New SDR CommRadio CR-1

[nanZor]

Passes the long-term audio test!

The CR1a is a keeper for me, even if future improvements can be made.

Long-term monitoring with headphones at an appropriate level leaves no ringing in my ears, or listener-fatigue. That has been a disappointment in the past with my Yaesu FT817nd, and even the Icom R75 and 740 which are long gone due to this. Subjective of course, but *my* ears are pretty sensitive to audio amp background noise, weird phase or strange eq.

While I don't have a scope, the CR1 seems flat and clean in audio response. Still, I use just a smidge of high-end filtering on my Yaesu SP8 speaker or headphone jack on that for my taste. Even with phones that have a limited response, I'd love to see a high-end filter on the CR1 to make it more convenient when using some nasty cheap "buds". I know, don't do that.

When I bring a new rig home, I'm always crossing my fingers and know in about an hour if I wasted my money. The CR1 stays in the shack!

What I do have to watch out for is differentiating between what may be a CR1 issue, or if I'm now hearing issues on the transmit end, so I try not to jump to a hasty conclusion.

 

[nanZor]

In regards to the 18650 battery itself, I'm sure you meant li-ion not nimh. Are we relying solely on the protection circuitry of the cell itself for regulation, or is there additional regulating circuitry in the radio prior to reaching the cell? Ie, does the CR1 itself limit the voltage to about no more than 4.1v, or is the ptc on the cell solely responsible?

I'd hate to have a malfunctioning ptc circuit on the Tenergy 18650 take out my CR1 if that is the only thing looking out for it.

Ok, I took mine apart to measure a fully charged battery with my Fluke 87V.

Not to worry - Commradio knows what they are doing.

In the minutes it took to get the case apart and battery measured, I noted 4.195v, just a tad short of the 4.2v max norm for the typical 100% SOC.

Most cell protection circuits kick in at around 4.25v or a little more, and there is no reason to suspect that the Tenergy discharged to 4.195v is the few minutes it took to open it.

Ok, battery-geek show over. I'm satisfied. That being said, I'm not going to rely solely on the internal battery and deep discharge it every cycle, unless I only want a year or so use out of it that way.

BTW, that board was a beautiful thing to see up close. This ain't no MFJ.

 

[nanZor]

Time to test it!

Not really meant to be an amateur contest announcement, but anyone wishing to put the CR1/a to the test, this weekend 25/26 Oct is the CQ WWDX SSB contest from 0000 utc Saturday to 2359 utc Sunday.

I'm anxious to see how it holds up - but keeping expectations reasonable.

 

[nanZor]

I guess everyone must be behind the dial and not on the keyboard these days. That's a good thing I guess.

Blown away by the minimal power consumption -- sorry for the battery-geekiness to follow...

I read the manual, but didn't do the math. I thought my Fluke was broken.

With a 12v input the breakout is simple:

300ma when on and charging.
75ma when on and battery full and not charging (batt icon out)!

That is actually a little less than what my Kenwood TH-F6A handheld pulls. Guess which one I prefer to do HF monitoring with? I don't know how it is possible to get this kind of performance from only 75ma.

With only a 75ma draw, I decided to use a Shorai LFX12A1 lifepo4 battery. The 12A rating (or "PbEq" as they determine it is meaningless for our use. With Shorai, divide that PbEq rating by 3) So I have a 4ah battery, and 80% of it is usable, ie, 3.2ah. That should keep the fully charged CR1 going for about 42 hours .. 3.2ah / .075a = 42 hours.

The intention here is to use that battery when the CR1a is already fully charged.

Upfront cost is about 5 times more than a 3.4ah agm, but has about 4 times the cycle life, and being lifepo4 doesn't degrade as fast as other lion chemistries. If I treat it right, I should get many many years out of it. That basically means not letting it discharge below 13v under rest.

Feature request:
Would love to see a voltage "cutoff" to serve as a low-voltage disconnect for the external battery, adjustable for a wide variety of voltages, so one doesn't harm it with too deep a discharge regardless of chemistry. In my case with a 12v lifepo4, that would be about 12.8v under load. Agm's would be about 12.2 to 12.0v max. having an lvd feature would be SO convenient, as the ability to go down to 6v on the input means you could easily damage a battery. Not a big deal for a $20 little agm, but that would hurt with a costly lifepo4.

