dedicated tuners

[mike c]

ok, granted if you go separates, you are forced to buy a dedicated tuner.

but I see some reviews of some brands that mention:
"this tuner brought down even those stations that are hard to get"

my questions are:

are the built-in tuners of receivers really crappier? (because before all my receivers arrived, my kenwood stereo or even the portables could get all the stations fine, but now, most of them are staticky.)

Is a rotel tuner better than say a yamaha or denon dedicated tuner?

what's the difference between a yamaha dedicated tuner and a built-in tuner in a yamaha receiver in terms of reception?

 

[davidtwotrees]

I got rid of my tuners forever when I bought my Fireball music server that gets free internet radio. No commercials and no reception issues.
Not to mention I hit random play and get my music library instantly.

When I was buying tuners, fmtunerinfo.com was an awesome website that reviewed literally thousands of tuners. The general information alone is worth a visit and will answer any question you may have about tuners and their operation.

 

[Nomo]

The tuner on my Yamaha 1500 is pretty crappy. My old Onkyo TX8210 in the garage works far better. Maybe it's the difference in location between inside the house and inside the garage that makes the difference but I recall the Onkyo pulling in far more stations more clearly back when it was my main source.
I recently bought a Yamaha TX-340 tuner off of Ebay for pretty cheap, It does only a slightly better job than the receiver. (Not that it's Yamaha's best)
I'm not claiming to have any scientific conclusions here, but the new HT receivers do seem to be pretty wimpy in the tuner department.

 

[Seth=L]

My otherwise crappy Technics SA-whateverandsuch receiver gets the best radio reception of all my components, even the JVC receiver.

 

[mike c]

at least I'm not the only one noticing the built-in crappy tuners in receivers!

and this is across the board in brands: Yamaha, HK and Denon.

 

[Warpdrv]

I can't say that I remember the last time I have used a tuner inside my house...

I have a couple hundred gigs of music on my server that I stream to any of my systems through my Xbox Media Center, or I can't recall how many XM or sirius stations I get from my Dish Network setup.....

 

[Adam]

I can't say that I remember the last time I have used a tuner inside my house...

My guess is that's true for a lot of people, and that provides a good rationale for companies to trim some cost out of their products by cheapening up the tuner section.

I honestly can't say if tuners have gotten worse because, like Warp, I don't listen to radio through my receiver anymore. I do remember, though, that I used to hook up larger antennas (and spend more time positioning them) when I was younger than I would do nowadays. So, for me it would be a toss up between if the tuner was worse or if my overall system was less receptive.

 

[mr-ben]

Yeah

I've noticed that the Sony products I've owned had the worst tuners. The tuner in my Denon is good enough for me. I've read good things about this stand-alone tuner, and I'm considering it myself: http://www.sangean.com/product.php?model=HDT-1X

 

[skizzerflake]

Consider that FM sound is pretty crappy to begin with...is an expensive tuner worth it? Before I tried to find one, I would try an outside antenna. Some cable and a simple antenna might cure the distortion problem.

 

[BMXTRIX]

I have my A/V receiver in my basement as well as a stand alone tuner.

Both of them pick up everything and do a very good job at it!

How?

I actually put a decent antenna in place. A Terk model that is up at the highest point in my attic. I get stations from 50+ miles away without any issue or static at all, and they just sound great.

Yeah, I listen to XM most of the time as I'm not a fan of commercials, but it is just as easy to flip over to FM and listen to a couple of stations that I like as well, and I can definitely do so without complaint.

It's one of those first rules... Don't complain about your HDTV until you actually run HDTV to it. Don't complain about your FM radio until you actually hook it up to a real antenna.

 

[Hi Ho]

The tuner in my Yamaha 2700 is excellent. It pulls in every single station in my area just perfect. My old Panasonic receiver could not do that. It was always full of static.

I don't listen to radio much though. The 2700 can play music from my PC over my network as well as internet radio.

 

[mike c]

I never hooked a "real" antenna, but most of the portables with the rabbit ear antennas got everything, even my old kenwood with just the wires stretched up and out.

maybe I should try some trusty old rabbit ears first.