Old tuners are beautiful, but why bother with the fidelity of a crappy transmission and crappy signal when nearly all radio stations are on the internet?
Tuners are the new 8-Track.
Tuners are the new 8-Track.
Kenwood KT-990D
I'm not really convinced of "the crappy transmission" (Very) good fm tuners like Tandberg 3011A, Kenwood L-02T, Kenwood kt 990d ... have a more natural lifelike sound than most internet radio stations ever can broadcast. If transmission is compressed (under 320 kbps)you can immediately hear the quality loss on a (very) good system - on classical music you can hear the difference IMMEDIATELY. In my humble opinion internet radio is very good for news listening and pop music, but TERRIBLE for classical music. I ONLY listen to satellite radio channels through a high grade HD sat receiver IF they broadcast on 320 kbps. Otherwise I prefer an analogue tuner for listening classical music. People who don't have a very good hi-end homesystem really can't judge over the quality of analogue FM broadcasts. Antenna reception with a Yagi antenna or Magnum dynalab antenna is also much better than through cable. Maybe the promotors of internet radio suffer from partial deafness (?) The CD standard is 1411,2 kbps ! Also a good CD player (for eg marantz 94 mark II) sounds a lot better and dynamical than a standard crappy cd player |
I don’t think ota radio is dead yet. I find myself listening to local stations ota because I can’t stand the low bit rate rate versions. Yeah, the perceived variety of computer based audio is compelling but the simplicity of just spinning a knob and choosing a station is such a nice break from click click click select click click click select... |
I bought a lowly Fisher FM2121 a while ago thinking in no way it will create any splashes in my audio sphere. Hooked it up, and... I was mesmerized. Particularly good with classical, but never shy of jazz either. With theater plays I was able to hear spatial clues I thought they would never surface. I liked this little guy so much I took it to my engineer for a thorough check up and upgrade. Tried in the mean time my Kondo AN3 CD player-nice, but it doesn't quite breathe life into instruments like the little Fisher. During occasional solo passages, instruments have enormous presence- one might say they live in the room. Quite shocking. |
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I've still got what’s supposed to be a mint rare Kenwood KT-3300D PPL FM only, it sounds stunning, got everything but the kitchen sink on it, but I hardly use it. https://www.hifidatabase.com/static/gallery/6/5786-ken_KT-3300D.jpg Cheers George |