What FM tuners have you owned?

[chebby]

Sony ST-88 (quite old even when I bought it second-hand for my first system).

QED T231

QED T260

Rega Radio (first version)

Integral tuner in an Arcam Solo-Mini.

Naim NAT05.

Integral tuner in my Marantz M-CR603.

 

[CnoEvil]

- Leak Troughline 11 (belonged to my Father)

- Sony TA-T4A

 

[plastic penguin]

Marantz 2060ML

Denon 260 MKII

 

[MajorFubar]

Too many to mention but after I bought my mkII Cyrus Tuner I stopped looking any further

 

[cse]

Ion Obelsk FM Tuner - still used daily, outstanding.

 

[nopiano]

I was into receivers in my early days - a Tandberg (a TR200 I think), then a Harman/kardon 75+, a quadrophonic jobbie.

Always thought Quad tuners were over-rated but I love my Hitachi which must be almost 30 years old - it was a fave of the late, great Angus McKenzie.

Was very tempted by an Accuphase about a decade ago, but amazingly it did not sound noticeably better than my Hitachi, though it was luscious to behold. A couple of years ago a nice lady in Bristol tried to sell her ex-hubby's Yamaha CT-7000 on ebay, before me and a few others said it was worth a mint. I had always fancied one but it was a silly price in the day. Was great to see it in action, but there was a fault and I had no idea if it was fixable so I passed up the chance. It weighed more than most amps do today!

 

[sthomas048]

Luxman T-117L
Akai AT-K11L

I have infact only started trying tuners recently. The Luxman is nothing special, despite the hype. The Akai however is wonderful, a very basic tuner but sounds so fluid and natural - bought for £30 !

 

[the record spot]

Sansui TU-317.

 

[JoelSim]

I've had a Kenwood and an Arcam.

 

[audioaddict]

various vinatge sonys including es

vintage technics models

vintage pioneer models including tx 7500 and pioneer sx 1980 and 1050 receivers

arcam t32

various yamaha models

 

[dfa2124]

Sony ST-SA3ES (no longer have)

Onkyo T-4970 (sold on)

Sony XDR-F1HD

Yamaha T-85

Kenwood KT-1100SD

Yamaha T-2

Hitachi FT-MD5500 (same as FT-007, sold on)

Denon TU-800L

Sony ST-S770ES (sold on)

Pioneer F-93 (sold on)

Sony ST-SA5ES

and most recently, a Kenwood L-1000T

So I currently have 7.

 

[MrReaper182]

The Technics ST-GT550 is the only FM tuner I have ever owned. I still own it and it served it's job well but it is not hooked up to the rest of the separates system anymore because I now have the Pioneer N-50 streamer which gets internet radio.

 

[drummerman]

Ancient thread and an equally ancient tuner; Cyrus FM7.5

Lovely on really good broadcasts

regards

 

[Happy_Listner]

I have a lovley Synthesis Onda Tuner.

 

[MUSICRAFT]

Quite a few but the stand out ones are the Pioneer Reference F-91 and Reference F-93. Superb performance from both tuners

particularly the F-93's bass which i really miss

Thanks

Rick @ Musicraft

 

[Freddy58]

I once had a Yamaha CR420, and with a 'proper' ariel, it sounded really good. As an aside, what's the situation now with FM broadcasts? I was pondering on whether or not to get a tuner, but would be a waste of time if FM is being shut down. What's the best alternative, in terms of SQ? Is internet radio any good?

 

[iMark]

I have never owned a seperate FM tuner. I have always liked stereo receivers. I'm now on my third stereo receiver. I bought my first one in the 1980s. That was a very nice Yamaha. After that I had a Denon DRA-1000 which developed a fault in the amplifier. To replace that, we bought a Yamaha R-S500 last year. We really like it.

We also listen to internet radio but we find FM through our cable provider very convenient and very decent sound quality.

