No love for FM tuners?

[slowgeezr]

Currently listening to my wonderful Sansui TU-919.

 

[Albert]

Wow, so many nice tuners. I am very impressed and a little jealous.

 

[jdandy]

Steve.......Your Sansui TU-919 looks great. Thanks for posting the photo.

I knew there had to be some FM tuner guys hiding out here.

 

[Melbguy1]

I owned a Cambridge Audio T500 tuner years ago which brought me a lot of joy. In my current apartment, there is a dedicated fm aerial connection which connects to an FM antenna on the roof of our apartment building, so I was able to get rock solid signal strength. I miss that tuner, but truth be known I have always lusted after a vintage Onkyo Integra T-9090 Mk2 tuner. Just love the vintage look & wood panels.

Also some time back, I really wanted an Accuphase T-1100 tuner & run it dac-out to my Vitus SCD-025 Mk2, but my Dealer talked me out of it and said they'd be a boat anchor in 2 years after the analogue signal is switched off. Well that hasn't happened, and doesn't look set to happen for a long time. His advice was to just buy a server with Internet radio instead. I can kind of see his point, but there is something about the sound of analogue radio done right which appeals to me. And I think that setup would've been awesome. In the end I compromised & bought myself a Tivoli network radio which i'll be connecting to my wifi soon to access Internet stations.

 

[chops]

If there were any stations here in Central Florida worth listening to, I'd still be using the Yamaha TX-540 tuner that I have over at my father's house. It's just all the stations here are from Tampa and Orlando, so they're all pop, hip-hop, rap, country and one latin.

There's only four decent stations left, 88.5 which is a college station that plays a lot of jazz, blues and new musician stuff, 89.7 which is NPR and is only talk radio anymore (they only play music on their HD stations), 104.7 (Q-105) that plays mostly 70's through 90's pop and rock, and 105.5 (The Dove) which plays mostly pop and love ballads from the 60's to 90's.

So maybe after thinking about it, I may get that tuner and hook it up to my system. It's not the greatest tuner, but at least it should let me know if the few stations I would listen to are decent sounding to begin with. If so, I could always upgrade the tuner. Hmm... :skeptical:


On a minor side note, I really need to re-cap that old Technics SU-8099. That's one mighty fine sounding amp!

 

[jdandy]

Charles.......Do it! Get that Yamaha TX-540 tuner back in service. Listening to FM broadcasts is fun. Sometimes late at night I will sit in front of my tuner slowly dial across the band just to see what's out there. At night many stations reduce power which lets some of the more distant stations break through. That was how I found the late night jazz on PBS. You don't have to have the tuner on unless your in the mood, but surprisingly with one in the system you will find yourself enjoying it more than you might imagine.

 

[chops]

I just might. It's only about a mile away. Maybe I'll get one of my brothers to bring it over tomorrow.

I wish mine was silver like the one you posted above though!

 

[jdandy]

David.......Holy cow, the dealer talked you out of buying an Accuphase T-1100. What the heck was he thinking. It is a fabulous tuner. Some say it is one of the best FM tuners in the world.

 

[Randy Myers]

I just might. It's only about a mile away. Maybe I'll get one of my brothers to bring it over tomorrow.

I wish mine was silver like the one you posted above though!

Black is where it's at ... I have always preferred black face plates. Maybe because back in the day it seemed like professional level, or higher end equipment many times leaned towards black.

 

[bayou985]

At My age 65, it's a lot easier to understand FM tuners and radio broadcasting than digital streaming...

 

[laynesaddiction]

Anthony.......The Magnum Dyanlab MD107t is a beauty. I have a friend who has a silver one. I prefer the black./QUOTE]

Yeah, I actually like the black color too, but bought the silver because it matched our other equipment better. It even cost me more for the silver finish back then, but whatever as the silver is nice in its own way.

As far as from an operation point of view, let's hope the silver works just as well as the black. ;-)

 

[hongkong]

Hi Dan,

The sound is like a concert when I listen concert on FIP radio.
FIP in France has the best sound for the radio FM.

It has many options too like Hi-blend, wake-up, if with, choice betwwen 2 antenna, direct access when we know the radio frequency...

Best regards.

 

[Deafone]

This is going to sound dumb. I used to spend 70% of my listening time tuned to WFMT on my Fanfare FT-1A tuner. My system was on many hours during the day. When I switched to tubes, my electricity costs soared and I started wondering if i could justify listening to the tuner while my tube hours went up. (Replacing tubes isn't cheap.) So, I moved the tuner to a secondary system which is rarely used. I now listen to FM using a Tivoli radio which just isn't the same and my listening time to FM has dropped drastically.

 

[chops]

Well, I went ahead and asked my brothers to bring the tuner over with them... And they did!

I took a normal dipole antenna and used those big alligator paper clips to clip it to my audio rack. I don't want that antenna plastered all over the way under the TV, so this seemed like a good alternative. Turns out it works great and picks up a LOT of stations from all over. I guess it helps that we live in a 3rd floor apartment.

I got it all installed and fired up. It sounds pretty decent considering. The music content is another story. LOL I think one of the things I hate the most about radio is all of the non-stop commercials. They seem to go on forever sometimes.

At any rate, here's a few quick pics... Naturally. Don't mind the mess behind the system.

 

[jdandy]

Charles.......This is great. I think the Yamaha TX-540 looks right at home. Spend some time with it in the late evenings searching around the dial. You just may come upon some programming you really enjoy. A tuner is one more source for music and entertainment you didn't have yesterday. Make use of it.

 

[Randy Myers]

Excellent Charles! The Yamaha looks great!

Well looks like our plans are changing and we may not be heading to Florida... all of the kids and grand kids are being way too upset.... we have found a place in Bakersfield that may actually be even better for us, and it is 2800 miles closer to the kids... so they are very happy!

 

[jdandy]

Randy.......Bakersfield? You want to live in a flat dry agriculture dust bowl? Hope you can speak Spanish.

 

[Randy Myers]

Pretty much where we live now other than Ocean on one side (Santa Maria, just south of us, is like 85% Spanish speaking).... but cost are out of this world being near coast in Cali..... like 2.5x the price of what we can get in Bakersfield.... ... actually bigger home, nice gated community.... lay out is perfect and only 2 hours from kids (they have been really upset with us, but we need to afford to be able to retire, ala, 100% mortgage free!!!).... Bakersfield has become quite a large city now.... with really nice sections and not so nice sections ...

 

[jdandy]

I pulled my McIntosh MR88 out of the studio two channel rack and slid my friends Magnum Dynalab MD108t in to see how it looks. The gold doesn't do it for me. I don't think silver would work either because it accentuates the size of the 19" face plate. A black MD108t might look good sitting there but I am having a hard time with the size of the face plate in relation to the other gear in the rack. Hmm.

 

[Melbguy1]

David.......Holy cow, the dealer talked you out of buying an Accuphase T-1100. What the heck was he thinking. It is a fabulous tuner. Some say it is one of the best FM tuners in the world.

Dan, my Dealer is philosophically opposed to tuners & thinks they don't cut it. I think he respects the Accuphase T-1100, but warned it could become a boat anchor if the analogue signal is switched off (which I don't see happening any time soon). But he made a valid point that Internet radio has hundreds of stations, whilst the Accuphase might allow you to save 20 stations. Realistically though, he doesn't represent Accuphase so he's not going to recommend their gear. For now, I'm getting acceptable sound from my Tivoli network Radio for background listening. However if Accuphase release a DAB+/Internet radio in future, I could be seriously tempted :skeptical:.