Sangean HDT-20
- Thread starter Bubo
- Start date
No. The time is always displayed. Whether the Sangean is capable of "remembering" the time and holding it continually in place when set to 'manual' or 'auto' is another matter (mine never has and constantly resets itself so I gave up trying to mess with the time to make it accurate or usable). However, the workaround is to set the dimmer to "0". After a few seconds of inactivity, the display blacks out so it's almost invisible to the naked eye when powered off (aka when the power light is on). Mine shows --:-- constantly in the display, but it's very hard to see unless my face is an inch away. Even at night, I cannot make out anything in the display (even though --:-- is very dim and constantly there). I consider a constantly on / erroneous time display, and power light on (when it's actually off) to be design flaws. The problem with making the backlight go off is that you can't see what station you're currently listening to when it's turned on for more than a few seconds. This requires you to push a button (or input) to make the display temporarily visible again. Fortunately, this doesn't greatly effect the satisfaction of the radio -too much- and is overlooked given its greater content compared to my other non-HD home tuners.
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Hi, Thanks for the pictures, upgrading the 20 will be my next project. I working to build my Amp-Camp Amp.
I was curious about that one myself. Have fun with the build and upgrade. Check back in with any findings, observations, or recommendations you may have after completing the upgrade. I'd be interested to see what else you do with it and how it turns out in terms of before and after.
B_Karl
New Member
I wish there would be a way to connect and use a different (larger) display to the guts of the Sangean HDT-20 Tuner. I'm attempting to take the guts out and assemble it into a different enclosure matching the other homebuilt gear I have. But the display is a bit mediocre and I would really like to make it a bit bigger. Thankful for any ideas/suggestions here.
audiofun_21
Active Member
At least for HD signals, Not sure I understand how there is any sound quality plus or minus imparted by the unit itself no matter how good the caps are since it should just be passing the HD digital bitstream to the outboard DAC. All it has to actually do in that case is be decent at locking onto the signal (I could see component quality having an impact here).
Considering it will be connected to an Mc preamp with their DA2 DAC built in, and having recently auditioned an MR88 for about a month (itself a DSP based tuner)… I’ll be very curious if there’s anything approaching 4-5 grand of difference between these two units. My suspicion, much as I may like the aesthetics of the MR88… is probably not. It excelled in terms of the HD feed, but was somewhat thin sounding and a bit lifeless on the standard FM channels. No matter, as the standard FM in my area wasn’t terribly great to begin with, but many of the HD sub channels I did enjoy.
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audiofun_21
Active Member
So just to follow up on this… the HDT-20 arrived and I’ve been putting it through the paces. Unpacking it I actually observed that my unit was a 2021 build. So these are or still were being produced with fresh components very recently.
I should also say that while this is no MR88… there is no shaming this unit’s build quality overall. The case feels good, is of decent weight, and the buttons have a nice tactile push to them. The black brushed front panel is also low key and avoids calling much attention to itself. The rotary tuning knob which appears to be plastic or a very thin metal also has a nice feel to it despite being a simple rotary encoder. The display contains much useful information and has a good range of adjustable brightness from completely off to searingly bright. Since the clock display never turns off my suggestion is to use either 0 (off) or 1 (the dimmest setting) for most average lit rooms. The unit will illuminate the display at the next highest brightness setting when you interact with it. So for 0 it will light up briefly at “1” then turn back off. For 1 it will illuminate at 2 briefly etc. The only problem with the 0 setting is that the next up brightness level is too dark to see any useful information other than station info from a reasonable distance. Considering the number of comments about the worthless clock, I didn’t even bother setting it. I did set the clock menu setting to “auto” but it never did set itself.
As for audio quality… Initial impressions are very good for the price range it’s in. In fact, on my system I have not noticed anything approaching “dry” or lifeless sound on either the HD feeds or the standard FM broadcasts. Though admittedly I don’t have much interest in the standard FM so I haven’t spent much time with that. In fact, as has been noted before you can’t force HD off so if the channel broadcasts it and the signal is of sufficient strength you don’t have a choice except for the few seconds occasionally while it’s locking on. Which brings me to the greatest shock being that the sensitivity in my area is every bit the equal of the MR88 with a cheap Radio Shack desktop antenna that’s nothing more than a small black box with a flimsy coax wire. Channel lock in FMHD is about the equal time wise. That is to say that neither the 88 nor the HDT-20 took so long as to have me notice it. Another definitely pleasant surprise was *AM* performance, especially considering I just kind of threw the AM loop behind the entertainment stand after I connected it and didnt give much thought as to its placement at all. Again, I no longer have the 88 but from what I can recall the total stations found and received clearly seems equal if not better with the HDT-20.
The HD feed, connected via optical toslink to the DA2 DAC module in an Mc preamp has a very full bodied sound, though never overly warm or muddy. In fact, when it comes to the lower midrange and bass performance… the HDT-20 might actually be slightly ahead of the MR88 but that’s purely from memory so take it with a grain of salt. Punchy, clear, and well separated left to right would be the highlights there.
So that’s the good… unfortunately the one area where the HDT-20 falls short… perhaps well short of the MR88 is in what I call “high frequency compression artifacts”. Not sure if the MR88 is applying some kind of filtering to mostly remove this after the fact or if it just had a better DSP, but if you like to really crank the music this high range compression will become more and more audible, especially as the volume increases. It’s not terribly distracting, but it’s definitely there. Just something to keep under consideration if you’re bothered by this.
