Question about seperate tuners

A tuner is much like a preamp in that it either allows you to hear, or gets in the way of your hearing, the signal from the radio station and the music it is broadcasting. The hardware and software used by the radio station would be the only limiting factor to sound quality if you had a high end seperate tuner. You can usually receive better signals from longer distances with a seperate and you can get a better ability to reject strong signals on adjacent signals. Sound quality is also important just as with any amp/preamp and have sonic signatures such as cold, warm, good bass etc. You can buy some vintage analog tuners for $300 +/- which will walk circles around the sound of a typical receiver. But if you don't listen to the radio much, why bother with the hassle?

Yeah, Im not too sure if i will buy a tuner...

im going to get away from the reciever. I was thinking of getting a used Sunfire Grand Cinema 1 with matching 5ch 200w amp. I dont know if it has a tuner or not.

Im also fixing to start building a 2channel setup seperate from the HT, and the pre-amp i used will probably not have a tuner. I might pick up a cheap-o. I dont listen to the radio much, but i like the capability.

Thanks!

Just about all tuners today have audio quality that is as good as the signal which stations transmit. The important specs and the costs relate to sensitivity and selectivity, and these matter greatly if you live in a "fringe" (weak signal) area, or in a city where there are many multipath reflections of numerous signals from clustered buildings.

More than any other component, a home trial is useful. Buy and install an antenna before you do the trial. If you are in a suburban area you will likely find that a "midFI" unit will be just fine.