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Which tuner to get and getting the most from it. Thank God, for the radio!

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Original Message

RE:I have to agree with Timbo...

Posted by mr.bear on February 7, 2017 at 19:14:07:




Patently fake graph from Sony HAP-Z1ES HDD Audio Player brochure. Read below...

You'll sorely miss your sweet old Marantz, Iodemus my friend! You're stuck. I have just completed a closet-cleaning and comparison of all my tuners and sold my HD FM tuner, a Sony xdr-f1hd.

The digital signal sounds like crap. It is very highly compressed, worse perhaps than the European standard DAB of which Wikipedia says: "Most stations use a bit rate of 128 kbit/s or less with the MP2 audio." It's just one Bear's opinion but I have found through scrupulous listening that AAC and MP3 at very high bitrates (>320)provide a reasonable substitute for FM but 128 is terrible.

I find some equalization helps make CODEC'd sound less intrusive. As has Sony- they have designed some built-in frequency shaping circuit to tame some of the bass-bloat and flaccid highs associated with CODEC-ed music. They give it a zoomy science-fiction-y sounding name... it's funny. See fake grph, with no actual numbers! Ahhh-hahahah...

Just an aside-- I pitched all FM units for the present except for a venerable Yamaha T-1. Analog tuned, very sophisticated FM design etc. but the key ingredient is that it was designed by people with an "ear" for music. Thank you, Yamaha people!

I hope brodcast FM holds out here in the US until I can't hear no more... I spent my entire life listening to radio starting with my dad when I was a toddler (he was a radio nut) and I so want it to stay real.

Listening to our WONDERFUL Los Angeles classical station (KUSC) right now and the soundstage is deep and clean against a (reasonably) quiet background, preserving excellent dynamic range. octave-to-octave balance is excellent, etc etc- it's just lovely.