Your thoughts/experience with very good, cheap tuners?

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I recommend the Mitsubishi DA-F10. I am now onto my second one (used $200). Had this model in use since the late ’70s. I also have several other tuners in my collection, including a McIntosh MR77 and a Scott tube tuner.

Nikko Gamma 1 is an excellent inexpensive tuner. I owned one years ago and you can get it real cheap!

From FM tuner info!

Nikko Gamma I (1977, $400, black w/matching amp, silver, service manual, schematic, Audio review) search eBay
The Gamma I is a 5-gang, FM-only, rack-mount style analog tuner that was sold in black and silver. It uses one LC filter and one "SAW" (surface acoustic wave) filter in the wide IF bandwidth mode, and 4 standard 3-pin ceramic filters in narrow mode, and has what some feel is a particularly effective high-blend circuit. Our panelist Bob says, "The Gamma I has been praised by two people I trust. It uses the HA11223W MPX chip, same as the Gamma V. Looks tough to mod, with one board above the other, but not impossible. Looks to be discrete outputs also." Our contributor Hank adds that the Gamma I has a "fundamentally sound design. I have not yet had mine modified but it has been restored (all marginal or suspicious parts replaced) and aligned. It is a very nice tuner and I suspect that it has significant potential for improvement."

Our panelist JohnC did indeed improve his Gamma I, twice no less! Here’s John’s initial report: "These units sound pretty good as is, but they do respond well to simple mods. I did these without benefit of a schematic. The power supply is easy to get to just by removing the covers, so that got recapped. Bob said ’looks to be discrete outputs also,’ which I read to mean discrete components, but there are definitely op-amps in there. To be specific, TA7136P ICs are used, the same as what are in the Sansui TU-9900. I did manage to identify the input and output caps to the op-amps and changed those out, but without a schematic I’ve stopped there for now. The IF strip is located on its own board located above the main board and prevents full access without removing it, not a simple task bet definitely doable. What was interesting was that this unit did not have the SAW filter installed in Wide mode. The LC was there but the SAW was replaced with a 3-legged ceramic Murata, tan body, yellow dot, marked E10.7A with the Murata logo and a stylized X on the next line. This appears to be a factory change because I can see no indications that the SAW was ever installed. Anybody else ever see this? Bottom line is that after a little tweaking these units sound real nice, reasonably selective and sensitive, at least in my market."

I bought my first DA-F10 in the late 70's after reading the comprehensive test report in Audio magazine. Paid $270 for it at my local hi-fi shop. Worked flawlessly for 20+ years!

I had a Hitachi FT-920 tuner for many years. It sounded great, looked nice and never had a problem with it.