[mzbrahce]

Frank--
If you are willing to upgrade a Phillips 920 AM/FM tuner, what would it cost?
Thanks------------Mark

[avahifi]

I don't work on those tuners any more.  They are so old that they may be on their last legs and we can't repair all the Philips electronics in them when they fail, no parts any more.

Sorry,

Frank

[mzbrahce]

Okay.  Thanks for the quick response.

[dB Cooper]

It is too bad there is not a viable platform for AVA to do a tuna on. I had their FM5-based Super Tuner Two way back when and I will tell you, that is the best FM I have ever heard to this day. R&D and tooling to produce a tuna from the ground up must be crazy expensive, especially in light of the decline of FM radio as a high-quality music source. I live in a major market and there is one jazz/public station which is about 60% talk/40% music, and one very blasé classical station. The rest is all commercial crapola stations that have processed their signals all to hell. Not a good environment for anyone wanting to market a tuna. I have been to the last three Capital audio fest shows and don't recall seeing a single tuna anywhere, so I guess FM is dead as far as high-end audio is concerned. Considering that the parameters were set over 50 years ago based on the technology of the time, maybe that isn't too surprising.

[Phil A]

I live in a major market and there is one jazz/public station which is about 60% talk/40% music, and one very blasé classical station. The rest is all commercial crapola stations that have processed their signals all to hell. Not a good environment for anyone wanting to market a tuna. I have been to the last three Capital audio fest shows and don't recall seeing a single tuna anywhere, so I guess FM is dead as far as high-end audio is concerned. Considering that the parameters were set over 50 years ago based on the technology of the time, maybe that isn't too surprising.

Can't agree with that more.  I had a nice modded Sansui Tuner (and had the unmodded version).  I think I listened a total of around 20 hours (10 in unmodded form and the rest after it was modded) before I traded it for a pair of MoFi speakers.  It's a shame.  I found the few times I'd listen to radio would be 320kps internet ones like Linn (they have 3 of them, one jazz and one classical).  I can't remember the last time I walked into an audio store and they had a tuner on the floor to hear.

[rcag_ils]

There's only one station I listen to at the low end of the FM band, 88.5 if I can receive it, the rest is junk. Then I listen to AM1130, and AM1280, don't need a high end tuner for that. then I turn on my Iphone and listen to "conservative talks" and it sounds fine.

[mzbrahce]

+2 dB Cooper.  I was hoping the 920 would still be a viable platform, but it's too old.  All of my electronics are AVA except for the tuner and I was looking to fix that.  I guess I'll just see how long my all original FM-5 lasts.  I was in high school in Ann Arbor during the peak of underground FM radio, within easy range of all of Detroit stations, and I guess it's hard to break the habit.  I've got one good station left, WEMU, an NPR station which hasn't succumbed to talk radio, but plays a good mix of real jazz and blues, at least from 9-4!

[Wayner]

I have 12 FM tuners here. 3 Sony ST-SA50ES, a Sony FDR-F1HD, a Marantz 115B, Marantz ST-17(B), Marantz ST-7001, Onkyo T-4555, Parasound PD-Q1600, Yamaha T-07, Yamaha TX-330 and a Denon TU-1500RD.

Of all of them, the top three are the Sony FDR-F1HD, the Sony ST-SA50ES and the Marantz ST-17(B). The cheapest to be had on.....say eBay is the Sony-STSA50ES. Its a very quiet tuner with great capture ratio. low noise and low distortion. The most I paid for the ST-SA50ES was $600 (new), the least was around $50.

Occasionally, you may find the Philips 920, but they are rare. Perhaps many are dead now. The ones that I have seen are really beat up.

Do not buy the Sony ST-550ES. They seem to have problems, but then they are starting to hit 25+ years old (or more).

The Marantz ST-17(B) is from the Seventeen series and it is the cream of the crop here, anyway. It's built like a brick S.H., the easiest tuner to move from preset to preset and is very musical, but, also very hard to find and they will cost you.

My 2 cents.

'ner

[Phil A]

I had a modded Sansui TU-717.  Was a nice unit but there was just nothing good to listen to.

[macrojack]

I guess it depends heavily on where you live but college stations and public radio can be very good. Slide down to the left end of the dial and have a listen. No personality DJ people. No clambering gimmicky ads. No pre-recorded corporately censored broadcasting. If you can't find anything over the air, try listening to KVNF in Paonia, Colorado or KZMU in Moab, Utah on line. Both can be a pretty rewarding taste of the good old days when FM ruled our world.
 And if you want a good usable tuner or one Frank can restore or modify for you, run a wanted ad here on AC. I'm sure there are a lot of members who have a tuner sitting. I have a Kenwood KT 917 taking up space in my office and an Amber Seven lying around unused. Surely there are many others like me. You'll probably have 50 to choose from and some might cost you no more than shipping.

[arthurs]

I just picked up a Sansui TU-717 in great shape, any recommendations for in attic antennas?

[JimJ]

If you're relatively close to everything, a simple half-wave dipole (234/frequency in MHz = length of each side in feet) will be fine.

Yagis are nice, but pointing one may be a little tricky inside an attic.


Reading material: http://siber-sonic.com/FM_reception/reception.html

[Phil A]

Much depends on where you are located in relation to the broadcast towers and what, if anything, is in the way.  Here's a list -

http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/locate?select=city&city=Fort%20Worth&state=TX

[Phil A]

When I used my TU-717, I was probably about 20 miles away, give or take, from the many of the stations and I had a big (10 ft) UHF/VHF/FM antenna in the attic (with an antenna preamp mainly for TV) and just a TV/FM band separator for the tuner.  Got lots of stations, just not tons worthwhile so I traded it.

[JimJ]

I live fairly close to a bunch of colleges, so the lower part of the band has about 3-4 stations worth listening to; I've just never bothered that much with off-air FM because their online streaming services are so good :-p

[Wayner]

I guess it depends heavily on where you live but college stations and public radio can be very good. Slide down to the left end of the dial and have a listen. No personality DJ people. No clambering gimmicky ads. No pre-recorded corporately censored broadcasting. If you can't find anything over the air, try listening to KVNF in Paonia, Colorado or KZMU in Moab, Utah on line. Both can be a pretty rewarding taste of the good old days when FM ruled our world.
 And if you want a good usable tuner or one Frank can restore or modify for you, run a wanted ad here on AC. I'm sure there are a lot of members who have a tuner sitting. I have a Kenwood KT 917 taking up space in my office and an Amber Seven lying around unused. Surely there are many others like me. You'll probably have 50 to choose from and some might cost you no more than shipping.

I don't think Frank has any equipment left to work on tuners.

Wayner

[heiba]

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[heiba]

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[Funnehaha]

I don't think Frank has any equipment left to work on tuners.

Wayner


>>>> How about a microphone preamp? ...and an ADC? Then Frank would have products that record real sound [after the mic] to reproducing real sound [just before the loudspeaker].