Your thoughts/experience with very good, cheap tuners?

Cheap tuners? Aren`t they all now?

I have an old modded T-85 still in use. Of course, I am in the Chicagoland area, and listen to WFMT and WDCB.

I just had a Tech bench a Sony ST-730ES, and the Tech told me it is a great sounding tuner. Can`t wait to insert it into my system. I believe, I only paid $250 for it.

You may be able to find a discarded high end tuner for a cheap price.

jusam, I think the first question should be what is the quality of local FM sources?  Unfortunately the quality of FM seems to have diminished, both signal quality and content, over the past 10-20 years.  So unless you live in or near a major metropolitan area or have a couple of interesting college stations nearby, is it worth pursuing or will almost any tuner be up to the task?

If you are fortunate to be close to quality signals (on both counts) then my best advise is to review this site for recommendations which fit your budget.

http://www.fmtunerinfo.com.

second the cambridge audio.  a lively dynamic sounding tuner.  

The man wants a “relatively cheap” tuner. I don’t think that’s going to be a McIntosh or a Sequerra or even a Magnum Dynalab.

Both Onkyo and Yamaha made great tuners in the day.  Mc was also considered pretty good, but they are expensive used.  Onkyo T-9090 II or 4055 are probably pretty cheap used.  Check on AudioMart and you might find one.

Yamaha had a T-2 that was also considered pretty good.

Obviously, the Sequerra was among the best, but even today they are REALLY expensive, and they break pretty easily.  Not sure if you can get parts today for it.

Cheers!

I have the Sony XDR-FI HD that was modded by the XDR guy. It has the best reception of all my tuners. I do not use this tuner much anymore. It sounds best with a really good RCA cable. I used Audience AU24SE. I may sell this unit.

I bought a refurbished Sanusi TU9900 about 2 years ago. It is a warm sounding unit and very enjoyable. I paid $750 and will be keeping this one.

Around the same time, I bought an Accuphase T-101, like this one,

Accuphase T-101 For Sale | Audiogon

but the unit I got was modded by someone who seemed like a tuner genius. I paid $1300 for my unit which I knew that was a lot, but I wanted to hear these mods. What I got is an incredible unit. If I had owned this modded unit before the next tuner I list, I would not have bought that one.

I ungraded my Magnum Dynalab MD102 to the MD 108T for $5000. I have a great local station I listen to, so I wanted to hear it on a great tuner. It is a slightly warmer sounding and better sounding tuner than the Accuphase T-101 but not 8X better. My modded Accuphase is not warm, more of a very clear sound. The MD 108T has the worst reception of my 4 tuners. I use the MD Signal Sleuth with the MD 108T and it improves the reception.

The Sony xdr-f1hd is tough to be in stock form yet also tough to keep cool. Get one modified by the XDR guy and you have an endgame unit. If one is available to purchase. He appears to be backlogged until retirement. These units are not exactly cheap, price wise, yet given the number of hours it will be used is a high value item. 

I have a McIntosh MR85 tuner which I paid $824.00 for at Audio Classics.  I see these selling used for $1500+ now.  I also have a McIntosh MR88 top line tuner which I bought from Audio Classics for $2200.00.  I use them both daily.

Having been a Radio Broadcast Engineer, I have listened to many tuners over the years. I’ve also had the opportunity to listen to Modulation Monitors. These are basically tuners which give you a visual indication of the transmitter’s modulation, and an audio sample; but since they sample the air signal right at the transmitter output, there is no multipath involved in the signal, giving the engineer the truest visual and audio sample possible. Many times I would place numerous tuners side by side by these modulation monitors, and A - B the audio, comparing the two. Using this A - B comparison method, still to this day, the best tuner I’ve ever heard was the (still very affordable) Yamaha T-85. The Technics ST-9030 was also always one of my favorites.

If you’re not familiar with the term exciter, it is the heart and soul of an FM (and AM) transmitter; and just like audio equipment, some exciters have better audio reproduction than others. One exciter that was noted for it’s very high quality analog audio performance was the BE (Broadcast Electronics) FX-50. An exciter generates the radio frequency (that you tune your tuner or radio to), and handles the audio portion too. The rest of a radio broadcast transmitter is just a big amplifier, which amplifies the exciter output.

If you’re into tuners, and you’re not already aware of it, this website will be very helpful:

FM tuner info.com

Luxman T110 is also excellent and cheap.

Mt daily driver is a 1965, 13 tube McIntosh MR 71. 

As a backup, I have a Cambridge Audio 550T.

Great discontinued cheap tuner that can be found for probably $100 or so. Decent sound,remote and RDS display. Looks like a pricier unit too.

Currently enjoying breakfast/coffee listening to another great Classical broadcast on 91.5 KUSC-SoCal. One of the few excellent sounding FM stations remaining.

I had a Hitachi FT-920 tuner for many years. It sounded great, looked nice and never had a problem with it.

I bought my first DA-F10 in the late 70's after reading the comprehensive test report in Audio magazine. Paid $270 for it at my local hi-fi shop. Worked flawlessly for 20+ years!

Nikko Gamma 1 is an excellent inexpensive tuner. I owned one years ago and you can get it real cheap!

From FM tuner info!

Nikko Gamma I (1977, $400, black w/matching amp, silver, service manual, schematic, Audio review) search eBay
The Gamma I is a 5-gang, FM-only, rack-mount style analog tuner that was sold in black and silver. It uses one LC filter and one "SAW" (surface acoustic wave) filter in the wide IF bandwidth mode, and 4 standard 3-pin ceramic filters in narrow mode, and has what some feel is a particularly effective high-blend circuit. Our panelist Bob says, "The Gamma I has been praised by two people I trust. It uses the HA11223W MPX chip, same as the Gamma V. Looks tough to mod, with one board above the other, but not impossible. Looks to be discrete outputs also." Our contributor Hank adds that the Gamma I has a "fundamentally sound design. I have not yet had mine modified but it has been restored (all marginal or suspicious parts replaced) and aligned. It is a very nice tuner and I suspect that it has significant potential for improvement."

Our panelist JohnC did indeed improve his Gamma I, twice no less! Here’s John’s initial report: "These units sound pretty good as is, but they do respond well to simple mods. I did these without benefit of a schematic. The power supply is easy to get to just by removing the covers, so that got recapped. Bob said ’looks to be discrete outputs also,’ which I read to mean discrete components, but there are definitely op-amps in there. To be specific, TA7136P ICs are used, the same as what are in the Sansui TU-9900. I did manage to identify the input and output caps to the op-amps and changed those out, but without a schematic I’ve stopped there for now. The IF strip is located on its own board located above the main board and prevents full access without removing it, not a simple task bet definitely doable. What was interesting was that this unit did not have the SAW filter installed in Wide mode. The LC was there but the SAW was replaced with a 3-legged ceramic Murata, tan body, yellow dot, marked E10.7A with the Murata logo and a stylized X on the next line. This appears to be a factory change because I can see no indications that the SAW was ever installed. Anybody else ever see this? Bottom line is that after a little tweaking these units sound real nice, reasonably selective and sensitive, at least in my market."

I recommend the Mitsubishi DA-F10. I am now onto my second one (used $200). Had this model in use since the late ’70s. I also have several other tuners in my collection, including a McIntosh MR77 and a Scott tube tuner.

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My first standalone tuner (I'm ignoring an older Sony receiver) was an NAD 4020 in 1982. Still works just fine. I think if you have strong local FM signals you probably don't need an expensive tuner. But if you want to draw in distant stations.....