What are the Best FM tuners?

Newbee -- Enjoy the new Accuphase!

Re my own tuner experiences, I'll quote from myself in another tuner thread:

I've been through about a dozen tuners over the years, mostly vintage tube units, but a few modern ones as well including a Carver TX-11. The vintage ones include a REL (Radio Engineering Laboratories) Precedent (from 1954), two different Marantz 10B's, a McIntosh MR71, and numerous Scott and Fisher units.

By far the one with the best sound quality has been the now 55-year old REL Precedent (with a Scott or Fisher multiplex adapter to decode the stereo). The best in terms of station-getting ability have been the REL and the 10B's, which I found to be about equal (both significantly better than the Carver unit, which has proprietary digital processing claimed to provide extra-special sensitivity).

The REL is the one I've kept in my main system, and I've sold most of the others. Although ever since I acquired it about 18 years ago, it unfortunately only feels like working properly on some days and not on others (I think it has a problem with a diode or capacitor in the detector circuit). But when it cooperates I couldn't ask for more.

Here's a pic from this link of someone else's REL.

Regards,
-- Al

McImtosh MR78
McIntosh MR85
Magnum

The Marantz 10B tuner is my personal favorite. While there have been numerous design innovations since the 1960s --the Schotz front end, for example-- Dick Sequerra's design for Saul Marantz has done something that I've not heard another tuner do.
Often I listen in the dark, when sense cues can take on a 'heightened' feeling, but while listening during the day, I became absorbed in my work while the tuner was on. Several times, while alone I was startled back to awareness by feeling there was someone in the room with me.
The audio cues that lead to that kind of experience are very subtle and complex. The fact that I was startled, literally to the point of having the hair on my neck stand up, attests to the realism of the presentation possible with the Marantz 10B.
Sometimes a component attains highly respected status without cause; in my estimation the Marantz 10B tuner is justifiably worthy of its accolades.

"Sam Tellig in Stereophile raved re the sub $100 Sony."

I respectfully disagree about the Sony. True, for the price it really grabs stations, but the tone/fidelity/sound stage/presence is just not in league with the best (albeit much more expensive) audiophile tuners. IMO. Sam loves to rave. Proof? See his review of the LFD Zero Mk III. Case closed. I have a theory that most Hi-Fi reviewers really want to be writing fiction, and the rest are co-mingling wine reviews with their audio reviews. Just kidding!

for the price you can't go past the rotel r-t 1080,love it.