While this isn't going into too many details for lifepo4 batteries, the cells used here are insanely expensive since they are primarily "high-rate" cells, and at some point, it would make more sense to go with large-prismatics like a 20ah GBS/CALB/Winston/Balqon 12v battery for nearly the same cost as a Shorai lfx14 (4.6ah in reality)....

But back to the CR1 - we'll take it through the contest coming up in a few hours.

 

[nanZor]

Took a break from about 5 hours of heavy 40 meter contest monitoring.

Wow. Pure bedlam out there at times, and my ears aren't ringing at all. Filters work well, although when they aren't quite enough, the clean audio allows my secondary filter (between the ears) to pick things out.

I can't put my finger on it, but it is like a very focused or 3d effect where I point my ears to what I want to hear, and it pops out with a little concentration, especially at 1.8. No need for eye-closing, staring at the floor, all the little psychological dxing tricks.

But to prove I'm not cheerleading, MAN do I need some sort of equivalent to an RF / IF gain control on 40m at night to help push the band noise down and improve the s/n. The agc is doing nicely, but I wish there was some way to attenuate the overall signal without it being compensated for.

 

[jonohudson]

SDR gain control

Took a break from about 5 hours of heavy 40 meter contest monitoring.

Wow. Pure bedlam out there at times, and my ears aren't ringing at all. Filters work well, although when they aren't quite enough, the clean audio allows my secondary filter (between the ears) to pick things out.

I can't put my finger on it, but it is like a very focused or 3d effect where I point my ears to what I want to hear, and it pops out with a little concentration, especially at 1.8. No need for eye-closing, staring at the floor, all the little psychological dxing tricks.

But to prove I'm not cheerleading, MAN do I need some sort of equivalent to an RF / IF gain control on 40m at night to help push the band noise down and improve the s/n. The agc is doing nicely, but I wish there was some way to attenuate the overall signal without it being compensated for.

So this is where the SDRplay RSP works really well...Using SDR# ( and SDRplay plug-in) and when its AGC is active, it alters the gain settings to avoid overloading the A/D converter and the changing gain settings can be viewed in the control panel. However, when you disable the AGC, rather than reverting to a default value, the gain settings remain at the last value set by the AGC system. This is on purpose and designed to give you a good starting point for any manual adjustment. Then you get to choose exactly the attenuation you need, which is, I think, what you are wanting. . When there are not many signals around, the AGC will up the RF gain to bring the strongest signal close to 0dB. As a result, the noise floor will also be high, so you might see the noise floor at something like -30dB. Please note that the dB indications in SDR# are not absolute values so a noise indication at -35dB does not mean -35dBm.

 

[nanZor]

jonohudson - hey, somebody IS here!

That's EXACTLY what I'd like. For me, that manual adjustment would have to be available via front panel, and not just software.

Contest break:
The LAST frequency feature has limited usefullness - at least with software 9913. While it does remember a frequency you sat on for 5 seconds, if you retune and sit for another 5 seconds, it remembers the present frequency you are already on, and does nothing by returning you to your present frequency. That means I really only have 5 seconds to make up my mind to go back to the last. I'd also like that idle time limit to be variable perhaps. Or just find a different way to do just a simple A/B without having to go into the memory menu.

10 Meter FM
Band is open and the CR1a sounds good here. However, I can hear repeaters and some simplex ops blowing some LOUD PL, like 100hz coming through with full fidelity. Perhaps on 10FM, a bass-cut might be useful. If it could default to a fast AGC on 10m fm, that would be useful too.

Encoder knob - with massive amounts of knob-spinning I'm not noticing any major skipping, unless I'm on the knife-edge between segments. But the knob tension is definitely a bit tiring for contest ops.

Front-end
Seems to be holding up with plenty of +10 or more sigs all across the band. However, I'm only using a 21-foot non-resonant inverted L, so front-end problems shouldn't be an issue. Still amazed that an rx this small can handle it.

Still love the thing, so I'm not really grumbling too hard. Gotta take a quick nap and get back in there!

 

[nanZor]

Only a few more hours to go before I just fall over...

A pilot friend brought over his Lightspeed Zulu headset for lunch. Ever see a grown man cry when he had to hand them back?

