FM tuners - Are they OBSOLETE ?


As much as I a have liked tuners in the past - and probably kidded myself that older ''vintage'' tuners sound better (after owning quite a few), I really don't see much use for them except maybe a nostalgic bridge to days past, or bragging rights to pride of ownership with McIntosh gear or whatever.

With the newer technologies giving access to hundreds of stations around the globe, it just seems like THE proposition to discover new music.

I of course know that some high-end tuners sound very good - but let me tell you - a clean 128 digital feed into a DAC (from a digital transport like the Wadia or Cambridge Audio's new ID-100), is pretty impressive...

Sort of make kilo-buck tuners seem futile and very expensive by comparison.

What do you think ?
soniqmike
they are as obsolete or not depending upon the quality of the programming material where you live - if you are lucky & have a lot of good FM programmes then you could benefit from a FM tuner; otherwise, not.
Technically, it appears that FM tuners have some life left in them as the US FCC has approved IBOC (in-band, on-channel) digital radio broadcasts. These digital radio broadcasts occur at the same FM center freq of the present radio station. So, in effect, the FM station broadcasts good, ol' FM + DAB digital radio. So, the FM tuner should have no issues picking up the FM signal like it always did.
In the UK, the word is that the switch-over to digital/DAB radio is sometime in 2015 but most of the radios in UK autos are still FM tuners. So, this is a detail that will need to be worked out so that owners of present cars do not lose radio reception in 2015.
Thanx for the TuneIn app for the iPhone. It is a very nice app & I can play my iPhone thru my onkyo iPod dock .
I hope not. I just aquired a McIntosh MR78! I am a regular tuner user as there is a good classic rock station in the area. Long live FM!
MR78 is hard to beat! A good antenna set-up and maybe a signal amplifier. Late night running up and down the dial:)