Radio frequency (RF) subsampling can be used by radio receivers to directly down-convert and digitize RF signals. A goal of a cognitive radio/software defined ratio (CR/SDR) receiver design is to place the analog-to-digital converter (ADC) as near the antenna as possible. Based on this, a band-pass sampling (BPS) frontend for CR/SDR is proposed and verified. We present a receiver architecture based second-order BPS and signal processing techniques for a digital RF frontend. This paper is focused on the benefits of the second-order BPS architecture in spectrum sensing over a wide frequency band range and in multiband receiving without modification of the RF hardware. Methods to manipulate the spectra are described, and reconstruction filter designs are provided. On the basis of this concept, second-order BPS frontends for CR/SDR systems are designed and verified using a hardware platform.