FM Tuners

I've found great tuners in Pawn Shops also. My favorite was a high end Yamaha I paid $180 for. Decided I did not care for the sound and sold it for $350.

In my opinion the biggest mistake some people make with tuners it not using quality interconnects, like they will for their CD players. I am talking about mid-fi tuners like NAD, Rotel, Onkyo Integra, Cambridge Audio. They have a sub $100 pair of cables for the most part. I use Siltech ST-18G3 cables ($300 per meter) on my two mid-fi tuners and they sound pretty close to my friend's $1000+ tuners with cheaper cables.

Good point Sugar. The system is only as strong as its' weakest link.

As to Celtic66's comment about selectivity, that becomes more critical in highly congested areas with a LOT of nearby signals or when you live in an area where multiple stations are broadcasting / over-lapping on the same channel.

Increased selectivity gives the tuner more ability to reject strong signals that are not on that specific frequency or to "lock" onto the signal that is strongest if two are coming in on the same frequency. The tuner can literally "select" the best / strongest signal coming into it and reject the others.

While i'm not attempting to belittle the importance of good selectivity, the original posters description seems as if they are experiencing problems with getting ANY type of signal to receive due to their distance from the stations, being down in a valley and the extremely hilly terrain. While multipath might be a problem due to all of the signal bounce from the tall buildings in "metropolis" and the nearby rolling hills, i think that they would experience more of a problem in terms of trying to receive / lock onto the incoming signals rather than having problems with rejecting / having to select amongst them due to an overabundance or problems with front end overload.

As such, i would stick with a highly sensitive tuner and try to get some type of antenna up as high as possible. If you they had to make a long run of coax to mount the antenna at a remote location ( even WAY up in a tree, etc...), i would recommend the use of quad shield RG-6 to minimize loss. This cable can be purchased at Radio Shack and is not hard to work with in terms of routing, flexibility or making connections. Sean
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Sean's point about antenna cable is well taken. To get optimized antenna location, a very long run may be needed, but obviously no one wants to spend the big bucks for such a length of "high-end" wire, especially when part of it might have to be exposed to the elements. Much better than anything I've tried for the purpose from RatShack, I recomment giving a look at a MonsterCable product called MonsterVideo 2. This BNC-terminated 75ohm coax is currently hooked up to my Fanfare FM-2G whip antenna in a 20ft. run. It is very much easier to handle and route, due to its supremely "limp" quality, and sounds noticeably higher in fidelity, as well as providing superior reception characteristics (presumably because of more effective sheilding). It's only about double the price of the Shack's best, as I recall, and well worth it.

Sorry - I screwed up the connector description on that last post - it's an F-type termination, of course.

I have an NAD 4130 (is this similar to a 4125?) which I bought new many, many years ago and can attest to its excellent sensitivity. Sonically, however, it hasn't been my favorite piece of equipment, although I do still use it. The sound is soft and a little bit too warm for me (I have a warm system to begin with), although it does produce a very nice sound stage. A good tuner for the money if you can find one used, but not what I'd consider top quality.

I might add that in the past few years mine has given me a bit of trouble (the audio outs die if the tuner is left on for too long), an I'd be a bit wary of getting something as old as this for more than just a few dollars. Still, if its the right price, it might be worth trying out.

Ken