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Creek 3040 / 3140 FM Tuners

I bought a T40 s3 from somebody here (thank you) and I must say it’s a lovely little thing. No drift, and it sounds great.
My personal references are the Revox A76 and the 1967 Beomaster 5000 (among many others). I don’t use any Japanese tuners.
 
chartz said:
I bought a T40 s3 from somebody here (thank you) and I must say it’s a lovely little thing. No drift, and it sounds great.
My personal references are the Revox A76 and the 1967 Beomaster 5000 (among many others). I don’t use any Japanese tuners.
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Not sure what version my Creek is.Not really sure how I would know.
 
I recently acquired an Arcam Delta 80 tuner from a fellow PFM member (many thanks) and its sounding very good, dare I say it as good as a T21. It’s like a grown up T21 in its appearance and human/machine interface. Sound wise it strongly resembles its older sibling so sits near the top of my tuner hierarchy which currently looks like this and is based on sound first, functionality second and appearance third:
  1. JVC FX-1010TN SUPER DIGIFINE Stereo Tuner – this is close to the Kenwood but looks better and is a little less fussy over its aerial.
  2. Kenwood KT5020L - a great tuner but needs a better aerial than I have so I expect it could give much more.
  3. Arcam Delta 80 – a grown up T21; a lovely thing and my new favourite tuner.
  4. A&R T21 – classic, hard to fault and yes slightly warm (which is admirable in a tuner especially if you have an indifferent aerial).
  5. Creek 3040 – a good tuner but a little ‘brittle’ sounding when compared to a T21
  6. Rega Radio 3 – really quite average but does the job.
 
I like the Delta 80 very much too!
Del monaco said:
Not sure what version my Creek is.Not really sure how I would know.
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S3 is etched on the fascia.

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Snufkin said:
I recently acquired an Arcam Delta 80 tuner from a fellow PFM member (many thanks) and its sounding very good, dare I say it as good as a T21. It’s like a grown up T21 in its appearance and human/machine interface. Sound wise it strongly resembles its older sibling so sits near the top of my tuner hierarchy which currently looks like this and is based on sound first, functionality second and appearance third:
  1. JVC FX-1010TN SUPER DIGIFINE Stereo Tuner – this is close to the Kenwood but looks better and is a little less fussy over its aerial.
  2. Kenwood KT5020L - a great tuner but needs a better aerial than I have so I expect it could give much more.
  3. Arcam Delta 80 – a grown up T21; a lovely thing and my new favourite tuner.
  4. A&R T21 – classic, hard to fault and yes slightly warm (which is admirable in a tuner especially if you have an indifferent aerial).
  5. Creek 3040 – a good tuner but a little ‘brittle’ sounding when compared to a T21
  6. Rega Radio 3 – really quite average but does the job.
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I agree @Snufkin about the Kenwood. I had one of those with uprated op-amps. Very nice tuner but for the price it could be equalled for less money

I agree re Rega Radio 3 too. I bought it based on good reviews, price, and it matched other kit I had with the red LEDs! But was decent not special

Another that I loved - but given their age they pack up and are difficult (impossible?) to repair is the Rotel RT 850AL. This was one of the few components that What Hifi gave a 5 star rating to and I agreed :D. They can be had cheaply but they do fail ........

Closer to supertuner level which is superb is a Sansui TU-919. But then we aren't talking budget level!

Under £100 I'd go for Hitachi (if the presets work) then Creek 3 series (I'd otherwise put the Rotel before Creek for sound quality but not with its age/unreliability issues)

£100 - £200 definitely Meridian 504, then a Sansui TU -517

If you want to spend £500+ then a Sansui TU-919 . I think it is better than the 9900 (which I owned and had bits replaced), the NAT01, and a monster Musical Fidelity A5 I owned

To be honest there's nothing in the £200<£500 market that could replace my Meridian 504 (IMO)

The only 'affordable' tuner I haven't tried and would like to based on comments here is the Pioneer F-91.
 
