Receivers with best tuners?

Crap, things happen in threes. Now I can look forward to being wildly wrong about pretty much everything until it cancels out! :confused:
 
I've yet to have a crappy tuner in any of the better vintage receivers I've owned over the years. Some are better than others for sure but at this stage of the game they all need servicing and an alignment to be fair.
 
A few receivers did have multiple selectivity settings, the manufactures & models of which escape me at the moment...

The feature was usually limited to TOL models only.
 
So far my Realistic STA-960 has the best tuner out of all the receivers I've owned. The only tuner I own that equals it's performance is a standalone Kenwood KT-5300.
 
Sony STR-V7 had dual IF IIRC, not sure about the V6

My CR-2040 pulls in stations very well but the FM does not sound great vs other vintage units I have had
 
Onkyo 2500 model receivers were reported to have very high quality tuners, I remember I read about that years ago here on AK. I know the receiver I have, the TX-8500MkII, has a tuner that is no slouch.
 
An observation, worth what you've paid for it. Some tuners like the Yamaha CR-620 don't have very sensitive meters, especially the tuning indicator. It just doesn't move very far. Signal strength meters often aren't calibrated very well, or for the same full scale. Sansui tends to be "lively". That can make you think a tuner is unusually sensitive or the opposite. Just like volume control settings, it doesn't mean a thing in absolute terms.
 
Sony STR-V7 had dual IF IIRC

True, that - thanks!

Reminded myself that Sansui also got around to having dual IF bands in an analog-tuning FM section of a 70s receiver: the G-9000 is an example.

Pioneer, maybe not - I don't see dual IFs in any of the SX-x80 series.
 
According to the TIC, Pioneer SX-1010/1250/1980 receivers have the same FM front end used in the TX-9100/9500/9800 TOTL separate tuners.

Les
 
There are several kits and multiple suggestions on the tuner info site to improve sensitivity and selectivity of your favorite receiver.

I exchanged emails with Bill Ammons, maker of one of the kits, an he guided me through mods to my HK 330B to upgrade its stock circuit.
 
My Luxman R-5030 receiver has such a good tuner that I used it for a turner for some time. I now have better tuners.
 
Just barely within the 70s, there were at least two manufacturers that took tuner performance seriously enough that their upper-range receivers had dual-bandwidth IF stages in the FM sections. (A feature that, for me, separates interesting tuners from not-so-interesting ones.)

The examples I know about are:
  • Yamaha CR-x40 series, from CR-840 up
  • Kenwood KR-x050 series, from KR-6050 up
Don't know if the OP is particularly interested in this feature, but I'd be very interested to hear if anyone else knows of more in the same vein. My own interests aren't limited to the 70s, but they are (mostly) limited to analog tuning - pretty close to being the same limit, as it happens. Oh, and I think I know most of the separate tuners with the feature - it's whether there were any other analog receivers with dual-bandwidth IF that I'm curious about.

Cheers and thanks,

chazix
Your right about the Kenwood.They have a thing call Pulse Count Detector that is is in their separate tuners.Excellent performance.
 
...... Some tuners like the Yamaha CR-620 don't have very sensitive meters, especially the tuning indicator. It just doesn't move very far.........

Agreed - I found a mint CR-620 in a garage sale last summer (well technically, my wife found it for me) and I thought something was wrong with the tuning meter until I read about them here on AK.

I had a Kenwood KR-4600 receiver, that in my opinion had the best tuner of any receiver I have owned. I used it just for the tuner connected to my KA-8006 integrated.
I admit that I haven't owned that many receivers, and none better than mid-level models.
 
The best tuners I've found so far are in Zenith components I have. One is an MC 7051 receiver and the other is an integrated system model IS-4080. Both will pickup stations without antennas hooked up.
 
My 2 cents - I'm more of a DX'er than audiophile. Analog tuning (mostly 1970's) allows you more freedom from adjacent-channel interference. OTHO I do have a nice 1980's receiver with digital tuning that also has a "narrow" setting for IF which blanks out adjacent channels. Right now I'm listening to my 1970's Pioneer SX-1250 famous for watts but a nice tuner section to boot (analog).
 
"Best tuner" is kind of a loaded gun/subjective question. FM tuners got progressively better in most respects as the decade of the 1970's went on. Things changed from discreet components to integrated circuits that had better control over things like drift and stereo separation. Lets not forget the introduction of things like the phase lock loop circuits and the fm mute functions. With that said, other things like drift and selectivity were sometimes issues. And AM tuners got progressively worse as things shifted from AM to FM. AM tuners didn't take a step forward again until the advent of AM Stereo.

With that said, some of my favorite tuners/receivers that I thought worked best that I've been fortunate enough to own:
Eico 2536 receiver from the mid 1960's....all tube, but great sounding receiver that had good selectivity and strong reception.
HH Scott 314 tuner, also all tube and mono only, but when used with an MPX adapter, great stereo sound. Very good reception, especially for tubes.
KLH Model Twenty-Seven. This one is about the best discreet component SS receiver I've had to date.
Advent 300. MPX was an IC and a very good tuner section.
KLH Model Fifty-One. Similar in performance to the 27, but with an IC MPX section instead of discreet components.
Realistic STA-52. Great tuner section, and first one I owned with PLL. When it locks in, it locks in.
Technics SA-202 (technically from the early 80's) last of the good Technics receivers before the big downfall. First receiver I owned with STK modules and pretty much all integrated circuits.

And I'm going to throw this one in even though its not from the 1970's or FM:
Eico HF-94A. This is a tube tuner, AM only. Has a function on it called "wide band". You want to talk about making AM sound very good?? Yes, this one and the similar Heathkit models sounded very good in wide band mode. Not quite as good sounding as mono FM, but it makes a giant difference in the sonic quality of AM. If you find an AM station that is still broadcasting music, you will see what I'm talking about.
 
My best tuners are:
Sansui TU-9900
Pioneer TX-9500ll
Rotel RT-1024

Receivers with good tuners:
Kenwood KR-9050
Yamaha CR-2040
Toshiba SA-7150
 
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