Are Tuners - Audiophile quality

Hi, there, DCAudio. You ask a good question. There are certainly some audiophile-grade tuners that are still available, such as the Sequerra and Tandberg. However, the real problem in most places in the U.S. isn't the tuner, it's the broadcast signal. There are very few cities in the US where FM stations still send a clean, uncompressed signal, and even when they do, multipath distortion can be a huge problem (I'm told that NYC is one of the worst for multipath due to the skyscrapers). Maybe you live in an area that has one or more excellent FM stations, but my bet is that most compress their broadcast signals, which essentially negates the reason for having a top-quality tuner. Before you invest a lot of money in a classic tuner (the consensus is that the analog tuners, as a class, were better than the digital tuners), find out more about your local "source material". If you find that you have access to some high-quality broadcast signals, then the first thing you should do is a get a good external antenna and see how it works with your current tuner. If all goes well, then explore getting a better tuner.

Dcaudio: In your response, you commented that you have been using your external TV antenna to feed a signal to your FM tuner. Since you don't state the brand/type of TV antenna, I'll simply comment that it may not be optimal for FM reception. If you are serious about wanting top-quality FM sound, and are willing to experiment a bit, you should try getting a decent FM antenna that is fairly directional. Better yet, get a motorized rotor so you can aim the antenna from inside the house.

I was raised in the Washington, DC, area (Kensington, MD), but have not lived there for many years. I do, however, visit friends every 2-3 years. The DC area does not, for the most part, present severe multipath problems, because there are relatively few tall buildings, and the surrounding geography is fairly flat. The last time I visited Washington DC, I listened to a few FM stations on the car radio, and remember thinking that there didn't seem to be any really good stations like I remembered from earlier years. Your problem with FM broadcast quality may simply be a lack of good stations, in which case not even the best tuner on the market will help much.