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FM Radio, anyone?

I was a kid in the 70s. I remember listening to Detroit Tiger baseball on WJR AM 760 on summer evenings - the voice was Ernie Harwell. And I remember listening to music on our local FM stations, and FM sounded so much better than AM (well, of course it did!). 
I remember the glow of the dial on higher end FM tuners, or on receivers. We had a Pioneer that was nice. But a neighbor had a beautiful Marantz with the heavy horizontal tuning dial. Today I own a Model 19 and a 2215b.

So, today I also own a McIntosh MR87 and I plan to showcase it in a whole house audio rack, with a rooftop antenna for the best possible reception. I also have a Magnum Dynalab MD-108 and I’m not sure where to put it, but it sure is pretty! 
Yeah, I know, the SQ is crap compared to just about anything else these days. And radio stations just aren’t as good as they used to be, or as I choose to remember them (the exception being WXRT in Chicago). But I cannot let go! Anyone else?

mattsca
gkelly's avatar
gkelly
1,039 posts
 

When driving a car, it is the only way I can listen to music. 🎶 

AirPlay is too much of a hassle. I love how you can just turn on a car and the FM starts playing. 

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pdspiegel
70 posts
 

Mattsca, I'm with you in that I love radio.  Fortunately, we have a lot of choices and many styles of music on air here in the Los Angeles area.

The tuner with my main system is a little Sony XDR-F1HD which is OK.  The additional HD channels offer some interesting programming which is often commercial free.

Other than in the car, I do most of my radio listening in my workshop with a Fisher Series 80 tube AM/FM tuner/preamp into a homebrew 6B4 SE DHT amp.  Speaker is a single vintage Klipsch Heresy.  Sounds lovely.  Most surprising is that in addition to FM, AM can sound quite good through an old tube tuner.  I guess it makes sense as radio was the hifi music medium for decades up until 1950 or so when microgroove vinyl records and tape began becoming popular in homes.

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