Stunsworth said:
The best tuner I ever used was a Pioneer F91, part of their Elite range. I bought it at staff prices as an ex-dem item when I was working at Pioneer in Greenford.
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Ah have a Pioneer F91 (Reference Digital Synthesizer Tuner) not the Elite, though have heard the Elite.. the Reference edges the Elite in bass performance. Ah've said before that the Pioneer has the best bass ever on ANY tuner. But back tae the OP. IMO, ah'd ditch the Creek (nothing intrinsically wrong with it) but it gets bashed by the NAD 4020B (AM/FM). This is in ma kitchen with a Cambridge Audio A1 Mk3 SE amp. Kitchen radio does'nt sound much better. With an outdoor aerial it gets close tae the Pioneer. A really good tuner, not just under-rated, it was ignored....and around £60-80 now. :cool:
 
Some of the Philips chips intended for the top end Blaupunkt units were very good and probably were expensive. I noticed diversity front ends.
 
My old RT-850 is still going strong, although I've come to prefer the sound of a Sansui TU-217, their cheapest x17 series analog tuner from 1977 - 80. This just sounds lovely and makes me feel a bit dumb for having long ago purchased an NAT02, although the latter does manage to sound as good and matches my NAIT 2 nicely. The Sansui cost me $40 used.:rolleyes:

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Some of the Yamaha's are unloved, are flying under the radar and are not to be sneezed at. I just bought a Yamaha TX-950 after perusing fmtunerinfo.com. Paid 60 Euro plus shipping.
 
Thanks for confirming @Arkless Electronics . I have one here that I use most days, and it sounds wonderful - but has started drifting off station. Most popular / forum-type opinion on this topic seems to agree that once this starts to happen it is beyond economic repair - which is a real shame.
It’s a really great sounding unit otherwise!
 
I had a Creek T40 mk3, it replaced a new-old-stock Quad FM4 that I bought from Quad in the late 90's. The Creek was better, a decent tuner. I replaced this with a NAT-02 that was subsequently fully serviced at Naim in 2010. To me the NAT-02 is superb. While it's not an 01, it plays music well, is unfatiguing to listen to for hours, and you don't feel like youre missing out on music from a good CDP or TT... as long as it's fed a decent signal.

@1000RPM The NAT-03 you have will be the best tuner in the list you made. The 03 is musical and fun, very under-rated. The Rega Radio is also a good Tuner. Not sure if I'd go for that over another good T40-mkIII?

HTH.
 
Rico said:
I had a Creek T40 mk3, it replaced a new-old-stock Quad FM4 that I bought from Quad in the late 90's. The Creek was better, a decent tuner. I replaced this with a NAT-02 that was subsequently fully serviced at Naim in 2010. To me the NAT-02 is superb. While it's not an 01, it plays music well, is unfatiguing to listen to for hours, and you don't feel like youre missing out on music from a good CDP or TT... as long as it's fed a decent signal.

@1000RPM The NAT-03 you have will be the best tuner in the list you made. The 03 is musical and fun, very under-rated. The Rega Radio is also a good Tuner. Not sure if I'd go for that over another good T40-mkIII?

HTH.
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I have a Creek T50 Classic RDS in my main system and very satisfied. Better than the T40 I had previously, closer match to the NAT01 and bought it with spare change.
Better sensitivity than the T40 as well.
They are rather rare but if you see one, jump on it, you won’t regret.
 
@Rico - yes the NAT03 is a very musical tuner (very quiet too). I think the Series 3 source components are under-rated and excellent value. Mind you, I have a Naim-serviced NAT05 in play at the moment, and that is a seriously good tuner. Not a lot of colouration, so doesn't have the warm glow of some tuners, but it's a bold architectural sound - bit like the difference between a decent suspended TT and a gyrodec.
 
If you do not need DAB then a Yamaha TX950 is pretty decent and cheap, just bought one for 60 Euro. ( Distortion at 1Khz - stereo: 0.03%, signal to noise - stereo: 90dB , stereo separation: 60dB, frequency response -0.5dB: 20 -15Khz ..... )

More on tuners here: www.fmtunerinfo.com.
 
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ravey_dave said:
Thanks - appreciate the advice. If the schematic does turn up, please let me know. I’ll see if I can convince a trusted local tech to take a look at it.
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Apologies to @Arkless Electronics - in the ten or eleven years I’ve been on here, I’ve only felt the need to post a few times. And now I find the only helpful advice I’ve ever asked for / received has been deleted, and I can’t even send a private message to Jez! Is it because I said something wrong?

I’ve found a fantastic technician to service / align / fix my Musical Fidelity (analog / manual / early) Musical Fidelity T1 tuner - but I am in desperate need of the schematic. Happy to pay a few quid for your trouble… should I start a new thread?
 
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