Are tuners getting worse?

Take a look at this model on Ebay sometime. Its a beauty, I cant imagine anyone who would not like it. All the stuff from 20 Years Ago Ruled. I dont have much interest in todays hi fi - every typical receiver I see, for example, looks like a cheap black plastic vcr - Boring!

I disagree, in part, with Satch. His argument about RF pollution is correct with respect that large corporation owned FM stations (those that own many top pop 40 stations for example) deliberately compress the signal so it sounds like garbage, if another station within the 1Mhz or 2 of your station is strong or close to you it can have an influence but not if it is farther than that unless it is very very strong. If you listen to a good local fine arts station through an outside antenna connected to a good tuner it will sound great. Very very very close to CD sound. But just like the argument about the poor not being educated so that is why they eat bad foods is wrong. They are educated it is their source about foods is bad. It is called Corporate America. I heard on npr (FM!!) that there is nearly a 100% correlation between the rise of fast food advertizing (education) and the fast food industry and fat related diseases. You really deserve it to your self to find someone with an exceptional tuner and a good FM station (probably are next to none that play the pop stuff) signal to take a listen at what a free music library is all about and as important what democracy is about (I guarantee that across many university FM stations across the country are topics and guests discussing those topics that NO TV station would allow to air).

satch is right about all the garbage out there, (especially the compression used on pop-music stations, imo), but i think he's wrong to yust buy a so-so tuna, for the reasons nanderson mentions - a good tuna, w/a good antenna & a good radio station will be an excellent hi-quality music source.

as far as no good tunas being made any more, they're being made, yust that they're all really expensive! tunas like the naim nat-01, the linn kremlin, the magnum md108, the sequerra, are *killer*. see the related tuna thread for some good decent used tunas - and not all are crammed w/stuff waiting to break - like my onix bwd1 w/soap power supply, that i do a *lot* of critical listening to...

regards, doug

is the sansui au-5900 a good tuner? it sure looks cool! I need and want a good vintage tuner but dont want to spend over $100 I have some on ebay Im watching but Im not sure what to bid on.

David there is an excellant top 10 tuner thread from some time ago. Search "tuner", maybe one your looking at is one there.