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Finding a Great Sounding FM Tuner

The site to visit is fmtunersinfo.com It is unbelievable of the info at the site. About 90 tuners were compared for best sound. Trouble is top ten FM tuners cost $500 and more on eBay. Why a FM tuner? Well, the station does all the work playing different records or likely CDs. FM does not sound near as good as a record, but for casual listening ok with the right tuner. Many FM tuners do not sound good and distorts the audio. FM station quality audio is not near what was in the 1960s and 1970s. Competition was fierce and stations had audio engineers. Most FM stations were all tube generated audio too. Opti-Mods were carefully adjusted unlike now too. As stated top ten tuners are $500 to $1K- too high cost IMO for FM. However, a few slipped thru the cracks so to speak. A Merdian 504 is in top 14 and we are splitting hairs here. I bought one for $140 but usually cost $200. They are rare though. Cost was $1350 in 1991. The Mitsubishi DA-F20 is a cheap top 10 tuner but failure rates are high- no good.  The sleeper is a Hitachi FT-8000. It was not in the Shootout page but mentioned as better sounding than the stellar Hitachi FT-5500 MKII in Shoutouts 2.0. I owned both Merdian 504 and Hitachi FT-8000 and both are great sounding equal in audio performance. The FT-8000 are not known for failure and cost $150 to $220 on eBay.

jimbennet
faustuss's avatar
faustuss
829 posts
 

Livestream of a good college radio station like my beloved WHRB in Cambridge, MA, home of the “Orgy”, is only bested by good terrestrial broadcast reception on a good tuner.  I live less than 5 miles from Harvard’s transmitter so I have compared using a Yamaha T2, nearly SOTA FM tuner. My rooftop aerial got damaged and now I let the Bluesound Node do it. In my experience few tuners beat out the top Kenwood (KT-8005), Pioneer (TX-9100 or 9500), Sansui (TU-919) or Yamaha (CT7000).  The T2 beat the livestream but I can’t access the antenna any more, so I sold the tuner last year. Of course Sequerra, 10B, MR78 owners can claim bragging rights, but their day is mostly done.

@dynacohum I to have a line of site to HRB along with ERS, CRB, JIB all of which are non-commercial and or listener supported and play any kind of music you might be into with exceptional sound quality.

I’m currently receiving with a Magnum Dynalab MD90 which I bought new a few years back from Audio Advisor. The sound on most days is almost as good as any of the physical media I listen to, quiet, tuneful with great imaging I might add and I pull it all in with the aforementioned Radio Shack amplified antenna I’ve had for thirty something years. I’ve had HH Scott, McIntosh and a Pro-Ject Tuner Box S in here all with great results. I think were still quite lucky to have great FM available to us in the Boston area.

I love crustycoot's collection of gear! You need to post more pictures of his and your systems! 

 

dekay's avatar
dekay
6,197 posts
 

The "best" sounding tuner I've used (owned as a gift) was a mono Sherwood 3000  (maybe the original or the II/III - been a long time).

My favorite "radio" was a Harmon Kardon Model 21 (SS mono).

Owned  Advent 300, Dynaco tuner and Quad FM3.

 

DeKay

thecarpathian's avatar
thecarpathian
6,150 posts
 

I just went on the 'other' site to check tuner prices these days- outrageous!

guym-p
5 posts
 

FM analogue broadcasts are still alive in the UK.  Alive and well might be an issue, because some are a digital to analogue conversion of a lo-fi digital stream.  BBC Radio 3 is still superb, however, and makes having a proper set up with a roof mounted aerial worth while.

I have a 1960 Leak Troughline 3, still regarded as one of the best and still fairly affordable tuners today.  In back to back listening between BBC Radio 3 on FM, and BBC Radio 3 steamed via Tune-In Radio on a Linn Akurate DSM, there is absolutely no question that the Leak Troughline is a richer, smoother, more spacious and more musical experience.

Guy.

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