult one for publishers, if they slate the DV10 and list the problems there is a chance that advertisers of the DV10 might slim down their advertising with the magazine. If they give it a glowing report and get prooved wrong they become unreliable in the readers eyes, leading to lower sales..

Mike

Its a bit like What HiFi claiming different HDMI Cables give different qualities of picture, as soon as they published that there was no point in reading any of the drivel they printed or wrote on their website.

Independent reviews backed up with technical info are the ones to read, anything where money is involved is likely to be biased.
 
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