Lightspeed Aviation - Premium aviation headsets for pilots and passengers

I just used the aux output, and not the 600 ohm jacks. That was convenient since I don't have any audio impedance converters for aircraft headsets..

Naturally, the best headsets I have ever heard, and the CR1a has the audio to make these sing. The fact that the CR1a has the ergonomics and handling of a nav-radio is not lost. Tune in to an airband freq, close your eyes, and you are up at 30000 feet.

I could easily see the CR1a being offered at major FBO's and pilot stores, along with HRO and direct...

Ok, back to reality now that my friend had to leave, but I'm now going to have to up my game when it comes to headphones. I think the audio from the CR1 justifies it.

 

[nanZor]

So how does a Comm-Radio hold up to 48 hours of spinning and grinning in the CQWWDX SSB contest?

Note: I'm not a contester, just a casual dx'er and vhf/uhf airband monitor with a lot of time behind the dials for the most part. So YMMV. I'm not Sherwood.

I'll try to keep it short. The CR1a rocks out of the box! I kept in mind that this is a communications-receiver modeled after an avionics nav-radio, and is not an infinitely adjustable amateur radio receiver with general coverage capabilities. Slight difference aside from just ergonomics.

Could it be improved? Because of the super clean audio chain, I knew there was more recoverable audio to be had under harsh qrm conditions with the 1.8 and 2.2k filters. Lesser receivers might rely solely on narrowing bandwidth, but I think that the CR1 can handle a slightly wider filter like 1.9 and 2.3k because the audio is so great.

Strangely enough, that means that both the target and qrm sound so good (well still annoying) that it makes it easier to concentrate and pull them apart mentally.

I think a change to 1.9 and 2.3k (or perhaps a shift in the passband itself) would make a neat compromise between amateurs who do long term listening under normal conditions and like to hear some fidelity (no, I'm not talking ESSB) and utility / swl listeners that may not care about it so much. In lesser receivers, this might not even be noticeable since the audio chain would muddy up that small of a difference anyway. But in the CR1, a different story!

I don't know, how about a "tight" and "alternative" software firmware update to choose from?

When I got a chance to use my buddy's Lightspeed Zulu avionics headsets for an hour, that helped me make sure I wasn't being swayed by my current choice of speakers and headphones.

HIGH and LOW pass audio filtering:
The great internal speaker setup provides some high and low pass filtering on it's own. When I plug into the speaker or headphone ports, I could really stand some extra filtering at both ends. Things like 10-meter FM PL tones blasting through, or brightness from speakers and headphones that aren't Lightspeed or David-Clark quality, would be very convenient. Yeah, I can hang external dsp filters and the like onto the CR1, but when it draws only 75ma of current, and the external boxes draw an amp or more, that kind of defeats the purpose.

That's about it - I had a BLAST with the CR1a during the contest. GREAT radio for it's intended purpose, which is not really amateur radio contesting. But it can be done!

OH, the Shorai LFX12A1 lifepo4 battery lasted 40 hours before the terminal voltage dropped to 12.8v, which is as far as you want to go (80% DOD) before recharging. I used the internal battery to finish up the last 8 hours.

 

[nanZor]

Upgraded my audio components and my thoughts about widening the 1.8k upwards and 2.2k downwards a smidge remains the same. Still not a showstopper by any means, but would be icing on the cake. I want to hear everything the CR1a can offer.

PALSTAR SP30B
Now we're talking. CR1a drives it just fine. Great audio response for both music and cw/ssb although the 8K upper end response limits fidelity for broadcast fm - but I didn't buy it to monitor broadcast fm. Has a bit more presence than my *modified* Yaesu SP8. In black looks good along with the CR1a. If I had an unlimited budget and the actual desk space, I'd love to see if it would drive the larger Palstar SP30H model. It has both the fidelity for music AND the presence for utility monitoring. I love it.

RADIOSPORT RS-20S around-ear headphones
A definite improvement over my on-ear Kenwood HS5, and Yaesu YH-77STA. Extremely comfortable, well built, and the surrounds slightly peak both cw and ssb well. NOT my first choice for music due to the slight resonant peak. Slight manual bend of the headband made it a perfect fit for my fat head. STILL, the bar was set by the Lightspeed Zulu. Maybe when I win the lottery the Lightspeed Sierra's might be considered. It is a jaw-dropping experience, made convenient by the 1/8" aux input jacks. Until then, I'm very happy with the Radiosport RS20S cans as they cost about 5-10X less than the Lightspeeds.

