My wife recently bought me two Grundig 960 replica receivers, one for upstairs and one for our living room. I had been attracted to the idea of having a broadcast receiver that wouldn't be so ugly as to chase people out of the room, that would have an analog dial, and would sound decent.
When the radios arrived, I was thrilled. They are indeed beautiful. Real brass is used for the accents, and the wood cabinets were immaculately finished (although they scratch easily). After reading the instructions, which are very brief, I hooked up the included portable random-wire antenna and tuned around the shortwave bands.
I am sorry to say, I was horribly disappointed. I could tell immediately that the front end of the radio was badly overloading on strong domestics. A plethora of image signals, which one expects with overloading, covered the entire dial. The result was that WHRI (to name but one) was audible at fifteen or twenty places on the dial inside the band they were operating on. Weaker DX signals were completely buried by the images, and even stronger DX signals and weak domestics had the images clearly audible in the background (about 3-6 dB down). Furthermore, experimentation showed that with the external/internal antenna switch in the "external" position and no external antenna whatsoever connected the receiver still overloaded!
Note that I encountered the exact same problem on two different examples of the 960. The next day I placed a call to the 800 number given in the instructions. Sure enough, after carefully explaining that I was somewhat knowledgeable about radio and not an uneducated consumer, I was quickly and politely connected with a technician. Alas, he displayed quiet resignation when told of the problem and informed me, "I don't think replacing the unit is going to change anything," which I interpreted as, "They all do that."
Understandably unsatisfied by this conversation, I put in an e-mail to the Grundig web site. That was a over a week ago; as I write this, I have yet to receive a reply. I can only conclude that Grundig have decided the 960 is not worth further development, and that they have no intention of fixing this problem, either on units already sold, or on future production models.
Now, the 960 is NOT worthless as a receiver. I have, by employing the expedients discussed below, logged Israel, Tunisia, Morocco, and some other moderately difficult catches. I have used it ot keep track of the deteriorating Iraqi situation, and listen to Radio Australia on it every morning. I was even able, by using my Doerle as an external BFO, able to log some pirates using SSB. Nonetheless, I would NOT recommend the 960 to anyone as a receiver, unless they only intended to look at it or use it for local FM broadcast reception.
Once I found the problem, I immediately began to try to find a way to work around it. I found that received signals were increased in strength with the external antenna connected, even with the switch in the "internal" position. What saved the situation, though, and made the radio useable, was the discovery that with the external/internal antenna switch carefully placed halfway between the two settings, signals were louder yet, but without overload. This was method used to log all the medium-strength DX catches listed above. In addition, images were a problem on the low-frequency end of the AM broadcast band, no matter what expedients were used.
Note that even in the best case (the antenna switch between the settings), sensitivity was still disappointing. Also note that with the switch in this position, apparently a very large antenna could be connected without overloading. I will string up a "ceiling loop" around the perimeter of the rooms were the 960s are located, and this will probably help with the weak sensitivity. And finally, I observed that when solar conditions were poor, and all signals were weak across the band, it was occasionally possible to employ the external antenna with the switch in the correct position without encountering overloading. This condition was the exception, however, and the exceptions are few and far between.
Another serious problem with the 960 is the amount of backlash in the analog dial. It is about fifteen kilocycles (in yet another retro touch, the dial is marked in cycles rather than hertz) at the extremes; and, to make the radio even more difficult to tune, the tuner sometimes continues to move in the same direction for several kilocycles after knob rotation is reversed! Lastly, the dial string tends to pull the tuner slowly off frequency after tuning in a signal. I actually found the latter added to the charm of the radio as it (unintentionally, I am sure) simulates the drift all tube-type broadcast receivers suffered from. In fact, none of these tuning problems will pose much of an obstacle to those of use who grew up with analog tube-type receivers; I mention them primarily to warn those who have come to shortwave listening in the digital era.
To sum up, the 960 suffers from problems serious enough to be objectionable to almost all consumers, but not serious enough to make me personally return the radio and demand my money back. Unless you HAVE to have one because of the looks, I'd stay away.