The best sounding FM Tuner is.....

More for curiosity I have an old (but refurbished) Fisher 88 which is one of the last ones built that required an external MPLX for stereo. This feeds into a McIntosh CR 12 audio/visual control unit and then the signal goes into seperate tubed amps (McIntosh 2102 and Audio Aero Capitole). This whole mess sits below my NEC 50XM5 plasma. Needless to say I get quite the bug-eyed looks from visitors to my home. The old Fisher sounds really good, although it is there more for the curiosity factor. I recently broke many of the above mentioned rules by splitting the feed from my roof-top Circuit City antenna that pulls in UHF(digital TV, analog feeds, etc.) and I cut the end off from a piece of coax cable and am using this roof-top feed for my Fisher's antenna. Great signal reception from stations far away. I can now walk around my living room without 'getting in the way' of my FM signal.

Jazzbird: It's funny you mention this expensive tuner by Accuphase. I just had a shootout with a Scott tuner and it creamed this expensive unit. It's very hard currently to beat a good tube tuner. It's a different story with other components.

Another option: Try an old Sansui (probably easier to find than a vintage Scott or Fischer).

About Sean's post up there... I agree with everything. And also: "fm tuner info" is one of the great white elephant websites of all time. I like Kenwood tuners, but there are plenty of good tuners out there, and if you look at the site, what you slowly start to realize is it's a self-justification for using old Kenwoods. Furthermore there is no baseline for quantitative vs. qualitative measurement, and very little actual evidence from oscilliscopes that any of what they are saying bears any relation to reality. All ceramic filters are better than IR's. No explanation. Modded tuners are always "better". Better sounding or better engineering tested? Again no answer. Wide bands are always better than narrow. Ridiculous. Then people start quoting these lunatics on ebay or over on the asylum and start flame wars over it. It's driven some things through the roof that, frankly, suck, while other great lower-priced-initially tuners languish. That site, TNT audio, which gets a lot of tech stuff plain old wrong (like ultralinear is always push-pull and triode is always single-ended; even in the same amp ...eh... wtf?) and also Arthur Salvatore's site about how Michael Fremer is defrauding people (which may be true, but the way he goes about relating his story is on the level of, I was abducted by aliens!) ...anyway, it all made me start a thread called: Do you believe everything you read on the internet? Audio is like everything else. Some people know what they are talking about, and some people don't. Being able to put up a webpage doesn't make you competent.

biomimetic, it is clear that you have only scanned the tic site & its related chat forum.

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huh? where else are you gonna find so much info about so many different tunas?

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huh? a close reading of the site makes it clear that there's scads of tunas, not yust kenwoods that are worthy of listening to. but, there's no escaping the fact that kenwood made way more than their share of tunas, which is why there's quite a few good tunas w/the name "kenwood" on it. and no, i am not a big kenwood fan - i tried & sold three...

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where on the site does it say there *is*? but, the fact is, specs *do* play a big part in the tuna ewaluations, which a close reading of individual tuna stats, & a following of the chat forum will indicate. and, the fact is, the participants are some of the best rf engineers around, & they *do* measurements. a *lot*.

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want an explanation? ask on the forum; you will get lotsa opinions.

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again, ask, you will get answers. but, in fact, you are wrong, this info *is* given.

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as is your statement that this is what the tic & the forum say. again, you have to be more thorough in your readings.

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huh? there's so few flamewars on that site, it's amazing, quite frankly. of course, agon is so strongly moderated, there really isn't even a conversation flow here. :>/

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sounds like what happens w/all reports about all other gear in audiodom, no? tho i disagree that there are reports of good tunas that are actually sucky. of course, i *do* have disagreements w/the opinions/rankings of all the tunas over there, having tried almost a hundred different tunas in my home over the past few years. examples:
- the revox b261 is excellent - on par w/the b760. but, the mitsubishi da-f20 is better than both.
- the tandberg 3001a is *way* over-rated. a decent tuna, for sure, but a reliability nightmare, surpassed in sonics & reception by many many tunas. equaled in sonics & reception by something as cheap as the hitachi ft-8000.
- mcintosh s/s tunas are only so-so sounding, exceeded by so many tunas it isn't even funny. they are exceeded by most every tuna i have ever tried, in fact. they *do* certainly have excellent reception capabilities, tho.

so, does this mean that i am a white elephant? cuz i have opinions about tunas that you or others may not share? no - it's yust one more data point on the chart. which is all the info on the tic & its forum is or is meant to be.

relax & yust enjoy the magic of a good fm broadcast w/a quality tuna of your choice on a revealing rig! ;~)

ymmv,

doug s.
but not everyone hears the same, eh?