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Tuner world has been turned upside down. Modded Sony XDR-F1HD demo at AK Fest 2010....

Posted by joeljoel1947 (A) on May 18, 2010 at 18:12:10

I was at AK Fest a few weeks ago and attended an outstanding demo of the Sony XDR-F1HD versus some "super-tuners". Mike Williams from Radio X Tuners had a room there and put on quite a show I must say.

I have the little Sony myself, and have been debating having it modded by Mike. I also have a Sansui TU-717, Magnum Dynalab FT-11, Fisher KM-60 as a backdrop. The Sony can "tune" much better then the other 3 tuners I have, but it doesn't sound nearly as good. The treble is mostly the culprit---it's quite truncated on top I suppose to remove a lot of backround noise and hiss. Anyhow......

If you check out the pics (link below) in that room you will see a stack of tuners. Here is what was going on with each tuner as I queried Mike about specifics when I got back home from the show. Mike wrote:

I had 4 tuners set up though a 4 way Rat Shack AV switch.

Tuner 1 was the Sony XDR-F1HD. It had all the modifications, and audio wise we were listening to the Extreme version of the active filter board.

Tuner 2 was a Sansui TU-9900, completely recapped with upgrades. IF adder board, output opamp upgrade, audio coupling caps were Blackgates.

Tuner 3 was a Phillips AH 6710- Also completed recapped with upgrades to the power supply and audio coupling caps. Used Blackgates on the fixed and Nichicon muses on the variable. I was using the variable output for level matching to the Sony.

Tuner 4 was a Sansui TU-X1. Again completely recapped. It has front-end modifications, upgrades to the power supply, Blackgate caps in the audio path, and my custom opamp adapter boards to use upgraded audio opamps.

That said....

OK, so there were about 4 of us in the room. Mike switched between the Sony and the "super tuners" A/B/A/B one by one via the Rat Shack switcher box. They all sounded very close to each other and the fact that the little POS Sony was hanging with and sounded JUST as good as the Sansui X1 was the deal-sealer for me! The Sansui MAY have just been a SUPER HAIR bit better sounding on top, but it was SOOOOO close. And the fact that you could probably buy and mod 15 of the Sony's for the price of a X1 nowadays (a modded one at that!!) is really what this post is all about.

Overall my friend and I agreed after Mike's demo---- the little cheap Sony sounded just as good if not better then any of the others. Now, granted, those speakers were probably NOT the most resolving things in the world but the "jist of the matter" came through clearly----the little cheap Sony is a KILLER sonically once modded.

So, mine went off for him to mod!! If anyone else was there I would like to hear your impressions as well.

Regards,
Joel

• Modded Sony XDR-F1HD at AK Fest 2010 Pics   (Open in New Window)

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