Hey Dougs!
Can you name some of the older vintage tubed Tuners or good Vintage SS .
Cheers
if you are on a budget, you cannot beat a properly operating tubed sherwood s3000ll or newer for sonics. most series ll and lll's are mono; get an outboard mpx decoder. some have them built-in. later iv's and v's in the 3000 series have the mpx built-in. these tunas offer sonics about as good as you will find at any price, tubed, or s/s, imo, and excellent reception, as far as tubed tunas are concerned. they won't be nearly as good reception-wise as the better s/s iterations, tho. other excellent sounding tubed tunas that are a relative bargain include the dyna fm3, fisher fm90x & fm90r, stromberg carlson sr445, paco st45, leak troughline ll and lll, eico hft90. these are all mono (except for the dyna), and need a mpx adapter to receive stereo. wintage tube mpx adapters are good, but pricey. all these tunas except the s-c and dyna offer decent (for tubes) reception, imo. modern s/s mpx decoders are hard to find, but offer better performance than the wintage tubed mpx decoders, imo. bob fitzgerald, over at the fmtunerinfo site and yahoo forum has mpx kits that are excellent; he will make you one if you don't wanna diy, and have the patience to wait for it. mac tubed tunas are also good, but overpriced, imo - the sherwoods, for example, are better sounding, as are the s-c tunas. same w/the scott tubed tunas - nice, but a bit spendy; the sherwoods are nicer. the newer (relatively) fisher tubed tunas are also supposed to be excellent, but i don't have 1st hand experience...
for an excellent s/s tuna that won't break the bank, the mitsubishi da-f20, properly refurb'd and modded, is an excellent choice. you can usually get one for $200-$300. the only thing i don't like about it is it does not have a hi-blend circuit, which allows stereo reception that has soundstaging slightly reduced, to reduce noise. it's either stereo or mono w/this guy. my fave tuna at reasonable price is the hk citation 18, when modded/refurb'd. these are quite rare, tho - hard to find. this tuna will stand up well the the wery best, imo, including the spendy sansui tu-x1, for example, even after the tu-x1 has been refurb'd and modded. another rare (on this side of the pond) tuna that plays w/the big boys is a modded sony st-a6b. other killer tunas that are on the pricey side include sansui tu9900, philips ah673/6731, sansui tu919, revox b261 & b769, accuphase t100, t101, t109, t109v, rotel rht10, pioneer f26 & f28. tunas that are fantastic, yust the tiniest bit behind the uber-tunas, and wery affordable include sansui tu517/717/719, creek cas3140, denon tu850, nikko gamma 1, hitachi ft8000, marantz st-17, sumo aurora and sumo charlie, rotel rt2100, pioneer f91, philips 185/1851, technics st-9030, sony st-s730es, nakamichi 430, yamaha t1, kenwood l-07tll, heathkit aj1600, jvc fx1100bk. these can had for $50-$300. i am also partial to my onix bwd-1 w/soap-2 power supply, but it's usually as expensive as the better tunas, and performance is more in line w/the ones yust listed. i like mine cuz of its simple ergo's, and it's the first really excellent tuna i ever bought. another excellent tuna is the aiwa 9700, a fantastic tuna; i suspect it's another one that, like the hk 18, will be about as good as it gets, w/o breaking the bank; but this, too, is wery rare on this side of the pond. (they are more common in europe.) i am not familiar w/the best kenwoods (kt600, kt917, l-02t), but they are supposed to be fantastic. the typical better kenwoods (like the kt8300), are over-rated, imo, unless modded - then they are excellent. the kenwood kt5020 is a cheap-looking digital black box that has gotten rave rewiews, but i have never tried it. the accuphase t1000, a new tuna w/digital out, wery pricey, is supposed to be a step above the wery best, including the sansui tu-x1, kenwood l-02t, etc... if you go to the yahoo fm tuner forum and its sister tuna site - fmtunerinfo.com - you will find others that folks think are excellent - i have tried a lot, but i can't try
everything!.
these others include yamahas, onkyos, pioneers, to mention a few...
doug s.,
so many tunas, so little time.
