FM/AM versus Analog versus Digital

All of the above answers are very accurate. I have a very old Fisher AM/FM tuner that has been recently refurbished and I do enjoy listening to it. While I really do like the sound coming from it, I do know the limitations. Still, it is fun to listen to.

There are other sources of music that I do enjoy, especially when it is commercial-free. I often set my Dishnet Satallite on the CDs and the variety of music is quite pleasing, especially The Blues. Also, sometimes PBS will broadcast something worth listening to and I pull this in using my High Definition Receiver and I have an excellant DAC and the sound is really good.

I went to my brother's house recently and listened to his old Pioneer tube tuner from the 70s and I thought it sounded really good and last night, during my drive home, I listened to some fine jazz on one of the stations and I thought that it might be great to have a tuner to hear music that I might not otherwise buy or hear.

Also, thinking that radio stations might use vinyl, I wondered what the quality might be. I was thinking that it had to be above digital considering that there was no digital to analog coversion, but I never thought of bandwidth and all of the other things that you good folks have mentioned.

Still, I think I am going to find a tuner to use as an alternative to digital or vinyl.

BTW, Brianmgrarcom, I don't think I ever wrote that I had little thought for digital. It is widely thought that digital is inferior to analog, but you must differ. You seem to have been offended. Did you invent it?

Interesting reading on FM preprocessing:

http://www.euphonicmasters.com/orban_article.html

Matchstik, I wasn't offended, why the attack? Both analog and digital have their trade offs.

A few years ago I too decided to get a tuner once again, for me it was a great purchase; I use my system far more and I enjoy using a tuner. As stated above, if you listen to a good uncompressed signal on a good tuner, one can be quite amazed at how good FM can sound; either way, I enjoy having a tuner.

Matchstik, Good decision, getting a tuner that is. You didn't ask for recommendations but since you noted the quality of sound from that Pioneer Tube unit its fair to point out that not all tuners are equal, not even close, and the best spec's do not always win the race. Many tuners have great spec's but the designers have ignored the out put stages and the sound can be thin and dry. Many of the best tuners are vintage analog ones which can be fairly inexpensive. Enjoy.......