Is The FM tuner obsolete?

We are in a somewhat remote area, in the middle of the sea. There is a classic rock & a classical station near me. They have good quality sound. There are a couple others with OK sound.

The classic rock station has gotten worse with song selection. They play Steve Miller abacadabra, rather than his better songs. It also seems like their playlist has changed to incessant Billy Joel, Hall & Oats, Don Henley and Elton John.

I have a Magnum Dynalab MD-102. Excellent tuner with big caps inside. With the right station, it sounds glorious.

We are moving to another place in this area that has a great classic rock station, and other stations.

If you have a good station with good sound quality, a good tuner can be an essential source component.

My MD-102 provides excellent uncompressed analog goodness, given the right station. With reference quality interconnects into my VTL tube pre, I am often shocked at how good it sounds.

My reference point for this is the stats for over the air tv. Currently over 60% of households still receive their tv from an antenna of some kind. So no fm tuners are not going away. Also don’t forget the car market too. Yes they might become harder to find but they will always be around. Now for the political comment do you want all of the media we receive and our contact to the outside world to be cut off with the flip of a switch! Think about that with your electric car. They have another shut down and don’t want you to go anywhere they cut the grid and there you sit. Don’t think it can happen look at Australia right now.

Parasound TDQ1600 Tuner
listening to this Rock Station WEBN 102.7
with local adds, beats listening to station on iHeart. Frog Nation WEBN Cincinnati.

WEBN got bought out in the same way that WMMS did in Cleveland. WEBN was a fairly good station in the 1970’s but it never rose to near the level that WMMS did. Both stations are so compressed anymore, I don’t know how anyone can listen to either. There was a pretty good station out of Northern Kentucky University called WNKU but they couldn’t operate within budget and it was dissolved by the University. So, besides the banal, middle of the road classical station WGUC, we have WAIF, a diverse community station with a very weak signal.

I use my tuners every day.   I have a Magnum MD102 and a Fanfare FT1a which is in rotation right now.   Plenty of FM where I am,  just outside Boston.    I get Rock 101 in Manchester NH , 94 HJY in Providence ,  and everything from Boston to Worcester.. .   Plenty of stations