Towards a Tuner Hierarchy

66.40.17.2

Posted by Tuner Dood on July 2, 2001 at 21:37:47

A Tuner Hierarchy? Yuk! How pretensious. How ludicrous. Okay, let's get the qualifications and reservations out of the way.

It's virtually impossible to rank precisely the sound quality of such varied stereo equipment. There's subjectivity involved, system dependency, problems comparing tube and solid state, vintage and new, and so forth. Great pieces of equipment are each beautiful in their own way. Yeah, yeah, we've heard it all. You don't have to play if you don't want to...

But many buyers would love to have a place to start -- a rough guide to collective experiences with various models of a given component, and there are plenty of collectors, reviewers, sales folk and plain audiophiles with plenty of knowledge and opinion to draw upon.

Note: I've had personal experience with only some of the tuners below and have relied on the opinion of others for tentative conclusions about the remainder. In some cases (especially the last few) a model might be included with no firm grounds for its relative ranking at all -- these await YOUR input to better place them in the 'tuner hierarchy' (eww!). The point is for people to step forward, to add, 'correct' and reorder the list. Of course in many instances there will be no agreement, and even a final list will be partial and controversial, but that's the limitation of an experiment such as this.

So, whether you've heard twelve or just two of these tuner, chime in with your own opinion on which was your favourite ticket to free music 24/7. Give us your own ranking. Or if you want to point to a professional review in print that disputes the order below, let's hear about that too. The list is partial (many all-stars are missing: some classic Macs, Pioneers, Scotts, Fishers, etc.) and most certainly wrong on a number of scores, so help fill in the gaps and make it better. A few listed may not even deserve to rank on sonic quality but are included due to their long association with 'supertuner' status. Go ahead, beat them down if you don't like them.

The ranking is based SOUND QUALITY only -- let's not make this even more complicated (not yet anyway). It will be posted elsewhere as well to generate more feedback. Personally, I'd love to see this done with every component category.

----------------------------------------------------
- FM TUNER SOUND QUALITY RANKINGS -
----------------------------------------------------
sequerra FM-1
sequerra FM Reference Classic
marantz 10B
linn kremlin
accuphase T-109
magnum dynalab MD-108
magnum dynalab MD-102
kenwood L-02T
meridian 604
naim NAT 01
naim NAT 02

rotel RHT-10
yamaha CT-7000
tandberg 3001 and 3001a
audiolab 8000T
fanfare FT-1
accuphase T-100
accuphase T-101
sansui TU-X1
revox B-760
onix BWD-1
musical fidelity A3
musical fidelity X-PLORA
sumo charlie
kenwood L-01T
kenwood KT-917
kenwood KT-700T
kenwood KT-600T
mcintosh MR 78
mcintosh MR 80
meridian 504
magnum dynalab etude
roksan caspian precision tuner
sansui TU-9900
sansui TU-919

yamaha T-2
rotel RT-990BX
magnum dynalab FT-101a
magnum dynalab FT-101
proton AT-670
creek T-43
audio refinement complete tuner
magnum dynalab FT-11
quad FM-4

nakamichi ST-7
yamaha TX-2000
yamaha TX-1000u
yamaha TX-950
adcom GFT-1A
adcom GFT-555 II
nec T-6E
pioneer elite reference F-93
onkyo T-4711
onkyo T-9090 II
carver TX-11A

(last section in particular needs more info and opinion)

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Topic - Towards a Tuner Hierarchy - Tuner Dood 21:37:47 07/02/01 (26)

Re: Towards a Tuner Hierarchy - michael w 06:27:17 07/05/01 (1)

Re: Towards a Tuner Hierarchy - Tuner Dood 16:27:12 07/05/01 (0)

1962 Sherwood S3000 Mk. V Stereo FM - Albert B. Broman 14:16:28 07/03/01 (0)

Draco Labs Micro CPU? - TAFKA Steve 08:29:49 07/03/01 (0)

Re: Towards a Tuner Hierarchy - pat 04:28:20 07/03/01 (2)

Re: Towards a Tuner Hierarchy - Tuner Dood 19:45:01 07/03/01 (1)

Re: Towards a Tuner Hierarchy - pat 02:34:01 07/06/01 (0)

Re: Towards a Tuner Hierarchy - Todd Krieger 23:46:51 07/02/01 (3)

Re: Towards a Tuner Hierarchy - Tuner Dood 00:13:02 07/03/01 (2)

Re: Towards a Tuner Hierarchy - Todd Krieger 01:05:55 07/03/01 (0)

Re: Towards a Tuner Hierarchy - Todd Krieger 00:56:39 07/03/01 (0)

Re: Towards a Tuner Hierarchy - Doc B. 23:45:27 07/02/01 (8)

Avery Fisher and Herman H. Scott.. - Mike B. 10:58:13 07/03/01 (1)

Re: Avery Fisher and Herman H. Scott.. - Doc B. 17:39:49 07/03/01 (0)

Kenwood L- Series... - Todd Krieger 00:01:22 07/03/01 (5)

Re: Kenwood L- Series... - Doc B. 17:30:47 07/03/01 (0)

Re: Kenwood L- 01T - Frank W 03:11:54 07/03/01 (3)

Re: Kenwood L- 01T - Tuner Dood 03:59:55 07/03/01 (2)

Re: Kenwood L- 01T - Frank W 13:54:25 07/03/01 (1)

Re: Kenwood L- 01T - Tuner Dood 18:26:54 07/03/01 (0)

Re: Towards a Tuner Hierarchy - Big Bob 22:15:07 07/02/01 (5)

Re: Towards a Tuner Hierarchy - rhyno 12:01:30 07/03/01 (3)

Kenwood KT8300 & MD 101 - Doug N 20:35:01 07/03/01 (2)

Re: Kenwood KT8300 & MD 101 - Tuner Dood 21:52:54 07/03/01 (1)

Right, sorry I meant the FT101 - Doug N 00:45:46 07/05/01 (0)

Re: Towards a Tuner Hierarchy - Tuner Dood 00:23:41 07/03/01 (0)

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