Who's Using a Non-Tuner for a Tuner?

Splatter Pak

High-End Scrounger
What I mean is, instead of the expected component tuner, which is only a tuner for AM, FM, SW, etc, are you using a receiver, radio, all-in-one, car stereo, ham gear, or other to capture those radio signals in your home system?

I took out from my home system the last tuner I bought, a used NAD, as it was noisy. I replaced it with a Proton 300 table radio, using a Grundig AN-200 antenna. FM is perfect, just perfect, tuning wise and SQ wise. Perhaps the best part is that the thing cost me ten bucks.

I have also used a Luxman R-5030 as a tuner, as the tuner section was very good, but the amp section needed TLC.

I tried my old Pioneer KP-500 car stereo, which has a great tuner, but turn-on and turn-off transient noises scotched that idea.
 

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I am temporarily running a 1963 Zenith Trans-Oceanic Royal 3000 as an AM tuner as my HH Scott 312D does not have AM. I have 3 good oldies stations on AM.
 
I am using a Marantz NA7004 network audio player. With over 20,000 channels for me to choose from, this is better than a regular tuner. :music:
 
Technics SA-550. It's digital but it's got a "super narrow" IF switch that slices away adjacent channel splash:

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Cool graphic display showing channel you're tuned to (center) and presence (or absence) of adjacent neighbors:

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Adjacent-channel rejection in specs. Don't normally see this but I noticed in a Julian Hirsch tuner review that he measures it. Go to Magazine forum to locate all the old Popular Electronics back issues on PDF.

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Normally don't listen to 89.5 because it's NPR :)puke:) but on Saturday nights it's "Stuck in the Psychedelic Era with the Hermit" and the guy is a huge Jefferson Airplane fan and just played "She Has Funny Cars". Mostly bounce between 89.3 and 89.7, some 90.5, lotsa colleges around here to spin the antenna around and grab.

________________
 

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I am using a Marantz NA7004 network audio player. With over 20,000 channels for me to choose from, this is better than a regular tuner. :music:

That thing does internet radio, right? At $800 it must be very good. I do internet radio, mostly NRK's classical and folk channels, but forgot to mention it in the OP.
 
Loopstick, I like that graphic display on your Technics. Once again, for all the disrespect it gets, Technics delivers the goods.
 
I've been using a Nikko NR715 for a tuner for some time now. I have other tuners (digital) but this is the best analog tuner I've run across. Sounds great. It has some amp issues that don't warrant much attention. Not worth much, if anything. It's very pretty but makes for a big, heavy tuner.
 
I have a Logitech Squeezebox Touch which is set up to access the high quality 320 k AAC BBC streams. Put through the DAC of a JVC AX-Z1010TN amp they sound fantastic on the best broadcasts.

I also have a Sony STR-7065 sat in the music room but haven't got the room where the hi-fi system is set up to try it out. Maybe I should build a second system around it - the other half might have a few words to say about that though... :sigh:
 
Technics SA-550. It's digital but it's got a "super narrow" IF switch that slices away adjacent channel splash:

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Cool graphic display showing channel you're tuned to (center) and presence (or absence) of adjacent neighbors:

attachment.php


Adjacent-channel rejection in specs. Don't normally see this but I noticed in a Julian Hirsch tuner review that he measures it. Go to Magazine forum to locate all the old Popular Electronics back issues on PDF.

attachment.php


Normally don't listen to 89.5 because it's NPR :)puke:) but on Saturday nights it's "Stuck in the Psychedelic Era with the Hermit" and the guy is a huge Jefferson Airplane fan and just played "She Has Funny Cars". Mostly bounce between 89.3 and 89.7, some 90.5, lotsa colleges around here to spin the antenna around and grab.

________________

I have a sa 550

I thought it was normal narrow not super narrow

I did not know what the extra orange markers were for but I know now - thanks

kool

70wpc at .005 thd is nice too
 
do you know what the stereoplex is for on the sa 550 ?

Here's a hopefully readable ad that says it's for simulated stereo for analog TV audio:

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I've messed with it a little bit because I mostly listen to AM but I've left it OFF because I also listen to a lot of FM and don't want to forget and leave it on simulated. The round knob in the lower right is continuous analog tuning (with small vertical dial) for VHF TV channels 2-13.

edit: tried stereoplex on AM mono station and the "wattmeter" color changes to put light blue inside of bowtie graphic. With headphones on when you switch to "stereoplex" there is a reduction in bass and the sound moves away from the center of your skull. Doesn't sound like true stereo as in the instruments don't seem to jump to new locations.

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My Tuner

I use a tiny Radio Shack am-fm digital tuner .
 

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I used a pioneer SX-3800 for years as a tuner-only, because flouroscan and analog is the best of both worlds, and besides, the amplifier was dead.

It resides at Mattds's place. Hope he gets it going.
 
One of these days, I'll probably go to using a USB dongle for most of my FM reception at home. Software defined radios have gotten stupidly cheap, and you can do things with them like tracking trunked systems and graphically displaying chunks of spectrum that until recently used to cost serious money.
 
I've never seen one of those before. Is the cable coming out the right side antenna, signal, or power? Does it tune well?

Actually its a personal am-fm radio the cord is a mini jack / rca that I use to connect to my Yamaha A S501 from the headphone jack . Tunes in all the stations I listen with a strong signal .Power comes from two AAA rechargeable batteries. Antenna is built in .
 
I am using my Macbook Pro as a tuner right now. Listening to Minnesota Public Radio (Hindemith's "Mathis der Maler") via iTunes and my Sennheiser HD600. Sounds pretty good, actually.
 
I know where you're coming from, as I use my iMac to listen to NRK, the national Norwegian radio. They have wonderful-sounding classical, jazz, and folk channels. I don't use iTunes - it's a direct internet radio feed.
 
One of my favorite tuners I use is my Radio Shack DX398. Also known as the ATS909.
It has a rather sensitive FM front end, good selectivity and stereo separation. Possibly far better than some classics I have owned that were designed as component pieces for high end stereo systems.

Best of all it has RDS and other features, and the most important to me is Shortwave which lets me listen to the pirate broadcasters on 6925Kc in either AM or SSB.

AM on it leaves a bit to be desired when it comes to bandwidth. I think it starts rolling out around 5kHz audio on mediumwave and shortwave, but oddly with a roll-up on EQ using an external EQ you can recover quite a bit of the audio.

Guess I have some love for this radio because it was my first real radio that did everything any DXer wanted at that time.
 
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