Where are you? Do you know what your FM is doing?

The college radio station near my home kicks out a lot of 'alternative' music and I listen all the time for the constant refreshing and new songs they play. The sound quality is quite a bit better than the commercial stations and with my little Rotel tuner sounds amazingly good. I would not be without it, it is my first choice when listening to music and I plan on getting a better tuner someday. When I borrowed my riends Fanfare tuner the sound quality got much better so they are putting out a good signal.

Upstate New York Albany area, the only thing I listen to is a public radio station that plays classical- worth investing in a tuner?? that's a tough call, I listen all day at work with a grin but prefer higher fidelity during the evenings.

Seattle: If I were being really generous, I'd say there is one jazz station (KPLU) and one classical station (KING-FM) in the greater Seattle area with decent to good FM reception. Both stations, however, program middle-of-the-road material.

There are a few FM stations that do somewhat more adventurous programming (the college radio stations mostly), but they are all low-power, fairly low fidelity broadcasters. The remainder of the stations are crap.

I could not, in good conscience, recommend to anyone in Seattle that they invest in a high-quality FM tuner.

Boston is incredibly blessed with a great, crowded non-commercial dial end. My faves are WGBH (especially for its live feeds!), WBUR (although it's become too talky), WUMB (U Mass Boston, for its fine folk programming), and of course WHRB (Harvard, for their days-long all-classical orgies!). My wife loves WERS (Emerson College) for its all-a capella and Broadway shows programming on the weekends.
An old NAD Monitor Series receiver has their greatest-tuner-ever in it (better than the new one in their HT receiver), but the non-compressed programming is considerably more transparent with my new Magnum Dynalab MD100.
I DO feel sorry for those who have little access to great radio. It's allowed me to have to read less, though, which is a dear compromise....

Sdcampbell - are you on a hill or in a valley? I used to live in Port Townsend, and there was quite a good array of radio stations available there by the water, including CBC (Canadian) and Bellingham. Any chance of receiving these in Seattle?