Tuner vs Satellite Radio

My cable TV company, Comcast, offers several dozen music-only channels. The selections and playlists are good but the quality is MP3 at best. It is highly compressed and the HF is rolled off. The audio quality on these stations is about as good as the audio on most of the basic TV stations, and not even close to the audio quality of the digital premium channels. Go figure. For this reason, I am seriously considering the addition of a tuner to my system.

One note, I wouldn't say the MD's would be the "logical choice." The MD's are nice tuners indeed, but if you don't mind using a vintage tuner, you will get your best bang for your buck with one of those.

Go to www.fmtunerinfo.com for some research on vintage tuners.

This is not to say that a MD would not bring you great enjoyment. But you may be able get enjoyable "radio" for less than you think.

Check into the Audiolab 8000t. These are really nice high end tuners. And one of the few top end units with both AM&FM. Cd quality sound on both bands ....................

After learning what I have, I wouldn't spend the money on an MD in my area (pittsburgh). Very few radio stations use high enought quality equipment to justify a $1000 tuner. Everyone here thought that WQED was superb. Well, I got the "grand tour" and found out that the source was a pair of sony 200 disc changers-not even ES models just basic 1 bit units. Virtually no albums either. Their goal was to download 10-20,000 discs to hard drive for further ease of use. Wow was I bummed out to find that they were going to kill quality even more by compressing single bit data.
On a better note, I love the quality of my Dishnetwork audio for background music. It still isn't audiophile quality. You may get better selection from satellite radio but still won't have even cd quality sound.
I would recommend getting a vintage tube tuner (with mulitplexer built in) and letting the tubes "warm-up" the radio sound very nicely. You should spend about $100 to $150 for a nice Pilot, Fisher, Heath or similar and spend the rest on either satellite or dish.

I have Direct TV with all the music stations. Not inspiring. Although I have a very nice audio system, I did not want to spend big bucks for a new tuner, since it would not be my primary source. I purchased a Fisher FM-100B tuner a couple of years ago for $100 and have been extremely happy with its pleasing, musical sound. Although I have not touched it, I believe a complete tube upgrade can be had for around $200. As far as I am concerned, this route cannot be beaten.

Good luck.