FM Tuners: You should hear my Aura!

[Nick_G]

interesting as I have a couple of Trio Receivers one is the 5200 .. I'll have to try it out sometime

Apparently the Kenwood KT-6040 which is popular with DXers is supposed to be even better than the 5020, for both audio and reception. There's a lot of them on eBay Germany.

It'd be rather amusing if the 5020 beats the Naim NAT-03 in the audio department

 

[SteveS1]

Apparently the Kenwood KT-6040 which is popular with DXers is supposed to be even better than the 5020, for both audio and reception. There's a lot of them on eBay Germany.

It'd be rather amusing if the 5020 beats the Naim NAT-03 in the audio department

I've had both NAT01 and 02 which were great, but the 5 gang TU95000 sounds better, which was a bit of a surprise for a 35 year old tuner but there we go. So I sold the NAT01.

It was brought up to spec by Henry, an enthusiast recommended here on Pink Fish for under a hundred quid. Money well spent. I have a great signal from Wrotham and listen to Radios 4, 3 and 2 a lot. The tuner is a bit of a lump but I have the space.

Mahler 5 performance live tonight on 3. Superb.

Steve

 

[andrewsutton]

The Kenwood sounded better than the NAT03 by a long way. According to the US site fmtunerinfo it rates in the top 10 and the NAT01 in the top 50 or so.
When I ran both together I connected the 5020 to a ribbon aerial and the NAT03 to a Galaxie 17. After allowing for the decoder hiss due to poor signal strength the Kenwood was way better. It seems that Kenwood just got it right for one or two of their tuners.
Andy.

 

[RSC]

Kenwood are/were also a VERY big name in 'Ham' radio: more than just a coincidence, I think...

 

[Mike Reed]

That's no bargain - my nice and mint Revox A76 Mk2 arrived today - £37.00.....

Not only is it a bargain; it also brings back memories of this alongside its matching amp. and A77 mk 2 open reel in my student digs nearly forty years ago.

John (?) Peel's late night current musical line-up most evenings on Radio 2 was de rigeur listening (and taping).

Think it had a mulipath button which I never fathomed completely, because birdies were an occasional p.i.t.a. with this tuner.

 

[Nick_G]

Bumping up this old thread as I recently bought an FM-only Kenwood KT-1100SD tuner. This was their TOTL model around 1985-86, and was their first serious high-end digitally synthesised tuner. It has some very nice design features such as a balanced mixer for excellent strong signal handling, an analogue multiplier stereo decoder, 4 IF bandwidth settings (the only Kenwood tuner with this feature AFAIK), and also an optical encoder in the large rotary tuning knob, which means it won't wear out Mine has been modified with narrower filters in the narrow IF bandwith settings, had 3 NiCad batteries for retention of presets, and a re-alignment.

It really is a superb tuner. The sensitivity of this thing is stunning, and it even beats the famous Sony XDR-F1HD in this respect. It is, I think, the most sensitive tuner I've ever used, and, thanks to those narrower filters has superb selectivity in the 'super narrow' setting. The sound quality is also very good. At first I didn't think it sounded as good as my Yamaha T-85, but I think it just has a bit of a different character. This is my first Kenwood tuner and I am very impressed!

I hope to get further modifications done, with a wider bandwidth in the super wide setting but even sharper selection in the super narrow. There are also quite a lot of mods that can be done to bring the audio quality right up there with the very best tuners out there.

The thought of an audiophile/serious DX tuner in one box sounds very appealing to me...

 

[brad666]

Still using my A&R T21 from the mid 70's. Never changed it and never will.

 

[Pete the Feet]

I have an oldish Rotel up in the attic which I replaced with a Denon DAB. When I switch between FM and DAB on the same station [Radio 2 for example], FM is so much better. I have outside aeriels for both FM and digital.

 

[Robert]

Sad to say it but FM now lags behind internet radio streams for quality. This is partly because streaming quality has gone up while FM quality has been in decline.

Radio 3 is still reasonable most of the time, but the HD internet feed is clearly superior.

I like FM and still run a tuner, but it certainly isn't the 1st class source it once was (on BBC output).
Back in the day it would certainly be beneficial investing in a top end tuner. These days with the quality of broadcast material being at best mediocre, that's a bit pointless.

I don't think it will be DAB (which is usually awful) that kills off FM. With good wi-fi coverage now reaching much of the country and improving, it will be wi-fi receivers that eventually dominate and kill it.
Streaming radio will sit perfectly alongside streaming your favourite album, which will also be cloud based.

It already works reasonably well with products such as Spotify, but we need a few more pushes and a just a few more years to get it right. Then they can switch off FM and few will complain.

 

[Fox]

Then they can switch off FM and few will complain.

Just wondering how will WiFi feed data to the 30 million+ cars on the road (most of which have an FM radio, less than 1% [source] have DAB (and we backed an incompatible format to EU's DAB+ so car radios abroad are bricked) and fewer still have any form of bluetooth connectivity)
Not disagreeing with you, just wondering.

Out here in the sticks broadband fast enough to support cloud/streaming on top of everything else just aint happening. No DAB (bonus!) HSDPA might be an option but no Cell coverage yet. FM works, so am seriously lusting for a ****y FM tuner for Radios 2, 3 and 4 and duke it out until the eventual switch off. But wondering how cars fit into your equation?

 

[Mike Reed]

That's no bargain - my nice and mint Revox A76 Mk2 arrived today - £37.00.....

Well, well; had forgotten about that one. John Peel's prog. came over very well on it, sufficiently to record a lot on my A77 open-reel through A? matching amp. great student days (very early 70s)!

My previous Pioneer 9??? suffered from birdies, but the A76 was fine.

 

[Stevie A]

Fm has always been an excellent(And affordable) medium,more so now with the many s/h bargains around.
Personally,i think it will be at least ten years before the last fm transmitter is switched off,giving millions of users many more years of listening pleasure yet.

 

[norriemal]

This is a great time to pick up a bargain. I picked up an Aura TU-80 a few months ago for £19 and a few weeks ago I got a Sony 730ES for an unbelievable £8.70.

 

[John_73]

Is there much point getting a decent FM tuner these days? I know how fab they're meant to sound given a decent aerial and all that, but I'm sure I read that all stations broadcasts are actually digitally mixed and distributed now, at less than CD quality in terms of bit-rate, which is obviously turned back into analogue for the FM broadcasts. Are there any true analogue (aka high quality) transmissions left, or is it just as effective to stream internet radio into a decent DAC?

- John