Tuner - FM over the air - suggestions

Over the air FM sounds so much better where I live than streaming. I am currently listening to a classic rock station on a refurbished Accuphase T-101 tuner and I am just blown away at how good it sounds. I was thinking that is is almost as good as CD.

At 9AM - 12PM I switch to the incredible KCRW(,com) on my Magnum Dynalab 108T tuner. That is also incredible and KILLS the same steam of that stations broadcast. This station likes to play albums when available. One time a DJ on KCRW stopped a song half way and apologized to say he was playing a bad version and he had a better vinyl pressing to play instead. These guys love music.

FM streaming is awful compared to what I hear over the airways.

I have 2 cheaper tuners (not really used at the moment) that are not too expensive. A modified $500 Sony XDR tuner (Welcome - About - Contact (xdrguy.com)). You need a very good RCA interconnect to really bring this to life.

The other tuner is a Sansui 9090 tuner I got for $750. It was refurbished and sounds really good. Not as good as the Accuphase and MD 108T but damn fine for the price.

Could it be Arizona University's KUAT (90.5

That's Tucson and comes in strong. The Green Valley station must have changed. 

@yyzsantabarbara Audio reproduction is very subjective. What you may think sounds right to you, may not sound right to me, and so on. Audio processing on radio is the same. Some listeners think balls to the wall processing sounds better to them, than a lightly processed radio station (lightly meaning you're hearing more dynamic range, and audio that's closer to the original source). Having been (and still kind of am) a Radio Broadcast Engineer, I could talk your ears off on this subject. The truth of the matter is that 99% of radio stations use separate audio processors for their webstream audio, and OTA (over the air) audio. The OTA processor is usually cranked full tilt to compensate for road noise, and achieving ratings; so that audio will be highly processed, and considered by most to be consistently loud (and not very close to the original source). Since most radio stations don't want to spend $10,000 on a webstream audio processor (like they do for their OTA audio processor), because radio stations do not make any money (95% of the time) off of their stream audio, you'll find that most radio station stream's audio is closer to the source, and not as highly processed as the OTA audio. Now, which do you prefer? This gets down to the individual taste of the listener. Many are not looking for audio quality (I will guarantee you that) - they just want to *hear* their radio station. The weak link in radio station webstreams is the amount of bandwidth they are willing to pay for. If you have a high quality system, try listening to high bit rate webstream audio from: BBC Radio 3 (which uses no audio processing), WCPE, KCSM, WMSE, and even WECK (these are just a few examples). When I was working for commercial radio stations, I always processed my/our radio station's webstream audio channels more lightly and uniquely, as compared to our OTA audio, so that if listeners were looking for higher audio quality, they had an alternative choice. Radio station webstream audio, and OTA audio, will rarely ever sound exactly the same.   

@dpop  thank you for your insights, and I think I can trust your Teac suggestion which I appreciate.  I can't wait to try it out when I get back to Pasadena.

@dpop I understood the issue you brought up previously since I have always been a fan of FM radio and had been very disappointed in the last 2 decades with the state of radio.

When I moved down to Southern Cal and discovered KCRW my faith in radio and new music was restored. I bought a FM HD radio to hear what that stream sounded like on the Sony XDR tuner I mentioned previously (it is both HD and FM). The over the air HD stream of the broadcast was awful and the over the air FM great.

So maybe my listening experience is reflective of the KCRW HD stream quality that could be also what is sent via the internet.

In the past when streaming was first starting up I jumped all over internet radio but I thought it sounded awful. Today, I am all in again on radio, with 4 tuners, because I have 2 stations that sound great on the tuners.

Since I had not listened to the KCRW stream for ages. I added the stream to my ROON client just now and played it from my Musetec 005 DAC. I A/B with my tuner. The DAC is connected by XLR to my preamp and the tuner is by RCA, so the advantage is to the DAC (the way I hear RCA vs XLR).

The stream sounds a little dead and flat to me. The top end is MIA on the stream compared to the on air FM. You maybe correct about the sound volume boost on the on air FM, since my RCA source (tuner) is louder than the streamed to DAC XLR source. However, the sound coming out of the speakers when adjusted for volume favors the on air FM to my ears.

Anyways, this is just one station and maybe others are different, but this station is the only one that matters to me. I have 4 tuners to give me great music from this station. So the story ends well for me.