Analog Tuner Existence.....

digital FM is just another subcarrier riding / sucking up bandwidth on the main analog carrier which will always be there. There's nothing HD about it. If you compromise buying a cheap tuner you get what you pay for. Invest in a quality product & enjoy the full benefits available. You'll not regret the quality of a classic design either; most of them were built better than what's available now. Grab that Mac while you still can!

An FM tuner been in my system literally for decades. Currently I thoroughly enjoy an Accuphase T-100.

I have no quams spending hundreds for modifications to further enjoy my favourite FM broadcast.

Perhaps digital radio will produce decent stereo. Except in strong signal areas the difference signal that is combined with the mono (sum) signal to derive stereo is so noisy that it is often best to switch to mono reception.

Eldartford,

Digital radio will produce great stereo separation to go along with the totally compressed signal. HD radio streams at 96K max, and that's only if they dedicate their whole bandwidth to one channel. If they decide to divide it up to make more money, you end up with 48K or less.

Go listen to any Internet station streaming at 96K, then tell me whether you'd trade it for a decent analog signal. All the stations I listen to here also stream, and I'll take the broadcast signal every time.

Your complaint about weak signal areas is totally valid, and roughly analogous to old scratchy vinyl vs. CDs. HD radio may not help you, though, because just like HDTV it's either on or off. If the signal where you live is too weak, with HD radio you'll get nothing, whereas now you can at least listen, albeit in mono.

As HD radio becomes more prevalent, those of us with analog tuners will become a fringe group, just like those of us with turntables. I can live with that.

David

here is something that I don't really get it. most FM stations these days play music from computer harddrives in MP3 and other compressed formats. What's the point of having a high-end tuner and perfect signal reception if the source quality is poor and compressed?