So in the end, is the MR88, which now routinely sells in the 4-5k range when they come up… worth 4 grand+ more than the HDT-20? No, not by any reasonable measure. However it might well be worth 1000-1500.00 more and some people have found those quite cheap with a lot of looking. So unless I run across another 88 in the 1000-2500 range… For the price, I can’t really complain.
marcthisdate
Where’s the confounded bridge?
Just picked up an HDT 20 to go with a set of Rotel Tributes. I looked at Rotel's matching T11 tuner but it just supports DAB+, not HD. DAB does nothing for me in the states so I would just be using it as an FM tuner. After reading about the HDT20 I thought why not. Appreciate the comments above, really helpful. Anyway, listening to the 20 now and for what it costs, nice tuner and I get HD to boot.
Brian estimated the 50 dB stereo quieting sensitivity of the earlier model at 38 dBf
http://ham-radio.com/k6sti/hdt-1x.htm
I have both models, and they appear to be similar in this respect. Most tuners are going to be in this range. The "little Sony" has a mind boggling 13 dBf, but that is the exception. The sangean measurement is an estimate per Brian as there is some processing going on that he could not disable.
http://ham-radio.com/k6sti/xdr-f1hd.htm
This measurement indicates how strong of a signal you need to get fm stereo without hiss. Improving the signal strength will help decrease fm stereo hiss. the Sony and sangean use digital signal processing to reduce fm hiss given a poorer signal.
You posted in another thread about reception issues with WTMD.
The Sony would probably clean up your reception issues with WTMD (with audible artifacts under close listening). the sangean might help. Both are HD tuners and might be better able to pick up the HD signal of WTMD, which would in turn eliminate the traditional fm stereo hiss. It is unclear to me why, per your other post, why your denon with hd tuner has more hiss when receiving the HD signal.
Improving the signal of a weak station will go much further at cleaning up the signal than looking for a better tuner.
I'm not interested in tweaking the sound on this - the display on my xdrguy modded sony hd tuner went out and I just wanted a tuner that I could afford that had decent sound quality. My problem is that it loses it's settings when it loses power. I've been searching online to see if anyone has come up with a mod that can fix this. Unless it's a really simple straightforward solution I'm not going to touch the innards myself, but someone must have found a solution to this problem.
I anyone aware of any fix for this?
I anyone aware of any fix for this?
Because, at this time, my particular Sony XDR-F1HD sounds amazingly good to my wife and me, I'm waiting to do internal upgrades. So far its memory has been retained by powering it with an inexpensive APC brand UPS using a 7AH 12V battery. Our rare and short-lived power outages haven't been a problem. I also set a switched, 2", 12V fan on top of the vents so the Sony keeps its cool in operation.
One could box-in the bottom to pressurize the lower vents. I have the tuner on 1" rubber noise absorbers, so this is an easy change. Don't know if it helps with damping any chassis resonance, but a rock also sits on top of the tuner. (That also works for non-rock tunes)
One could box-in the bottom to pressurize the lower vents. I have the tuner on 1" rubber noise absorbers, so this is an easy change. Don't know if it helps with damping any chassis resonance, but a rock also sits on top of the tuner. (That also works for non-rock tunes)
I loved my XDR. xdrguy (xdrguy.com) did level one modes on mine, which I think included adding a cap to hold a charge that still kept the settings stored when it was powered off. The display died and they're really hard to find, so I sold it on eBay and bought the HDT-20. I've been considering getting a small UPS just for the tuner. I've got my DAC, phono pre, TT, and control amp plugged into an APC2200, but I'd prefer some sort of battery pack just for the tuner with an AC outlet that I could place under the tuner. I always use spacers to allow more airflow - and although I don't play at extremely loud levels I do know that in theory vibrations can have an affect on sound quality. I use absorbers under the "shock absorber" feet on my TT.
SeattleTwist
New Member
Watch out for the design flaw regarding analog stations without IBOC digital carriers. It forces itself mono WAY too soon with a good signal. My Radiosophy HD100 did not have this problem but the tuner died.
Interesting thread. I am considering one of these, just as it actually has a digital spdif out. doesnt it just transfer digital information to a dac? if so the dac is the only thing affecting the sound quality, so bypassing it and using it with a better dac should make a big difference. I might be wrong on this. its cool to find an hd radio with and actual digital out.
audiofun_21
Active Member
Yes; the bitstream data will be passed straight to your DAC. I fed it to a Sony E2000ESD preamp from the early 1990s and found the sound pleasing, if a bit bright on the local HD Jazz station using the toslink input of the Sony.
I also have been playing with a McIntosh MR88 again into the same system but using the analog outs on that unit. It is definitely softer and less bright, but overall the fidelity of the signal is the same. That is to say, the compression limits heard in the extreme high end are there regardless of which device I use.
I also found the Sangean surprisingly was a little better at pulling in stations with the exact same antenna as the MR88.
Sangean did a great job on these overall. Curiously, the reason McIntosh cites for no longer producing the MR88 after 2016 is that they supposedly “lost the license” to bundle the HD Radio feature in as the license holder wanted HD radio focused on car installs. I’ve heard both this, and that the chip maker they preferred to use either stopped producing the chip or went out of business. This does not seem to have affected Sangean’s ability to produce their units which I think are still made to this day.
Bubo
Super Member
I use it as a daily listener
Yes a few more buttons would be nice ie force mono, force HD, force no HD, apparently digital has effects managed by filters, maybe another button for high end roll off, or just use the treble control on the pre amp.
I think it is a good tuner compared to anything, and a bargain.