I have 4 tuners at present:
1. HH Scott LT-110
2. Sony ST-5000FW
3. Pioneer TX-7800
4. Sony ST-J75
The 5000FW is brand new to me and needs to be restored, given its age. It still sounds wonderful.
The TX-7800 I purchased after someone had recapped and aligned it. It has very good audio.
The ST-J75 was aligned by the previous owner, but never recapped. With a relatively good signal it has absolutely no background noise, less than I have ever heard on any FM tuner, and still has excellent audio.
The LT-110 needs servicing for a variety of issues. I’m partial to tube equipment, but the Scott places a distant 4th in comparison to my SS tuners.
I had both the Sony ST-5000FW and the Scott LT-110 worked on, and they’re both back from the shop!
The ST-5000FW needed an alignment, some work on the power supply, and both signal strength meters were not working. I dropped off the Sony at Soundsmith in Peekskill, NY in late October, and picked it up a week ago. Everything is now in great working order. The audio is still very sweet, and with much less FM background hiss. The ST-5000FW is a 5 gang tuner, and since the alignment it is pulling in more stations than ever before. Because of Covid, everything is locked down at Soundsmith, and you don’t actually meet anyone. Peter Ledermann was seriously I’ll with Covid early in the pandemic, so they take their precautions seriously. It’s a contactless p/u both coming and going. However, when I picked up the unit, I inadvertently ran into a tech in the hallway who told me (from a distance of 6 feet and with a mask on) how pleased they were to work on a high quality unit like my Sony. It made my day.
I had my Scott LT-110 worked on by Dave451, an Audiokarma member. It was having difficulty pulling in stations in stereo without significant background hiss. It worked well in Mono and had wonderful audio in mono mode, but switch to stereo and there was a significant difference. Dave re-aligned the tuner and replaced a weak tube. All is well now, great audio and relatively little background noise in FM Stereo. Dave, as usual, did great work.
If I had to rate them now that the work is done, I’d have a hard time. All four of my FM tuners have wonderful audio and pull in stations easily, with little or no background hiss. On audio quality, each has its strength and weakness, and I enjoy listening to each one of them. I’d probably have to give the top nod to the Sony ST-J75, only because there is absolutely no discernible background noise on any station with a decent signal. The J75 is known for that. It’s a digital tuner released around 1980 and it was their top-of-the-line tuner back then. I don’t know how Sony did it, but they really got it right with the J75. It’s truly a sleeper, a “sparrow feed” tuner that I purchased for $75 last year, less than I paid for any of my other tuners. I’m thinking of picking up another in case I ever need spare parts for the original.
I own several tuners:
