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Radio Road Which tuner to get and getting the most from it. Thank God, for the radio! |
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Radio Road Which tuner to get and getting the most from it. Thank God, for the radio! |
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In Reply to: Re: Can you keep the MR78 until after the experiments? posted by Todd A. on September 11, 2006 at 19:05:40:
Todd A.,Sorry, you had to make all those spelling corrections to the quote!
The cost of vintage tuners and teh work they always seem to need has me looking for a good alterative and here's an idea.
I've been using an M-Audio "Audiophile" 2496 soundcard in my Dell 2.8GHz Windows XP machine for about two years as a recording soundcard. Using Oktava M012's > Peavey VMP-2 all tube mic pre> Cakewalk Home Studio XL> HD:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Audiophile2496/
-and the results have been excellent. M-Audio makes some nice soundcards but since I don't need a lot of inputs and outputs, this $100 has all the features I need. I run the analogue soundcard output to my office system: Audio Research LS3 > ARC D130 > Infinity Primus 360 and I'm amazed at the sound quality from my HD 16/44.1 recordings.
Recently, I've been playing with streaming FM from stations Like WGBH Boston and though I think this must be compressed to a degree- I don't know what the paramters of streming FM are- the sound from Boston is better than KCRW Santa Monica- which is 2985 miles closer! Of course, the noise floor is pitch black and the sound clear without drift or interferrence. Sometimes I think I'm hearing aircraft pass between me and the transmitter!
I listen mostly to KUSC 91.5, the public radio classical station in Los Angeles, but lately I've been very angry over their current policies of discount AM news, donation promotions every five minutes, silly announcers, but especially the over-boosted anouncers' voices. As well, I live at the base of the Santa Monica Mountains and reception is tough as I don't have direct line to the transmitters over the hills.
The negatives with braodcast FM are such I'm considering now abandoning my expensive McIntosh MR67 redo- the tuner cost $400, I've spent $250 on a 300 year supply of NOS tubes,and Mark Wilson suggests another $275 for caps and aligment- so this will be an $850 tuner when I'm done- fabulous sounding, but is the "software" good enough now to justify it?
At $100, I really recommend the M-Audio card as an experimental computer tuner,a nd I'm intrigued now by a Chinese DAC that's the ccurrent buzz on "Digital", the "AH" with it's 8- Burr-Browns or whatever they are:
http://www.gr-research.com/components/lite_dacs.htm
-this $150 DAC in combination with a cheap transport is supposed to be another "giant-killer" that sounds as good as DAc costing,.. well you know the drill here. So, I'm thinking of SP/DIF from teh 2696 to this cheap DAC, -and also running a Toslink from my Cambridge Audio 640C- and have a good tuner and good CDP sound for not much brass. In this way, I could avoid the tyranny of antennas, MPX decoders and finding the perfect 6AV6 and 6BL8s !
So, the $100 M-Audio and $150 DAC could make a great tuner that can pull FM from anywhere in the World- very tempting. At the moment I'm listening to BBC3 London and it sounds as good as KPCC Pasadena!
I"ll be certain to keep my MX110 for the main system, but the office FM tuner could well be my old Dell 750- which I'll turn into my dedicated "sound" computer for recording.
Just a thought.
Cheers,
Bambi B
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Follow Ups
- How about excellent FM from anywhere in the World for $275? - Bambi B 20:23:52 09/11/06 (3)
- Re: How about excellent FM from anywhere in the World for $275? - Todd A. 08:25:44 09/12/06 (2)
- Re: How about excellent FM from anywhere in the World for $275? - Bambi B 09:24:31 09/12/06 (1)
- Okay... - Todd A. 13:28:07 09/12/06 (0)
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