I know this a nebulous question, but perhaps some opinions in consideration of my particular case will help me to decide if I need to take my tuner to a local technician for an alignment. I did a search and could not find enough opinion.
BROADCAST SIGNALS
Here in Sendai, Japan, there are only two stations with any real power. NHK puts out 31 Kw at 82.5 Mhz. Another station — a J-pops broadcaster — puts out 23 Kw at 77.10 Mhz. A host of others put out less than 1Kw making them very localized. Over the years, no other tuner I've had ever tuned them in well enough to be very listenable. POINT: I don't need a not of discrimination. I only listen to NHK.
RECEPTION
The NHK station is very near me. I use a T-type (di-pole?) antenna that is pretty close to the optimum dimensions. The signal meter gets pegged right in the black zone, and the stereo indicator lamp is on while the dial pointer looks like 82.7 (for 82.5). I show lit lighted lamps for both Wide and Narrow bands / filters.
MAJOR CONCERN
So for me, I think the major thing is distortion and soundstage. RF'ing is not an issue. It sounds good to me, but could I be missing something?
THE TUNER
* Pioneer TX-8800 II (1977?), Japanese model in JPN bandwidth... apparently, more or less a TX-8500 II .
*I recapped it a few years ago.
* To my knowledge it has never been alighned.
*Some time ago the Stereo indicator lamp went off, but today I opened the unit up and pinch the lead wires and it came on again. (Hopefully it wasn't the the PPL thing refusing to lock.
There's not a lot of money around here at the moment ... so here I am wondering.
Thanks in advance. It's cool to know Karma members still like FM.
BROADCAST SIGNALS
Here in Sendai, Japan, there are only two stations with any real power. NHK puts out 31 Kw at 82.5 Mhz. Another station — a J-pops broadcaster — puts out 23 Kw at 77.10 Mhz. A host of others put out less than 1Kw making them very localized. Over the years, no other tuner I've had ever tuned them in well enough to be very listenable. POINT: I don't need a not of discrimination. I only listen to NHK.
RECEPTION
The NHK station is very near me. I use a T-type (di-pole?) antenna that is pretty close to the optimum dimensions. The signal meter gets pegged right in the black zone, and the stereo indicator lamp is on while the dial pointer looks like 82.7 (for 82.5). I show lit lighted lamps for both Wide and Narrow bands / filters.
MAJOR CONCERN
So for me, I think the major thing is distortion and soundstage. RF'ing is not an issue. It sounds good to me, but could I be missing something?
THE TUNER
* Pioneer TX-8800 II (1977?), Japanese model in JPN bandwidth... apparently, more or less a TX-8500 II .
*I recapped it a few years ago.
* To my knowledge it has never been alighned.
*Some time ago the Stereo indicator lamp went off, but today I opened the unit up and pinch the lead wires and it came on again. (Hopefully it wasn't the the PPL thing refusing to lock.
There's not a lot of money around here at the moment ... so here I am wondering.
Thanks in advance. It's cool to know Karma members still like FM.