What are some of the better tuners out there?

I have the equipment and skills to do a complete alignment. Anyone that wants the best out of a vintage tuner should seek out an experienced tech to do the same for yours; well worth it.

With that said, of several tuners in my home, a completely refurbished, aligned and modified Sansui TU-919 is my favorite.

Great suggestion on fmtunerinfo:

https://www.fmtunerinfo.com/index.html

A Sansui TU-777 is my favorite.  I have had a few tuners over the years but this one seems to be the best of the lot.   

That must be frustrating about the tubes mitchb.

My Sherwood S3000 III tube tuner just had a power supply capacitor replaced and one tube replaced. All of the other 50 year old tubes were in great condition. As others have said tubes should last a long time in a tuner.

While I'm here, first post here BTW, can I better the Sherwood for less than $500? I don't need dx ability as I have one station that I listen too. Sound quality is my number one priority. Any other tuner ideas?

I recently had a Sansui TU-9900 in house that was nice but would have needed a rebuild to better the Sherwood, which has been re-capped in the past. I like the magic of tubes, but wonder how much I'm missing?

@ancient_tones  Pay attention to the discrimination and selectivity circuits of the tuner, the old tube units don't have the good specs the newer SS units have.  Regardless of how good the Sound Quality output is, if it can't handle bleeding in from other stations or distant ones, when you want to listen to one, then SQ becomes a minor issue.

As for sound level, I can't argue with a tube unit.