$500-600 Used Tuner

THIS ONE IS NOT EVEN A QUESTION ABOUT WHICH IS BEST around that price range used!!! The Creek T43 tuner at $700 new is still the best tuner you can get for around $400 used! I would put that tuner up against anything mentioned above for the money! If you find one floating around, you won't loose trying it! It's superb..

Hey Tunerinfo, you're right and I was wrong. My mistake. You people have put together a wonderful site and deserve a great deal of credit.

Another kept secret in bargain tuners is the Sansui T-80 tuner, early 80's vintage. It has very simple circuitry and can be found for about $30.00 on Ebay. Then send it to Ed at www.antennaperformance.com for a $100.00 mod, which consists of a thorough cleaning,replacement of key capacitors with Blackgates and installation of their own APS amplified filter boards, as well as an exact computerized alignment. After mod,this tuner will compete sonically with most of the mega-buck boutique tuners from any era.They also can modify the Sansui TU-717, which looks nicer with more features but will cost you a little more.My modified Sansui T-80 has given me immense listening pleasure when I tune in to our local,uncompressed college station. Have fun. Also, I remember reading in another thread where the venerable Don Scott recommended the Sansui T-80 as one "sweet" tuner.

Hey, thanks a lot to you all for the input. I was gone for a day and came back to the surprise of so much response. My "current" tuner is a Sony ST-3950SD, a decent tuner in its day which I bought new in about '79 and it really does a fairly good job now. It has never had service and the alignment is way off. I figured it would be better to buy something better rather than sink a couple hundred into refurbishing the Sony. Sounds like some of these older tuners can give a run to newer models with a little updating, but I'm thinking this Sony may not fit into that category. Opinions?

4yanxs,there are some other very informative threads you can browse through re:tuners here in Audiogon discussions. I don't think the Sony tuners are well regarded in the industry.Generally, analogue tuners,particularly those made in the "golden age"(late70's-early 80's) are the most sought after by audiophiles and DXer's.Go to website: Http://www.geocities.com/tunerinfo/ for one of the best and most knowledgeable websites for tuners.These guys live for tuners and know their stuff well.You can browse their tuner review section,click in Sony to see what they think.There are also some interesting threads on tuners in www.audioasylum.com website. Good luck.