New Accuphase T-1200 Tuner Now Shipping

Well that would make a nice doorstop when they switch off FM broadcasts where I live next year...
 
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Everything going digital now (DAB+). Some local or commercial stations will certainly stay on FM and the vacant frequencies may attract more new local stations, but the content quality level of those doesn't interest me and certainly doesn't justify spending that much money on an FM tuner. I already tried to scale down my collection of tuners but over here nobody wants to buy them anymore.
 
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Two local stations to listen via FM here that are worth a damn, a classical one and a jazz one, tuners are unfortunately dinosaurs here...kind of like my entire room full of ham radio and shortwave gear...on line streaming has better selection and via such streaming services as The Audiophile Stream Network, the sound is just as good, if not better, for most of the programs...

I love tuners, have several of them and an outside FM antenna....I haven't had one in my system in several years as I find them fairly useless...

Now, where a tuner is better is with the local classical station KPAC. Their online stream is a miserable 96k mp3 and it shows it...OTOH, their over the air performance via a MD, MacIntosh, Marantz 10b, or Accuphase tuner can sound superior, depending on their source material, that is.
 
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Ebay would help you with that...
Not sure about that... I listed my Yamaha T2 for Eur250 just two weeks ago and only one UK bidder showed up and asked if it had been recapped and realigned and if I had the invoice for that....!
First off, I don't believe in recapping everything that goes through my hands, just for the sake of recapping - it's an overrated internet hype. Don't touch it if it sounds and receives perfectly and nothing looks funny inside.
Secondly, a top tuner WITH complete overhaul for 250 bucks??? I don't think so! I'm sure the work and parts alone would cost that much.
So needless to say : I'm keeping that one for now.
 
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For Accuphase it is also a "statement" product; they have roots in Kenwood and their first product was the legendary T-100 FM tuner. Depending on the design, IBOC may not be an issue. If I had time to spare and money to burn...
 
Hi all,
just wanted to add that in japan the T-1200 retails for 360,000 yen which is 4200 CAD. I see a canadian shop showing it at 8000 on line. I wonder if one could buy a North american unit in Japan.
I agree that with only 1 to 3 good sounding stations per major market in Canada it would be a questionable investment but I would sell all my tuners and giggle and tap my foot every evening if I had that kind of money for one. I have a 9 element yagi on a rotor so I pretty sure this baby would deliver. CBC, Radio-Canada, NPR, and a couple of university stations still 100% analog right up to the transmitter. The sad reality is that there are compressed recordings even in JAzz and classical now, not just rock and pop and these poor recordings transmitted by the few stations that don't over process the signal still sound compressed by the time the arrive at my ears.

This is currently the best tuner on the market and may be the last tuner.
 
Hi all,
just wanted to add that in japan the T-1200 retails for 360,000 yen which is 4200 CAD. I see a canadian shop showing it at 8000 on line. I wonder if one could buy a North american unit in Japan. .

I can tell you that you can't buy a NA-market unit in Japan, unless you went 'through channels' probably illegally. Moreover there wouldn't be warranty coverage, though granted Accuphase components are built like tanks and very seldom need attention.

The FM discussion upthread was very interesting to me. Not only do we have several popular-music stations here in Richmond doing pretty well, but we also have NPR stations which (off hours) play jazz and classical with what seems to be high fidelity. More surprisingly, we even have a new classic-rock station ("Boomtown Richmond") which is really impressing me with its wide-ranging programming--playing things I have never heard before, and enjoy. And it's impressing me in another way with its commercials--it runs a lot of them during the day, implying that the market still exists.

PS: Accuphase needs to replace the red LEDs with a teal-colored display to match its illuminated logo; similar to what McIntosh has done.
 
Even at half that price I can't see giving up my MR-88 with all the different bands it offers. I'm sure it sounds nice and I'm a fan of FM, but outside of the 88-92 band, it's not really worth $9,500 to listen to mp3s over the air.
This is our problem. I have an MR-88 as well and I feel like it's a bit of overkill, with the lousy programming and mp3 quality throughout. The Accuphase looks and probably sounds awesome, but the FM content is dwindling by the year. Perhaps we will see an FM comeback.
 
This is our problem. I have an MR-88 as well and I feel like it's a bit of overkill, with the lousy programming and mp3 quality throughout. The Accuphase looks and probably sounds awesome, but the FM content is dwindling by the year. Perhaps we will see an FM comeback.
And why not? No one was predicting a vinyl comeback a couple of decades ago, were they? (IDK)
What's to stop FM from competing with streaming services? Okay, they won't offer interactive functions I guess but what about the economics? How expensive can it be to run a transmitter? A couple of employees too? We all know about amateur transmitters now in vogue. One thing that killed FM was the endless commercials. I'm not seeing why that's required, unless colossal profits are the only thing that matters. Seems like it could be done. Are college stations still popular at all?
 
And why not? No one was predicting a vinyl comeback a couple of decades ago, were they? (IDK)
What's to stop FM from competing with streaming services? Okay, they won't offer interactive functions I guess but what about the economics? How expensive can it be to run a transmitter? A couple of employees too? We all know about amateur transmitters now in vogue. One thing that killed FM was the endless commercials. I'm not seeing why that's required, unless colossal profits are the only thing that matters. Seems like it could be done. Are college stations still popular at all?
We have a couple in Indie stations popping up here in Boston. So yes, there is hope, as long as the gov. allows the bandwidth.
 
And why not? No one was predicting a vinyl comeback a couple of decades ago, were they? (IDK)
What's to stop FM from competing with streaming services? Okay, they won't offer interactive functions I guess but what about the economics? How expensive can it be to run a transmitter? A couple of employees too? We all know about amateur transmitters now in vogue. One thing that killed FM was the endless commercials. I'm not seeing why that's required, unless colossal profits are the only thing that matters. Seems like it could be done. Are college stations still popular at all?

College stations are still popular, at least in some locations. Chicago’s main jazz station is run by a local junior college, plays a good selection of music, and is non commercial. I’m listening to it right now, using an older Accuphase tuner.

A couple of the local universities also have good stations, mostly rock, but with lot more interesting playlists than the commercial rock stations.

Since college stations tend to be low powered, a good tuner and antenna can be very helpful for listening to them. And they tend to have at least decent sound quality, since they don’t normally have the budget for heavy duty processing gear nor the commercial pressures to use it.
 
I had a newer Day-Sequerra tuner that got HD radio. The sound quality was poor on HD but pretty good on analog. Unless you have reception problems with analog, HD does not add much value. Adding it to the Accuphase would be like including a cassette player IMHO.
 
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