Why even bother?

I agree with Muzikrat. IF I lived in a town with with a good college radio station I may have a decent tuner. But I don't so I don't. With the stations I can get, I hear far to much of them while I'm in the car. I have a cheap Kenwood receiver $100 Circuit City that I bought about 6 years ago, and I recently set it up on the shelf next to my system - and connect it through tape out. It's mainly for news/talk, but from time to time I find a good Jazz or Classical program on PBS. The fidelity has been surprisingly good.

Misterl, given that criteria - I agree with you. I don't understand the technical benefits of a state of the art tuner, but my money would go into other parts of the system or the room, and I would probably stick with my Kenwood receiver as a tuner (it has remote tuning, prresets, and decent reception). I think the other factor for me is when I have time to really listen, I want to listen to what I really want to listen to, not what someone is playing for me. I've been drawn in to radio programs before, but not when I was in "the chair" it was when I was listing to radio while doing something else.

. . . well that's my 2 cents anyway . . .

this has been a great discussion. Misterl, I don't think an apology is necessary . . . provocative statements are often the best way. I learned a lot from most of the posts.