Are Tuners - Audiophile quality

Most of the "junk" that you are hearing is the quality of the signal being broadcast. Believe me, i have looked at more than a few tuners internals ( Magnum, Musical Fidelity, Quad, Citation, NAD, Pioneer, etc... ) and none of them are "real impressive" in terms of engineering or quality of parts. After really starting to "dig" into a lot of gear more frequently, i am becoming more and more disappointed with the overall design, build and parts quality of a LOT of "respected" audio gear. If the EE's that are designing audio gear were working in the RF field, we would still be using tin cans and string.

As such, it is possible to find a tuner that sounds good, so long as the local broadcasts are up to snuff and you've got a decent antenna system. In my opinion, i would not spend a LOT of cash. Quite honestly, we've only have one station here in Chicago that produces a top notch signal. To be totally truthfull though, i was BLOWN AWAY by how good FM can sound after hearing this station on a decent tuner though. With that in mind, the rest of them could be handled by a tuner of much lower quality without ever noticing much of a difference.

One suggestion though. MOST of the old "super tuners" from the 1970's / early 80's tend to sound like a "transistor radio" (literally). Supposedly, some of the old Yamaha's sound pretty solid but can't speak from experience. I'm sure that some of the Mac's might be worth checking into ( PROBABLY better build quality too ) but their price may not be worth the investment if your local FM selection & broadcasts resemble a cesspool. Sean
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Once the tuner receives a strong enough signal to go into what is called "full quieting", it is pretty much up to the tuner from there. This is taking into account that it is receiving a direct signal and not something loaded with multipath reflections. As such, almost ANY outdoor antenna can pull in a reasonable signal so long as you are not a million miles from the transmitter.

To prove the point, how many times have you been able to listen to a station in your car with a factory installed stereo and then gone into the house and NOT been able to get the station in near as good using a wire dipole, amplified indoor antenna, rabbit ears, etc... ??? Do you think that the difference was that the "cheezy" car stereo had a better tuner section in it than your "hi-fi" grade tuner or was it the fact that the ( much shorter ) car antenna was outside ????

While i am a BIG fan of proper antenna systems, they become FAR more important at distance OR when you are nearfield with a lot of tall buildings or structures that will deflect the signal. You can actually run into problems by having TOO much antenna when the receiver is located relatively close to the transmitter. This is called "front end overload" and can be quite a problem in big cities.

As to Marv / Fanfare's comments, Quad used to do very similar tests / demo's when they came out with their FM-4. They even went so far as to bring a small transmitter being fed via vinyl to their "big" dealers and demo this for them and the interested customers. Switching between the vinyl being fed directly into the audio system and then listening to the same record via the signal being transmitted and then received by the FM-4 resulted in no discernable difference ( other than the delay ) under those conditions. Sean
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Marv, since when is 20 MHz ( 88 MHz to 108 MHZ ) considered "narrowband" ??? There is NO antenna made that will offer a linear gain curve for that wide of a bandwidth. One could build a design with a low Q ( maximum bandwidth but with lower overall gain ) and tune it for the middle of the band or "peak it" for maximum gain at one end of the band or the other.

As to your comments about "dedicated" FM antennas increasing the selectivity and rejecting out of band signals to a greater extent than "broadband" TV antennas, that IS a falsehood. An antenna that was specifically resonated for FM would also be HIGHLY susceptible to amplifying the 4th harmonic that was originally generated within the CB band. Since hundreds if not thousands of watts are in use on that band with little to no filtering in the amplifiers, high level 4th order harmonics ARE a reality. As such, a higher gain antenna at that frequency could actually INCREASE out of band interference and its susceptability to such things. That is, UNLESS the antenna was highly directional and pointed right at the FM transmitter and the offending CB'er was not in the pathway.

This is not to mention that many earlier cordless phones, baby monitors, etc... are transmitting around 49 MHz. As such, their second harmonic is occuring pretty much smack dab within the FM range.

With those things in mind, optimum performance for anyone that is located at distance from the majority of transmitters would be realized with a large directional yagi array on a rotor mounted as high as possible. Since the majority of citizens don't want to deal with something like that, simply installing SOME type of antenna on one's roof or in the attic would do wonders compared to an indoor wire dipole or rabbit ears. As to the "specialized" FM designs like the Fanfare and Magnum antennas, they are both base loaded designs. Anyone that works with RF knows that base loading is pretty low in efficiency. The main benefit of this design is that it offers less wind load and is not quite as ugly as a top or center load. Nonetheless, this design should offer pretty reasonable performance as long as they are vertically oriented and mounted out in the open. The use of a tuned counterpoise underneath them would also benefit them quite a bit.

Simply using the "homebrew" center fed dipole mounted vertically that i detailed how to build in a previous post might also solve a LOT of reception problems for less than $5. Sean
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Sugarbrie, both of your examples are situations that are either caused by the transmitters not meeting FCC compliance or what is called "front end overload" due to close proximity.

If your not REAL close to the transmitters, make a few phone calls to the offending stations and ask for the station engineer. Once they get on the phone, explain to them your situation and ask them about the "deviation" of the signal. Let them know that you will be filing a formal complaint with the FCC and that they need to pay closer attention to the legalities and technical issues involved with operating a licensed transmitter. Then hang up. Believe me, you will scare the shit out of them. They will run back to the control center and dial things down in a heartbeat. If they don't, that formal complaint to the FCC just MIGHT be necessary. Sean
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