Tuner recommendations

John is offering good advice. Analog tuners are the way to go.
For under $200, you can get nice Sansui or Luxman tuners that will crush most $800-900 new digital tuners in sound quality. Believe it or not, but Ebay is the place to get the best deals. So many tuners, not much demand, especially for 70s analog, the best decade by far.
Follow Ltkije's link http://www.fmtunerinfo.com. It's the best info out there. I spent months looking and ended up w/a $60 Luxman that outperforms my old digital Tandberg at 1/10 the price! Cheers, Spencer

I have heard the Fanfare, Yamaha T2, a modified Rotel 940 and a Kenwood 917 tuner at home in my system and the Kenwood was by far the best of the bunch. I was skepital about a vintage tuner (the Kenwood was made around 1980) but it had stellar sound which is really nuanced and beautiful tone and is my recommendation.

Hello Nrchy,

I spent many years without a tuner and built an all McIntosh Magnepan system for records. Well I got the bug for FM again, both for N.P.R. news & talk as well as music. I shopped tuners on A-Gon and eBay for a few weeks. I bought a Pioneer Elite in perfect condition for $55.00. What a steal. Then I put up "THE BEST POSSIBLE EXTERNAL ANTENNA" I could find. I get perfect FM, and I am very happy.

You can buy the greatest tuner made, but without a quality antenna, you will be cheating yourself on sound quality. I bought the least expensive fanfare and put it on my patio cover. Get a good used, high quality tuner at a bargain price, and put the rest of your money into a great antenna and that should do the trick for relatively few bucks.

Hope this helps

You really don't need to spend a whole lot on a tuner. I do suggest trying for a classic tube unit. I do however like the tuners that show digitally what station I am listening to.

I have a very old vintage Fisher tuner that had been restored and it works great.

I am quite surprised by some of the responses. At any rate, I will give my vote for buying a good vintage tuner. Like you Nrchy, I hadn't used a tuner in my system in years, then in 2000 I decided to purchase one again, one of the best moves I have made in audio, I use my system far more than I had in the past.

As has been suggested above, spend some time on the FM Tuner Web site, but don't get to caught up in the 'reviews'.

I have music channels on my Dish, the quality is no where near that of my tuner. You have already proved to yourself that you enjoy using a tuner in your system so I'd continue the pursuit.

As for suggestions, I second the Sansui TU-717, it is a very good tuner and plentiful. I am very pleased with my Kenwood KT-917, but they are hard to find and more expensive.