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HD tuner needed

UZJmac

UZJmac

New Member
Hi everyone,

Looking for a tuner that can receive HD radio. This will be with the garage Yamaha CR1020. The Yamaha's tuner cant quite hold a solid FM stereo signal from my favorite jazz station and my garage LED lights seem to degrade the signal. I have a Yangi antenna up in the rafters. When I drive the Tesla into the garage it holds the HD station perfectly.

Any ideas? Amazon has a Sangean HDT-20 for about $190 but its huge.
 
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The Sony xdr-f1hd tuner is small however its been discontinued for some time now. You can still find them on eBay.

I have two of them and like them. They are very capable of pulling in weak stations.
 
FWIW - I have the Sangean, which I was not happy with initially, but with a better outdoor-mounted Yagi, I am satisfied..I can get Albany HD radio stations (abt 90 miles - but I listen to VPR Classical mostly, about 40 miles away).I used to have the Sony, but it overheated...
 
I too would recommend the Sony XDR-F1HD or else the Sangean HDT-1 or 1X. I have two of each and actually would sell one if you were local. Bad news is, both are discontinued and it doesn't appear that anyone's made one as good since. Good news is that because people are using tuners less in general, prices are finally going down, as they were higher than retail for a while.

Here's a thread that I started a while back:

https://audiokarma.org/forums/index...mponent-tuner-worth-my-time-and-money.836345/

If you read through there there were other recommendations, but the Sony is widely considered the best, while the Sangean has some better features.

Sangean advantages: optical output (that's an advantage if you have either a modern receiver or pre or like me have an Oppo lashed up to your stuff, otherwise doesn't matter), receives C-QUAM AM stereo (really completely limited use), is full width, 1U form factor (but be careful stacking; I actually have to epoxy one of mine back together after having set a Pilot 654 on top of it), more information available from menus (like signal strength, if you have an outdoor antenna with a rotor), can force analog reception.

I haven't yet seen a truly thorough review of the currently available Sangean HDT-20 but the only one on Amazon as of a few years ago that looked like it was from a technical person was not favorable. AFAIK there are no other component HD tuners available, only tabletop radios and car radios.
 
The 'Visteon HD Jump' after-market car radio is common, works well, and quite inexpensive on eBay. Of course, you'll need to come up with a little 12V supply for use outside the car. I have a couple of them - decent in both analog and HD...
 
N8Nagel said:
I too would recommend the Sony XDR-F1HD or else the Sangean HDT-1 or 1X. I have two of each and actually would sell one if you were local. Bad news is, both are discontinued and it doesn't appear that anyone's made one as good since. Good news is that because people are using tuners less in general, prices are finally going down, as they were higher than retail for a while.

Here's a thread that I started a while back:

https://audiokarma.org/forums/index...mponent-tuner-worth-my-time-and-money.836345/

If you read through there there were other recommendations, but the Sony is widely considered the best, while the Sangean has some better features.

Sangean advantages: optical output (that's an advantage if you have either a modern receiver or pre or like me have an Oppo lashed up to your stuff, otherwise doesn't matter), receives C-QUAM AM stereo (really completely limited use), is full width, 1U form factor (but be careful stacking; I actually have to epoxy one of mine back together after having set a Pilot 654 on top of it), more information available from menus (like signal strength, if you have an outdoor antenna with a rotor), can force analog reception.

I haven't yet seen a truly thorough review of the currently available Sangean HDT-20 but the only one on Amazon as of a few years ago that looked like it was from a technical person was not favorable. AFAIK there are no other component HD tuners available, only tabletop radios and car radios.
Click to expand...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the HDT-1 appears to have analog only output.

s.
 
I am unclear whether a Sony XDR-F1HD with all of the XDR Guy's mods has sound quality, in forced analog, comparable to a good analog tuner. Will someone enlighten me?
 
rmp said:
I am unclear whether a Sony XDR-F1HD with all of the XDR Guy's mods has sound quality, in forced analog, comparable to a good analog tuner. Will someone enlighten me?
Click to expand...

For most radio stations, the bit rate they use for streaming is very low -- 64kbps or 128kbps. It was that way 10 years ago and is mostly unchanged today, I don't know why. If you listen to FM radio via a tuner, versus the same station streamed, the streamed will typically have much lower sound quality (to a degree that is almost shocking).

I don't know for sure that HD Radio uses the same bit rate that stations use for streaming, but a quick google search makes me think they do or that the HD Radio rate can sometimes be lower than streaming (hopefully someone will correct me if I'm wrong).

