Towards a Tuner Hierarchy

The idea that the F-90 or F-99x is in the same league as the TX-9500 II or the TX-9800 is laughable. The Front End Sensitivity MIGHT (jut might) be in the ball park but the audio quality just isn't and won't be. The 9500 II and the 9800 is a close relative to the F-26. The F-93 was the last statement product by Pioneer to coalesce everything they'd learned into a "final statement" product. (Stereophile recommended it, a fact not often shared by anglophile or Onkyo tuner enthusiasts....) Listen for yourself because the 93 sounds more like a 26, 28 or even a 9500 or 9800 than it's ever sounded like my 91 or any of the thrift store also rans that TIC shootouts blew upskirt smoke into. My rankings are the 93, 9500 II, 9800, (no particular order) and then the rest (also in no particular order). The M-D's I've owned were disappointing, but the MD 205 (and the Carver TX-1-11 NR unit) are both useful (if defeatable) tools with any very good tuner.

HERE's THE BEST IMO......

The F-26 tuner, like the other components in the Series 20 line, received carefully design engineering to push the technological envelope on tuner design. In true audiophile fashion, it featured FM only. It was a higher performance, lower profile design compared to the F28 tuner. Pioneer employed newfeatures and circuitry having: Quartz-Locked Touch Sensor Tuning, an elaborate "Clean Pilot" system for cleaner high-frequency, and a Parallel Balanced Linear Detector( PBLD) for vastly improved signal-to-noise ratio and detection efficiency.

This tuner also featured automatic wide/narrow IF bandwidth slection. The F-26 was design with a large power supply and two 6000 microfarad power supply capacitors, a muting level control on the rear panel, adjustable stereo/mono signal switchover, adjustable muting control, and gold plated terminals.

The semiconductor count in the F-26 was mind-boggling. There were 11 Field Effect Transistors, 19 ICs, 68 transistors and 59 diodes. Its frequency response was 20 to 15kHz. Other specifications could be listed here, but suffice it to say the F-26 could easily hold its own with far more expensive and esoteric FM tuners then on the market. Examples in good condition are much sought-after by Pioneer collectors.

The F-26 had an M.S.R.P. of $1000.00.

The quartz-synthesized F-26, which was Pioneer's most expensive tuner, is very rare and seldom seen on eBay ($770 in 3/02, $785 in 6/02). Our panelist David, on his Ricochets page, calls it one of the three best tuners ever.

David's top three tuners: the TU-X1, L-02T and F-26

I am increasingly of the belief that the Sansui TU-X1, Kenwood L-02T and Pioneer Series 20 F-26 are really in a class by themselves. I hear much bigger differences between stations overall than between these tuners! However, none of these tuners sound identical and each has different merits and weaknesses. In my system, with my FM market, I rank the TU-X1 #1, the F-26 #2 and the L-02T #3 (on a sonic basis). Each can make a claim under various listening/RF market conditions as the best production tuner made. There may be others, but none that I have seen or heard yet. All three embarrass all of the more recent digital tuners that I have compared to them. There is a gap between these three and the next best tuner that I have heard and measured.

I noticed that I had to reposition my speakers to get the best out of each tuner. For example, the TU-X1 has so much stage width (separation) that placing speakers too far apart yields a hole in the middle and diffuse sound (as Jim notes in his review). This effect can also be a problem when trying to optimize a system for CD versus LP. The TU-X1 has better frequency extremes (both measurable and audible) but will not show those advantages if the speakers are bandwidth limited, placed so that they have ragged frequency response, or in a system optimized for LP instead of CD. The L-02T appears to favor smaller speakers, because many smaller designs don't have the extreme bass extension and to a lesser degree extreme treble smoothness of larger (read this as 3 - 5 way, not physical size) speakers. Placement of the speakers can be further apart with the L-02T. The bandwidth compression scheme of the L-02T's IF appears to hide or at least diminish some of the low-quality nasties so prevalent in broadcast radio these days, but also makes it prone to certain types of external interference. The F-26 is not as sensitive as either of the other two tuners, but possesses an ease and naturalness in the mid-treble (especially on an excellent classical station) that is not always present in the TU-X1 & L-02T. Overall, I would place the F-26 a little behind the TU-X1 and L-02T under most (but not all) listening situations. Note that the F-26 stages a comeback if you have a station that requires the narrow IF for decent reception due to a crowded dial, multipath, etc.

My suggestion would be to visit Jim's rankings on www.fmtunerinfo.com. A real cornicopia of tuner ratings and rankings!

Interestung idea.
A local dealer absolutely RAVES about the Audio Refinement Complete Tuner, but when I asked him if I would gain a tremendous amount over the tuner FM section of my old NAD Monitor 7400 receiver, he agreed that NAD made superb tuners for those 7100 and 7400 receivers. (My system comprises VA Parsifal Encores fed by Aleph P and 2 monos.)
The sound of local uncompressed non-commercial broadcasting...especially WGBH (Boston) live events...is VERY gratifying. Except for reduced HF resolution, I sometimes
can't believe the quality of the signal!
I suppose some tuner cognoscenti will summarily pooh-pooh my experience in favor of the classic Day Sequerras, Macs, etc., and indeed having this otherwise-pedestrian NAD hanging around with unused amp sections is clunky, but do I truly have a significant cost-effective upgrade path here? Happy Fourth to all! Ernie