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.
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I have a Magnum Dynalab FT101A that was upgraded to Etude. It rivals CD playback, but that is dependent on signal strength and quality. I also have an Onkyo T9090 II, which is also nice. Yes, you can stream radio stations from all over the world, but the vast majority of them are very low quality streams. A good tuner with a good signal will sound much better. |
I’ve owned many vintage tuners. Since your budget is under $250.00 the Nikko Gamma 1 is an outstanding performer. Check the Ebay listings and I am sure you will find one within your budget! This is from FM TUNER INFO! Nikko Gamma I (1977, $400, black w/matching amp, silver, service manual, schematic, Audio review) search eBay Our panelist JohnC did indeed improve his Gamma I, twice no less! Here’s John’s initial report: "These units sound pretty good as is, but they do respond well to simple mods. I did these without benefit of a schematic. The power supply is easy to get to just by removing the covers, so that got recapped. Bob said ’looks to be discrete outputs also,’ which I read to mean discrete components, but there are definitely op-amps in there. To be specific, TA7136P ICs are used, the same as what are in the Sansui TU-9900. I did manage to identify the input and output caps to the op-amps and changed those out, but without a schematic I’ve stopped there for now. The IF strip is located on its own board located above the main board and prevents full access without removing it, not a simple task bet definitely doable. What was interesting was that this unit did not have the SAW filter installed in Wide mode. The LC was there but the SAW was replaced with a 3-legged ceramic Murata, tan body, yellow dot, marked E10.7A with the Murata logo and a stylized X on the next line. This appears to be a factory change because I can see no indications that the SAW was ever installed. Anybody else ever see this? Bottom line is that after a little tweaking these units sound real nice, reasonably selective and sensitive, at least in my market." |
I ditched my tuners years ago in favor of internet radio. But the best tuners, at a reasonable cost, were the old '70's Kenwood tuners. I had the Kenwood KT-815 that was excellent, but once WRVR in New York went from jazz to country in the late '70s, I I lost interest in radio. Unless you want to go for a McIntosh beast, look around for a used Kenwood.
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I'm still using the McIntosh MR80 tuner that I bought new back in 1979. It still sounds great although many FM stations are way too over-processed today.
I've had similar experience. So-called "HD radio" offers the great s/n that's easy for digital, but it's lo-res and can compromise even the main analog signal.
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