The Ham Radio future: Software Defined Radio?

This short memory will address a very actual debate: Which is better, a classic full analog receiver, a fully DSP receiver, or a right mixture of them?

From a pure theoretical point of view, my own experience (I'm an engineer and SDR is a daily issue for me) suggest me that full digital must be better because this should be the ideal receiver, the perfect one, but now, let turn on my new FT-950 (which is almost a full DSP receiver), my old TS-930S and an old Telefunken single conversion military receiver designed in the 60s.

Let switch the antenna from A-B-C in a crowded 40m band SSB during the night and carefully listen to they all: who is better, or I should say, who is sounding better and smoothed and quiet?

Very strangely the old Telefunken with its mechanical filters (do you remember the Collins?) is the more pleasant to listen to...why?

Now we'll enter in a very mysterious field, the subjective response: is that receiver really better in terms of noise floor, IMD, dynamic range etc etc. The answer is clearly NO.

FT-950 has 95dB of dynamic range, the TS-930S has a ridiculous 75 dB and the Telefunken has about the same figure. So, why from a subjective point of view many others and me prefer the old Telefunken?

Remember that in SDR like radio as the 950, the key receiver functions are done via a floating point DSP, i.e. in an almost perfect way.

For example the digital filters used in the 950 have an incredible selectivity and shape factor, none crystal filter as good it could be, can surpass the powerful digital filters employed in the DSP. So, where is the bug? Why old analog receivers seem to go better?

The answer can be found going back in the past. In the 80s the first CD players entered in the scene: their sound, compared with analog sources as good tape and turntables where horrible. It was metallic and very disturbing. At that time many audio amateurs claimed that the digital sound would never surpass the beauty of the analog sound.

They where wrong: NOW, be care, just NOW and in the past few years, the digital sound has surpassed the analog one, after decades and decades of technology developments in achieving better and better performances from digital audio sources as DVD and others.

So the answer to the question WHICH IS BETTER: the fully digital receiver (SDR) will be better, for sure, but not NOW.

The radio engineers have to spend lot of their time investigating on why an old 60s receiver sounds so good and probably they will find the right answer, but not NOW: SDR is still too young.