FM Radio, anyone?

I’ve been a fan of radio forever, and I have a simple Rotel analog tuner that has served me well since the early 90’s. Some really nice receivers in the 70’s and 80’s that had great tuners . . . a Kenwood comes to mind, built like a tank - wish I had kept it actually. Rabbit ear antenna off an old Sony tube tv works just fine and I have some decent College stations in the area as well as a classical and an alternative station from Vermont that comes in great despite being 75 miles away. I love not knowing what will be played next, which adds to the entertainment value and prevents boredom and monotony. People have no idea what they’re missing by dismissing radio/FM radio as a viable source - one that has stood the test of time and is still one of the very few things on this planet that is still free. I will always have an FM tuner as long as I’m still kicking, and am not deaf. Before TV, most of which is comprized of programming that appeals to the less intellectual among us, radio ruled the world and was the prominent, preeminent form of entertainment that captivated and entertained people the world over. A good FM signal on a decent audio system sounds sublime, and I still dig it after all these years!

I have an MD-102 & an ST-2 outdoor antenna.

The sound quality is excellent with the right stations.

We have a local classical station & a college station (KTUH) that both have great sound quality. KTUH has a wide variety of music, dependent on the DJ. There is some great obscure music played that I haven’t heard on the radio for decades.

We bought a house that was a former radio station - 50,000 watts.

I still stream 91X, a San Diego station I’ve listened to since I was young, 8Radio Ireland & Radio Hauraki NZ.

There is some excellent radio out there that shouldn’t be missed.

There is a pretty good all Classical NPR station in my city, and I have listened a lot in the past 5 years.  Using both old school tube tuner (Dynaco FM-3, old school analog solid state (kenwood), SONY highly modded XDR-F1HD, and even a Crane pocket FM on occasion.

The Dynaco FM-3 sounds the best by far, totally "musical", I can listen for hours.  I did do some re-soldering and one small mod to improve grounding to keep the hum low.

The Kenwood is next best sounding but not close to the FM-3.

The Sony is flat, boring sounding, does not sound like music.

The Crane is junk, there is a known problem with the volume control for that model, and they won’t fix it.  Will never buy another Crane.

The FM-3 does require a 6 element YAGI and I have line of sight to the station’s tower, the others can use a Crane T antenna indoors.

By the way I did own an MR-87 for years.  And had it aligned and tuned up.  But the FM-3 sounds better...

I was blown away listening to a Marantz 10B back in the late 70's.  I wonder how it stacks up against some of today's best?

FM today is close to 1960s and 1970s sound quality on most stations. What you were hearing was vinyl vs CD and tube audio vs solid state now. Plus you used tube tuners that sound great. The problem is the solid state FM tuner. fmtunrtinfo.com performed shootouts on 84 tunes. The top 14 are good and higher rated introduce too high distortion  A top 5 tuner that is inexpensive is the Hitachi FT-8000.