I bought mine from pilotshop.nl (Peter Mundy) and find it a very good replacement for the ICOM one I had before.
I bought an Icom 8.33 from Mendelssohn. Aircraft Spruce Icoms didn’t have 8.33.
Not surprising the firmware is different since 8.33 is nothing but total hassle for US pilots.
That could well be it. US firmware has no 8,33 khz TX. EU has it.
It is the same for marine vhf (standard horizon/yaesu). It is exactly the same device but the firmware for euro versions is different (python pros can easily change it) and the EU device is about 150€ more than the US device.