I had a Sony XDR-F1HD tuner back in 2010, which had a great internal analog FM tuner, but I got rid of it because it defaulted to HD radio, which I found inferior to analog FM of the same station (I just don't remember how inferior because it was a decade ago). I bought if for $79 new on Amazon, and it bid up to $250 or so on Ebay when I sold it a year later (that's how popular that tuner was). If I knew about the hack back then, I would have held onto it.

I can't compare HD radio to FM radio because I no longer have the hardware to do so, but when I compare FM to a streamed station via the TuneIn or iHeart app cast to a chromecast audio, analog FM has much higher quality audio.
 
UZJmac said:
Hi everyone,

Looking for a tuner that can receive HD radio. This will be with the garage Yamaha CR1020. The Yamaha's tuner cant quite hold a solid FM stereo signal from my favorite jazz station and my garage LED lights seem to degrade the signal. I have a Yangi antenna up in the rafters. When I drive the Tesla into the garage it holds the HD station perfectly.

Any ideas? Amazon has a Sangean HDT-20 for about $190 but its huge.
Click to expand...

If I am correct in my prior post that HD Radio audio is the same (or potentially worse) sound-quality wise as streaming the station, I would definitely recommend that you buy an "internet tuner" rather than an "HD Radio" tuner. Assuming you have internet, you will never have any reception problems for your local stations, and you will have thousands of other FM (and AM) stations around the globe that you can also access, and the sound quality of streaming will likely be as good or better than HD Radio without any reception or antenna issues.

I have the Grace Link Internet tuner (https://gracedigital.com/products/grace-link) and it is excellent. You can have presets for FM (streamed) stations and Pandora channels. I had a prior Grace tuner that became obsolete, but the Link is much better than the prior model. You can also Bluetooth to the Grace Link or cast to it because it has built-in Chromecast audio. I use the Grace Link directly for global (and local) streamed FM stations and Pandora, and I "cast" Spotify from my phone to the Grace Link.

Unless somebody says that HD Radio has better audio quality than streaming (I'm hoping to be corrected if wrong, but don't think I am), or you don't have internet access, I feel certain you will be much, much happier with an Internet tuner than an HD Radio tuner.


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N8Nagel said:
I too would recommend the Sony XDR-F1HD or else the Sangean HDT-1 or 1X. I have two of each and actually would sell one if you were local. Bad news is, both are discontinued and it doesn't appear that anyone's made one as good since. Good news is that because people are using tuners less in general, prices are finally going down, as they were higher than retail for a while.

Here's a thread that I started a while back:

https://audiokarma.org/forums/index...mponent-tuner-worth-my-time-and-money.836345/

If you read through there there were other recommendations, but the Sony is widely considered the best, while the Sangean has some better features.

Sangean advantages: optical output (that's an advantage if you have either a modern receiver or pre or like me have an Oppo lashed up to your stuff, otherwise doesn't matter), receives C-QUAM AM stereo (really completely limited use), is full width, 1U form factor (but be careful stacking; I actually have to epoxy one of mine back together after having set a Pilot 654 on top of it), more information available from menus (like signal strength, if you have an outdoor antenna with a rotor), can force analog reception.

I haven't yet seen a truly thorough review of the currently available Sangean HDT-20 but the only one on Amazon as of a few years ago that looked like it was from a technical person was not favorable. AFAIK there are no other component HD tuners available, only tabletop radios and car radios.
Click to expand...

Sony is good, but it is not best. Best is the McIntosh MR 88 (the best HD Radio tuner ever, and discontinued)
 
@UZJmac are you focused on HD radio because of specific HD Radio content or station or show? or are you simply looking for better reception in your difficult conditions of your garage as you describe? I think a DSP based radio (not necessarily HD Radio compatible) might solve your reception issues. There are some Sangean DSPs that have line out.
 
I have a couple of XDRguy's modded Sony's. Both with external power supplies. They also have the foced analog switch on the back. Good units I have one on my HT system now. I use a Punker X modded analog tuner on my main two channel system though.
 
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UZJmac said:
Hi everyone,

Looking for a tuner that can receive HD radio. This will be with the garage Yamaha CR1020. The Yamaha's tuner cant quite hold a solid FM stereo signal from my favorite jazz station and my garage LED lights seem to degrade the signal. I have a Yangi antenna up in the rafters. When I drive the Tesla into the garage it holds the HD station perfectly.

Any ideas? Amazon has a Sangean HDT-20 for about $190 but its huge.
Click to expand...

