Why does the Marantz 10B Tuner sound so amazing ???


I am usually listen to rock , but I find my self mezmerized when I hear classical music on the 10B, the instruments sound so real and beautiful. I own many high end tuners but none have the musicality of the 10B . It simply Plays music like a fine musical instrument. What did they do in the design , parts etc. to make this piece sound so great ?
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My father was one of Sol's early customers on Long Island. He bought everything from him, constituting my introduction to hi-fi.
Besides the pre and power amps, he decomissioned his venerable Fischer tuner, which got me really mad because we always listened in the dark except for a winter fireplace. The light of the tubes threw varied eliptical patterns on the walls and ceiling because of the protective cover. The Fischer had a beautiful bird holding a note in its beak, on the glass front plate, lit by the tuning bulb. I loved it and the Marantz was boring to look at.
But when the Masterwork Hour came on, announced by a particularly magisterial 'Sleepers Awake' and stentorian announcer, it was a new world. And WQXR was even better. He kept the old one, plugged into nothing, for mr to look at.
Like Sol, this sonorous tuner was the financial ruin of my father. My mother was sick and tired of his audio addiction, which she cruelly noted, had taken hold of me at a tender age. The man with the golden arm had nothing over golden ears.
I have an interesting frying pan that constitutes his death mask. I use it for Jello.
Like Sol, he sold out to (more exactly, traded-in for)Superscope. Out mit der tuben, in mit der solidaten state.
Gone were the evenings with the radio.
Shortly after, we were burgeled. Gone his top of the line monster receiver. Ha ha ha, they left behind the old Browning and Fischer.
Last year, he came to visit me. I have the McIntosh MR as well now, quite happily. Listening to my tubes he said, boy what a stupid trade-in I made back then.
I cannot really compare the Mc and the Sol, but I hope I can someday.
The guy that calibrates all of my test equipment recently purchased a 10B that was in very good shape. After going through and aligning it, he was utterly amazed at the sound quality. He directly compared it to a few well respected tuners head to head. When telling me of the results, he kept laughing about how much better sounding the Marantz was than anything he threw at it. Amongst the big name tuners, the oft mentioned MR 78 was one of victims that he made specific mention of. He also mentioned another Mac tuner that it beat, which he said is a better tuner than the MR 78. Seeing as how i've already got almost 20 tuners as it is, i'm not in the market for any more*. Sean
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* Well, maybe just one more. I've always liked the Sherwood Draco Micro-CPU 100, but never owned one. Designed by Larry Shotz, i would have to imagine that it at least sounds decent and had good sensitivity.
Yes it is that good unless you believe the tuner experts at a certain web site then the 10B is only so so. Ha!

Ron-C
There was a really good article on the 10B several years ago in Vacuum Tube Valley. Or was it Sound practices? Higly recommended reading. Dig it up.

Aside from the exceptional tuning front-end and all-tube circuits, I think the big difference may have been the six IF stages. Yeah, six. Far more than anything else you can buy. And I believe the filters might have been phase-linear, resulting is the cleanest and most selective IF bandpass possible. Another plus was that I think they used a discriminator circuit instead of the usual FM demodulator.

So it probably isn't the front-end or the audio back-end that makes the sound so clean. I'd wager the sonics are due to the linearity and bandwidth of the IF strip and demodulator circuits.

jh
YES! Great tuner!! Magic !! I picked mine up directly in Long Island City when it was new!! I think they moved to California soon after that.