Yaesu SP8 - MODIFIED
Once modified by stuffing as many clean t-shirts into it as will jam in, taping over the rear vent holes, it lost that tubby metallic response and is actually quite usable. Passive high and low pass filters very helpful at times. While not quite as nice as the Palstar SP30B, with a bit less presence and clarity, it makes up for it with the filters.

Anyone owning an oem speaker like this might want to do the same by just jamming in as much baffling material as you can - don't be stingy with it either - I mean PACK it. Now it won't sound like a tubby metallic box, and brings presence forward useful for both music and comms.

AIRBAND MONITORING.
If you have only heard vhf/uhf AM airband comms from a scanner or handheld, try upping your game with some nice speaker audio. Now you can hear who really needs some radio maintenance and who doesn't. You'd be surprised at the crap that some towers have to listen to, and will enjoy and praise those pilots who do radio maintenance.

You'd think that I'm into ESSB, which I'm NOT. But there IS a point where fidelity and communications quality sound kind of come together.

The CR1a kind of forced my hand into upgrading my audio components since the audio is so good to start with. My other rigs thank it for doing so.

 

[nanZor]

Um, where did everybody go? I hope the CR1's aren't sitting on the shelf!

How to avoid carpal-tunnel syndrome during contests or long term spin-n-grin sessions:

I'm sure everyone has figure it out, but I'll throw this out for any new users right off the bat:

Support the wrist with a computer-mouse beanbag.

Avoid the classic "pincer" grasp for tuning the knob. Instead, for rapid tuning, put your index finger on the top case screw, with your middle finger right next to it on top of the case, and use your thumb for vfo tuning. I'd like to see a bit of a larger dimple, and possibly some beveling in it. Still it works.

The advantage to this is that you don't have to use both hands for stabilization and tuning. You can still operate the buttons one-handed by swiveling your thumb over and making your selections.

For fine tuning, or just to change it up a little, put your index finger and middle finger on the right side of the case, and use your thumb and ring finger on the top and bottom of the edge of the knob, and tune.

I'm hearing slight tuning pops when under about 7 mhz, and also in the vhf band when tuning am airband freqs - but that's not too big of an issue since I don't spin the dial there, but just tune and stick on target for the most part. I'll even hear it very randomly in the upper HF bands, but if I do it is very muted.

Still, despite these small issues I always have to step back and marvel that this great performance otherwise is coming from a unit that is only drawing 75ma at 12v. (when the internal battery is done charging.) My Kenwood TH-F6a handheld draws about 100ma, and for kicks tried it in the contest - yeah, that lasted about 5 minutes before returning to the CR1a for 48 hours.

So kudos to Don for coming out with a game-changer in my world.

 

[Spoetnik1957]

Scanning of VHF memory bank

Dear all,

i have a question regarding scanning VHF frequency's by the CR-1A.

Since i want to use the CR-1A for AIR-bands on HF and VHF, I'd like to know if it can scan one (or all) of its memory banks if the memory bank contains VHF frequency's. And does it stop scanning if it vind's an active frequency like a scanner does?

The CR-1A would be useless for me if it can't do that but i like the CR1A so much that i really hope it can scan VHF. Since there is no other receiver this sensitive, nice and small for around the same price that can do the same as the CR1 can.

Hope to hear from you CR1 users!

Kind regards from Sweden.
Vincent.

 

[nanZor]

Since i want to use the CR-1A for AIR-bands on HF and VHF, I'd like to know if it can scan one (or all) of its memory banks if the memory bank contains VHF frequency's. And does it stop scanning if it vind's an active frequency like a scanner does?

It does an EXCELLENT job for HF airband, that's for sure. When I'm not doing the amateur thing, it routinely sits on SFO-Radio aeronautical freqs.

Keep in mind that there are other receivers out there that have additional features like rf-gain control, passband tuning, noise-blankers and such that may be needed depending on your environment.

But it is not like a scanner. It will "step" through memories, but not stop on a carrier - you have to do that.

In addition, VHF/UHF are not of the same specs as the HF portion. For me it works great, but I'm using an antenna outside and not a back-of-set whip. You'll want to provide it with a decent signal. Stepping, but no traditional scanning means I tend to sit on a freq.

