Originally Posted by
vintagesteve
As a vintage wireless enthusiast of some 40 odd years, I have been into large vintage hifi receivers for a number of years now, but just recently I got into vintage tuners and have bought a few different ones. I have to agree with many of the posters on here regarding reviews that accent on sound quality rather than RF performance! It's a tuner for gawd's sake! I mean, yes, it has to have good, even excellent AF quality, but the way in which some reviewers go on about soundstages, bass quality etc etc as if they make so much difference is verging on the ridiculous. Look, I realise that we all think that we have good ears, and I'm no different in that respect, but I also have lots of experience in a wide variety of audio design, testing, musicianship, recording etc etc. - just so that you have an idea where I'm coming from, that's all. Now, I have hooked up a variety of different tuners in a manner where I can A/B test them, and making sure that their volumes are matched to the micro decibel (very important!), the difference between them on strong stations was the square root of sod all. Now, talk about their ability to pick up a distant station, and that's different. There's sensitivity, selectivity, multipath rejection, noise levels, etc etc. In that respect I could relatively easily separate tuners. I agree with the OP, there are definitely 'better' tuners, but - for me - that 'betterness' is a result of a tuner's RF performance and to some extent, its versatility. And personally I like a good AM section too.