How is it ? that a tuner smokes the table ???

There are a couple over the air classical stations out of NYC that sound very good broadcast over the internet for sure on a decent properly equipped stereo system. One is WNYC I think off the top of my head.

96.3, 90.7, 93.9 and 88.3 all are pretty good sound and the different shows really teach you about new music. One of my favorites is the Moonshine show on Sunday...not sure which station though.
They played from Ramblin' Boy by Charlie Haden with family and friends. He is famous as a jazz bassist. Bought the cd and the vinyl. Quality of the vinyl is fantastic!!
Love hearing different music.

Thank you, Khaki8!

Dear Jimpcn: +++++ " its a shocking revelation to me that the tuner is the highest quality source in two channel. " +++++

IMHO and to be a little " wilingness " about it is not the highest quality source only different.

Now, if your +10K analog rig and the ones from your friends are " surpassed " by the tunner then IMHO you and your friends are in serious trouble about not only your analog rig but your whole audio system, at least with analog.

There are other things that maybe could happen for that: that yours music/sound priorities are a little " odd ", that all of you do not have a lot of live music experiences, that the whole set-up is wrong somewhere, that you and your friends are not " golden ears ", that you and your friends like it more the tunner " colorations/distortions ", that, that, that, etc, etc.

I'm not saying that all these can/could happen what I'm saying is that something is wrong or at least out of " standards ". There is nothing wrong with that but your statement is something that happen to you and friends and not with other 99.95% of the analog audio community.

Bis a Bis ( everything the same ) IMHO it is almost impossible ( for normal people ) that many/several of us can/could agree with your statement.

Now, that is a good news for you and your friends because you can/could put on sale the analog rigs and make some money and go on enjoying those very good radio stations, that you have in Toronto , from your remote: that's great.

Btw, some one posted about some specs on FM signal at radio station and told us: " WAY better than ANY phono cartridge. ".
Well, I have some cartridges that are " way better than.... ", to say " any " means an " absolute true " and IMHO nothing is totally perfect to surpass " any ", well like always only my opinion, I respect the other people opinions even if I don't agree with.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

I have always wondered about why some super-priced tuners have a market. I can understand about moderately priced tuners...

The signal goes through a lot of processing, and is sent over the air, only to be processed more by your tuner. The level of processing can be argued to be the reason why super-priced tuners are priced as they are -- accurate demodulation of the received signal. My questions remain, is the fidelity of the original source is really maintained, and is the fidelity of the original source as good as a properly set up, high quality turntable?

On the question of the original source, the the quality of the cd processors used in radio stations may far surpass our home processors. But it is still digital...

I am an analogue fan, both in photography and audio. In both realms, I have never experienced digital that can capture the nuances, including textures and subtleties of detail, and the naturalness, of analogue. I read a criticism of a digital photo where snow looked like concrete. There was nothing natural, nor accurate about the photo, and it was taken with a state-of-the-art professional digital camera costing thousands of dollars. I agreed when I saw the photo. I believe the argument of digital audio versus analog is analogous.

So, from my perspective, I actually would never think that radio could compete with a high-quality, well set up turntable. Even if the radio station source was analogue, with it's signal processing, I still would not think it could beat direct high quality turntable signal.

Also, isn't radio supposed to go digital in the near future?

These thoughts add up in my mind and make me wonder how some tuners can be so expensive and actually sell. The only thing I can think of is that it is all relative -- to some, a thousand or more dollars for a tuner is not expensive.