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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
normb's avatar
normb
214 posts
 

I’m an FM guy since at least a decade before Steely Dan did the song for the movie in ‘78. Ive owned a handful, recapped, tuned snd fixed the drift problem on several ADCOM GFT-555 (II’s? It’s packed up) then someone mentioned Technics ST-9038 which has amazing specs. Only problem is the memory unit buttons get dried out, so I updated my ST-9038 ( mainly OPA2134 output amplifier) then figured out how to replace the pushbutton contact switches in the SH-9038 unit whhich has been running for a few years now. 
 

The technics pulled in college radio stations from WAMU - American University - in DC (18 miles) to WTMD in Towson about 40 miles off with a simple folded loop antenna in my basement; ADCOM didn’t even hear them.

I paid about $300 for the set plus a couple hours tinkering around.

 

sadly, we moved to our farm in central Tennessee where, until i get my antenna connected, there’s little FM to listen to (99.7 talk radio) so i do a lot of streaming of old favorites like Radio Bob aus Deutschland.

realgoodsound
100 posts
 

If you can find one, check out the Denon TU-680 NAB. It was designed to be a broadcast (off-the-air) monitor. It is quite selective and sensitive and sounds terrific. I've had one since 1994. About 2000, bought a Magnum Dynalab Etude, which sounded marginally better but was too doggone expensive. Returned it to the dealer as it didn't make that much difference. The last time I saw a TU-680 NAB on eBay, the seller was asking $400. Steal of a deal.

jimbennet OP
193 posts
 

Two more top 15 rated tuners worth considering is the Kenwood KT-5020 (year 1990) and KT-990D (year 1988). Both are new enough to be reliable. Either are available on eBay for as low as $140. Careful on shipping cost as some on eBay will gouge you. Tuners cost about $20 to ship in USA. Why top 15 tuners? I bought a Pioneer F-90 that was rated good sounding at top 30 tuners on fmtunersinfo.com. Here is their quote- "Pioneer F-90 - Great sonics with a slightly lighter sonic presentation than the top dogs. Upper midrange and treble are top-notch". The tuner added distortion to the FM signals and IMO was unlistenable. Not all FM signals are great but the good FM stations were distorted on the Pioneer F-90.

stevencason
102 posts
 

HK Citation twenty three from the 80's great tuner

avanti1960
1,744 posts
 

@jimbennet 

I have a cambridge audio azur 340T (ebay less than $100) and it sounds surprisingly good- dynamic, lively, excellent bass and clarity.  

sounds and tunes better than the BHK tuner I had that was super well likes on the tuner info site.  

the controls on the cambridge are (however) absolutely awful- for both tuning and saving presets.  get that sorted and you have a low cost gem.  

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