I couldn't get it to use 8.33khz tuning steps, so that may be a problem in your area if they use that spacing.

The best I could do was 5khz tuning in the vhf airband range, so perhaps an 8.33khz option would be a nice addition to any possible future software updates.

The CR1a is a great receiver - but research carefully to make sure the feature set really fits your needs.

If you are relatively new to the airband monitoring scene, you may want to visit:
Aircraft Monitoring Forum - The RadioReference.com Forums

.

 

[corbintechboy]

The CR1a is a great radio indeed.

I had an R75 and decided to keep this radio over the R75. It has much going for it.

The audio is indeed one of the great points. This radio is definitely in a class of it's own and what it does, it does rather well.

I love the fact I can turn this radio off and not use it for awhile, then, get the urge and she is fully charged and ready to go for hours on end, I like that.

One radio that is for certain a keeper.

 

[Spoetnik1957]

It does an EXCELLENT job for HF airband, that's for sure. When I'm not doing the amateur thing, it routinely sits on SFO-Radio aeronautical freqs.

Keep in mind that there are other receivers out there that have additional features like rf-gain control, passband tuning, noise-blankers and such that may be needed depending on your environment.

But it is not like a scanner. It will "step" through memories, but not stop on a carrier - you have to do that.

In addition, VHF/UHF are not of the same specs as the HF portion. For me it works great, but I'm using an antenna outside and not a back-of-set whip. You'll want to provide it with a decent signal. Stepping, but no traditional scanning means I tend to sit on a freq.

I couldn't get it to use 8.33khz tuning steps, so that may be a problem in your area if they use that spacing.

The best I could do was 5khz tuning in the vhf airband range, so perhaps an 8.33khz option would be a nice addition to any possible future software updates.

The CR1a is a great receiver - but research carefully to make sure the feature set really fits your needs.

If you are relatively new to the airband monitoring scene, you may want to visit:
Aircraft Monitoring Forum - The RadioReference.com Forums

.

Thank you for that specific information! That's is a NO GO for me, If it could stop scanning when it finds a active freq and if had 8,33mhz steps for AIR Band i'd buy the CR1A even as it's VHF part is not as good as the HF part. But no matter how much i'd like the CR-1A this is unuseble for me. Funny that this fora works way better to get an answer than mailing support an sales of CommRadio, i send them 2 decent mails with some ideas like if the make a SDR interface for OSX CommRadio would make the only real receiver that is SDR for OSX! Apart from a SDR RTL USB stick that is. Could be an good marketing point i guess. But i got no answer of CommRado at all. Not even we have received your male. So thank you all here for helping one and an other!

Instead of the cute and good ComRadio CR-1A I am now going for the AOR AR8600MK2 now, it is also an all mode but little worse on HF (i can install collins filters) but can scan and is really good on VHF and UHF. It has a battery inside also and several other options as P25 and so on.

I have already made a HF antenna out of UTP cable and a LOG P. ant that goes from 25 - 2000 Mgz, so i thing i am ready for it! (-:

Hope CommRadio is going to make something for HF and VHF/UHF that can scan and do 8,33khz steps in the future.

Kind regards from Sweden,
Vincent.

 

[nanZor]

Oh yeah, both the 8600mk2 and R75 are great radios, each with their own personality and issues which can be endlessly debated.

The best way to be happy is to think of receivers as potato chips - you can't have just one and you'll be endlessly waiting for the perfect one-and-only radio for the shack or field.

The CR1a makes a very good starter radio, or a very nice *addition* to what you already have. Any radio is what YOU make out of it.

 

[nanZor]

Sometimes it sucks having sensitive hearing.

I have the latest Palstar SP30B speaker made out of wood which starts to roll off at 8k. Works great with the CR1a. However to take the edge off for ssb, I have to put a single stripe of blue painter's tape over two rows of the grill openings to take the edge off without muddying the sound too much.

Even though it makes the Palstar obscenely ugly, it is a better solution than using outboard audio gear which tends to hide the good quality that the CR1a is capable of. Not to mention drawing much more current from a systems standpoint in the field.

Because I don't like using bandwidth filters as tone controls, I would love to see an audio rolloff option from the CR1a itself at around 3.5 - 4k.

YAFR - yet another feature request:
Because I run from expensive external lifepo4 batteries in the field, I'd love to see the CR1a display voltage. That means I won't have to drag my Fluke around.

