Good FM tuner for around $1K

Lots of good advice has been given, personally I’ve had a McIntosh MR 71 for years.  A very nice sounding tuner, especially after I had it brought back to factory specs by Audio Classics.  The problem is I don’t use it any more.  Why?  All the radio stations I might listen to have horrible sound.  Most stations now are heavily compressed and many are just broadcasting syndicated programming which has been sent digitally (do you think it’s CD quality?  Nope.  Probably not even MP3 quality). There used to be some really good sounding stations, there may still be some low power college stations or NPR stations (though not many are music oriented anymore). Last time I checked I was very disappointed, steaming sounded better.  My advice would be to verify there are stations you want to listen to and will benefit from a good tuner.  I’m also surprised no one has asked specifically about how far away the stations might be or if you are in an urban area, both present challenges to a tuner and may be more important than the sound quality.  One other thing, you will probably need a good antenna.  A lot of interference can be eliminated with a good directional antenna. Good luck!

Several of the old Luxman tuners are great units

the rec above re: tuner shoot out site is a great resource

http://www.fmtunerinfo.com/luxman.html

I'm in the radio industry, so clear reception and reliable performance are on the top of our list. 

 The Sangean HDT-20 (around $200) is amazing! Great reception, un-colored sound and has digital outs, so you can plug it into whatever DAC you want or use the regular RCA outputs.
 It's not a gorgeous piece, like I am sure the others here are mentioned, but this thing performs incredibly well.