I think the OP has checked out of the thread (last login October). I have the exact same issue weak jazz station in garage on a 1972 Rotel. There are really 3 options (none of which include and HD Radio tuner:

1) Clean the tuner if not done already. @dr*audio posted and excellent technique here => https://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/how-to-clean-a-tuner-analog.144163/ - that made a huge "night and day" difference in the reception in my Rotel. It's worth it to get analog FM working because it will likely sound much better than the digital options. I would also suggest stronger antenna, but sounds like he already has that.

2) Failing the above (cleaning didn't help or already done) -- get an Internet Tuner (like the Grace Link) rather than HD Radio tuner (sound quality should be same or maybe better fidelity as HD Radio, but no reception issues and global station access)

3) Get a Chromecast audio adapter and connect it the Yamaha Aux input (or Bluetooth adapter, but Chromecast would be better) -- then cast the station from the TuneIn or iHeart app on a phone to the Yamaha (or Bluetooth -- but that means you need to keep the phone near the Yamaha and sound quality is very slightly diminished versus Chromecast).


I'm in the exact same situation and use both methods 1 and 3 -- FM tuner 95% of the time, streaming the same station from TuneIn casted to the Rotel when the FM station is too weak. I use solution 2 (Grace Link) on my 2-channel system inside the house.

Note that, even when the FM is a bit noisy, I still use it over streaming because the FM sound quality is that much better.
 
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No....internet streams are not sourced from the same thing that creates the HD carrier. Unrelated.

As far as sound quality goes of HD...it was created to fit into the existing band allocation and not create an endless federal government nightmare of trying to re-layout and allocate for a different scheme that would have wound up in court for probably the majority of a lifetime. The bandwidth available on the FM dial is a nightmare to try and squeeze in a digital carrier and not disrupt or cause the elimination of the analog carrier. The resulting bandwidth had to use a bit rate reduced method of some type. So ultimate quality to a good receive situation of an analog carrier will leave it wanting if the analog is well done. Just reality.

However, it's offset by the way things were done that makes the signal much better in poor receive locations. Analog multipath noise that's a constant while in a mobile environment is just plain gone in the HD world. Unfortunately, the originally planned power level left it slightly less coverage than the analog carrier while the FCC's target was to make it the same. This was addressed by later allowing higher HD carrier power levels. Though some couldn't automatically adopt higher power due to local circumstance.

And back to the HD bits and bandwidth...if and when the analog ever goes away (no time soon likely, probably not in our lifetime) then the additional space available will create a monstrous change for HD. Exactly how it might be chosen to be used might look something like the TV carrier in that it could be parted up or left as wider throughput depending on what the broadcast chooses as desirable for their economies.

Streaming quality varies all over the place starting with the very low bit rate some still use. It's all a matter of economic choices and available methods to pay for it. The costs for the rights to play music is so high that innovation in streaming is greatly held in check.

EV3
 
evsentry3 said:
No....internet streams are not sourced from the same thing that creates the HD carrier. Unrelated.
Click to expand...

Good post. I agree that there is nothing physical tying them to be the same rate, but I suspect there is some correlation regardless. Specifically, I suspect that radio stations have kept the streaming rates at low levels because of the limit of HD Radio rates. I have no information that says that's the case -- it's definitely just a guess on my part -- but I can't think of any other reason why their streaming data rates have stayed so low for virtually all FM radio stations for all of eternity (so far). They are essentially unchanged from when they first started streaming 10 years ago -- and there is no reason they couldn't easily offer streaming at a higher data rate (at least none that I can think of).
 
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AFAIK, at the very best, it is possible to have 300 Kbit/s on a digital-only station, which so far are not allowed in the U.S., although I've heard they are going to allow digital-only for AM. On FM, digital is in addition to analog, and AFAIK you can get only about 120 or so Kbit/s. If you have three digital subchannels, this is about 40 Kbit/s per subchannel, which is about the same as 2G/3G streaming from ten years ago. Usable, but nowhere close to even the crappiest of 25-year old Shoutcast streams, which were at least 96 Kbit/s.

To me, the major benefit of HD Radio is extra variety, but because they are owned by the same conglomerates, the variety is marginal. Basically, you can have your Classic Alternative or EDM Hits, but these would be only the most well-known tracks. So, no deep cuts and no long thoughtful programs/stories about music. They run off a computer, no difference than to listen to a Pandora stream. At least in case of Pandora it changes its tune depending on your likes or dislikes, while FM/HD Radio does not.
 
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