As far as the SQ of internet streams are concerned, I find some high quality streams (256 of even 320 kbps) very good. The one that jumps out for us BBC Radio 3. We can stream from a Mac or iPad to our Airport Express which is connected to a Cambridge Audio DACMagic. It sounds a little bit better than BBC Radio 3 through cable FM. It depends heavily on the bitrate though. I find anything at a lower bitrate than 128 mbps unlistenable through the stereo.

FM through cable is still quite popular here in NL. It is obviously not as good as having an aerial on the roof but noone seems to bother with that. People with cable and an FM tuner simply run a coax lead from the radio output of a wall socket. (Most wall sockets have both a TV and a radio output.) Cable providers in NL usually provide you with 35-40 stations, including quite a few stations that are not available over the air like a couple of BBC stations and stations from Belgian and German public broadcasting. We get even more stations through DVB-C but they don't sound better FM since the bitrates aren't higher than 192 kbps.

I remember the day we got cable in my parents' home. We were over the moon with the sound quality and the range of stations. The aerials came off the roofs very soon after that. That's one of the reasons why you hardly see aerials in NL. Only people that want to watch satellite, will get a dish.

A technology that was hardly developed was satellite radio tuners. There is however a German company, Restek, that develop DVB-S tuners. That's real High End stuff. Over EUR 1300 for a tuner! Biggest advantage probably that you don't need to put your TV on to listen to the radio.

http://restek.de/msat-satelliten-tuner/

For the forseeable future I don't think the cable providers will switch of the FM signal (like Virgin Media did in the UK). Most homes in NL have cable and FM infrastructure and the cable companies already have all the equipment to modulate an FM signal from digital sources. DAB+ has also arrived in NL but is mainly focussed on outdoor use (like cars) and the bandwidth used is not very impressive. More powerful transmitters will arrive over time and that might see an uptake of DAB+ radios in the homes although they don't have any advantage over internet radios and probably don't give a better choice of stations compared to FM over cable.

 

[MrReaper182]

I once had a Yamaha CR420, and with a 'proper' ariel, it sounded really good. As an aside, what's the situation now with FM broadcasts? I was pondering on whether or not to get a tuner, but would be a waste of time if FM is being shut down. What's the best alternative, in terms of SQ? Is internet radio any good?

Internet radio can be great when broadcast in 320kbps. All internet radio stations will tell you what quality the broadcast is in. Also there is so much choice with internet radio, if you can not find somthing you like then your really not trying. Digital radio on the other had is a joke when it comes to broadcasting quality. A lot of digital radio stations broadcart in 64kbps because they can not afford the stupid amouts it's costs to broadcast in a higher reception on the bandwidth. Digital radio stations are not charged the stupid amouts of money to brodcast online like they are to on digital radio so you can often find digital radio staions brodcasting in 320kbps online while on digital radio the same station is in 64kbps. Internet radio is the way to go and is the future of radio.

 

[Freddy58]

I once had a Yamaha CR420, and with a 'proper' ariel, it sounded really good. As an aside, what's the situation now with FM broadcasts? I was pondering on whether or not to get a tuner, but would be a waste of time if FM is being shut down. What's the best alternative, in terms of SQ? Is internet radio any good?

Internet radio can be great when broadcast in 320kbps. All internet radio stations will tell you what quality the broadcast is in. Also there is so much choice with internet radio, if you can not find somthing you like then your really not trying. Digital radio on the other had is a joke when it comes to broadcasting quality. A lot of digital radio stations broadcart in 64kbps because they can not afford the stupid amouts it's costs to broadcast in a higher reception on the bandwidth. Digital radio stations are not charged the stupid amouts of money to brodcast online like they are to on digital radio so you can often find digital radio staions brodcasting in 320kbps online while on digital radio the same station is in 64kbps. Internet radio is the way to go and is the future of radio.

Excellent reply, just what I wanted to know, thanks for that. With my new set-up, it's very easy to get internet radio, as my amp has a built-in DAC. There's also a dongle thingy that came with it, any issues with blue-tooth?