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A few years ago, the radio world has it's most dramatic change since the introduction of the transistor. Silicon Labs began marketing an IC chip that consolidates about 75% of the typical radio onto a single chip, smaller than a postage stamp.
This can be good and bad. Tecsun manufactures some great portable all-band receivers. They can take one of these Silicon Labs chips (like a Si4820), add a decent RF amp to the front end, and audio amp to the back, and end up with a radio that performs great. I have a model PL606 ($40) that brings in FM and shortwave stations better than my 15 year old Icom (that cost about $800 in 2001). I just bought a $159 model PL880, and it blows anything I've ever owned out of the water, and sounds great to boot.
Sadly, there is a flip side to this. Some foreign manufacturers take these Silicon Labs chips and add very little to it, save for a cheap little audio amp chip with a plastic speaker. These sets perform like pure crap, mainly because there's not a decent front end.
These chips sell for less than $3, eliminate the need for manual alignment, and contain all the control functions needed in a radio (from band selection, volume and tone control, digital tuning, and all of it operating on only 3 volts with minimal current draw.
As to the 9 or 10 kHz question, that switching is built-in to these chips. Some manufacturers offer a way to switch this from the keypad, but if not, they have to be programmed manually.
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