Perhaps a voltage display could be buried in the menu, or better yet, an alternative to the information in the bottom of the oled display. For instance, I may not need to constantly look at the s-meter, bandwidth, or charging status. Maybe a menu option could put an alternative or secondary display line containing voltage instead of the battery icon could be selected.

Again, not showstoppers, but a convenience that helps put the CR1a over the top!

 

[nanZor]

Funny that this fora works way better to get an answer than mailing support an sales of CommRadio, i send them 2 decent mails with some ideas like if the make a SDR interface for OSX CommRadio would make the only real receiver that is SDR for OSX! Apart from a SDR RTL USB stick that is. Could be an good marketing point i guess. But i got no answer of CommRado at all. Not even we have received your male. So thank you all here for helping one and an other!

I look at the whole email thing with Don in a different light.

He could spend all day answering emails, or use that time to improve the CR1 - and maybe have a day job and a life to go along with it.

Also forums and emails are not always the best way to communicate. Fortunately he knows to look here for improvements. As far as I know, it is just one guy doing all this, and is nothing like having a full corporate engineering department at the likes of Rhode and Schwarz.

Consider even UPman's presence here as a Uniden rep. Quite frankly, I'm amazed he is still around given what he has to deal with. If he was the lead engineer and had to do emails all day, there would be no progress whatsoever.

Maybe WAAAY in the future, I'd like to see a command-line interface to everything so that I can control the CR1a with my own shell-scripting on a unix box. For now, I'm not going to press it.

So I'll cut Don a break, and make do for the time being for features I'd desire. He knows where to look.

 

[corbintechboy]

Oh yeah, both the 8600mk2 and R75 are great radios, each with their own personality and issues which can be endlessly debated.

The best way to be happy is to think of receivers as potato chips - you can't have just one and you'll be endlessly waiting for the perfect one-and-only radio for the shack or field.

The CR1a makes a very good starter radio, or a very nice *addition* to what you already have. Any radio is what YOU make out of it.

I disagree a bit with this.

When I got the CR1 I compared it side by side with my R75. In about every instance the CR1 held its own. The R75 had a couple more tools and more precise tuning but the CR1 showed that it could indeed be a real workhorse. I sold the R75 and kept the CR1 and eventually upgraded to the CR1a.

I love the little CR1/a. It is a great little radio with great sound and it can very much hang with radios that "should" be better, this makes it a solid buy. I would say the CR1/a could easily be the only radio in the shack and give many years of enjoyment without the need for anything else. Paired with my SDR-IQ it is a bit more fun to use. But once software for the CR1a comes out, the IQ may meet its demise as well. To have that all in one package? Wow... And only $100 more then the IQ... Wow again.

This is an awesome radio and given the fact that the DSP filters the radio has out the box rivals any other current knob radio is a winner in my book.

I have a couple portables:

Sony ICF-2010
Sony 7600GR
Sangean ATS-909x
Kaito 1103
CCRadio2E (For AM)

For desktops:

SDR-IQ
CR1a

I feel my shack is pretty much complete. I have had many desktop radios, KW R-5000,R75,Drake R8 etc... And I don't feel like I am missing anything.

Great little radio...

 

[nanZor]

See, you do have more than 1 potato chip!

It's all relative though. My R75 draw about 900ma, whereas the CR1 only draws 75ma. That's a BIG draw for me when portable.

Speaking of big, it won't fit into my flight-bag when my buddy and I do "burger runs", nor will it fit on the dashboard just to the right of the magnetic compass. Typically a Zaon PCAS is sitting there. But I COULD fit the CR1 right beside it or even in my lap.

Lets take a ride in a Cessna and see where the CR1a would fit. Not only that, but when actually eating the burger on the ground, the cr1 could be sitting on the table instead of using the batteries in our backup handheld. That's not me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOfjZTxYGOk

I'd say the CR1a is like a steam-gauge panel hiding a glass cockpit inside!

Or how about something a bit more commercial you'd see at a GA airport - still no space, and the R75 doesn't do vhf either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVDxdBcMqjk

Brings up a good point though. A noise-blanker that the R75 has might be handy for the CR1a in this application.

This is why A/B comparisons don't hold too much sway with me. It all depends on how you intend to use it.