Tuner listening tests

[RRLegend]

I have a Marantz 2275 receiver and wanted to listen to the differences between different tuners. I hooked up a Pioneer tx 6500 II tuner to the AUX on the Marantz receiver and switched between "FM" on the marantz and the "AUX", obviously they were tuned to the same station.
I prefered the sound of the Marantz tuner section with the overall sound being richer and louder.
Is this a "fair" way to test the sound between tuners? Is there a more accurate way? And why do you suppose it was like turning down the volume when I switched to the Pioneer in the AUX input?

 

[musichal]

The differences in volume have to do with the output of the Pioneer and the input sensitivity of the Marantz; it's not uncommon at all to encounter the volume difference you found with the built-in tuner vs. a seperate tuner plugged into one the line level inputs of a receiver. This difference does tend to make your comparison unfair in favor of the built-in tuner simply because it is louder; turn down the volume when you switch to the Marantz and up when you switch to the Pioneer in order to attempt to compare more equitably.

 

[Brian]

You do the same as I. On thing you need to also so is either use an antenna switch so you are using the same antenna or using identical antenna. I have several RS folded dipole ribbons I use when doing comparison testing. With these I can rotate from horizontal to vertical and 360 degrees to see how the tuner reacts to different orientations. I've had instances on some tuners an antenna in the vertical works better on a tuner while on a tuner I am comparing it is the opposite on the same station. Logic continually tells me this should no happen so I can not explain it. Not an issue of overloading or multipath.