Personal Tuner Evolution

Almost 4 years later - Tuner Update:

1. Harman Kardon 330C rec'r
2. Mitsubishi DA-R8 rec'r
3. McIntosh MR-71
4. Sansui TU-717
5. Pioneer TX-9800
6. Dyanco FM-3
7. Luxman T-110
8. Luxman T-400
9. McIntosh 1900 rec'r
10. Yamaha CT-810
11. Quad FM-4 (din outputs)
12. ADS T-2 - fun to use
13. NAD 4020A
14. Pioneer TX-500
15. B&K TS-108
16. Dyna FM-3
17. NEC T-710 - better than B&K
18. Tandberg 3030 rec'r - nice
19. Creek CAS-3140 (din to rca) - neck and neck w/Tandberg
20. Pioneer TX-8500 II
21. Sumo Charlie
22. Luxman TX-101
23. Yamaha T-1

FAVORITES: 3,4,5,6, 12, 17-22

1. Pioneer TX-9500II
2. McIntosh MR-78
3. Marantz 20b

For me the Pioneer sounds best by a small margin (although the MR-78 is now what I listen to--go figure!) The Marantz lags behind (and it has been recently serviced.)

Thats interesting!  Those Pioneers were great tuners!

Yes, and perhaps a bit undervalued because they are not as nice looking as many of their Japanese competetitors, let alone Marantz or McIntosh.

Just added a Sony ST-313 analog tuner to my pair of NAD integrated amps (3225pe & 3020i) and Technics SL-1700mk2 vintage system. The Sony has a big beautiful analog dial with a flywheel weighted mechanism. It’s got a servo-lock feature and nice big analog meters for signal strength and tuning center point. Reception is good even with a lousy indoor antenna. It has a cool unique feature that allows you to place 10 moveable markers along the tuning scale (5 for FM, 5 for AM) that trigger the tuner to switch to the respective band that the marker is on when you dial in one of the 10 marked frequencies. It’s relatively huge, (as large as the two NAD integrated amps if stacked), but definitely period-correct to match the other gear. Now if I could have all that, and a nice remote control!