$500-600 Used Tuner

You may not even have to spend that much. Look on Ebay for a vintage Sansui tuner like the TU-717, TU-719, or le creme de le creme, the TU X1. These will smoke any tuner out today less than $2K. I have the TU-717, bought it for $150 on Ebay, it was an upgrade from my Magnum Dynalab FT-101A tuner. Not only does it pull in more stations, but it's warmer and sweeter musically. The late 70's and early 80's was the golden age for tuners. I favor the Sansui models, but Kenwood and Pioneer also had some very good tuners.

Regards,
John

Check out the following website by Don Scott on vintage tuners:

http://www.geocities.com/tunerinfo/index.html#Don%20Scott

It has mini reviews and pricing information.

Check out the Tuner Information Center

They call themselves, "The most complete source of factual information on vintage stereo tuners" and they are right.

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If you can get by without remote control, you are in for a pleasant surprize. At $500-600 used there are so many excellent choices it will be difficult to pick the absolute best. Most of the best will be tubes in my opinion. McIntosh, HH Scott, Fisher, etc. I am using a modified Dyna FM3 that is wonderful and quite inexpensive. Good listening! Don

I agree with Magnum Dynalab FT-101A. I owned one new then upgraded to MD-100. Huge improvement, but retails for $1,600. Older Kenwood tuners, especially the KT-7500 or KT-8300 rival the Magnum models. These 2 are always on eBay for $150-400. I've used a KT-7500 for many years in a secondary ststem. It plays FM perfectly, almost as good as the MD-100. The key to FM enjoyment is a quality antenna. I use the Magnum Dynalab ST-2 indoor/outdoor antenna. I live in Pittsburgh, PA and do not have any reception problems with any local stations. We are lucky to have 3 Public Radio stations. WQED, WDUQ, and WYEP. One is classical, one is jazz and one is free-form music.