Would you spend $5,500 on this new tuner ?
- Thread starter kappclark
- Start date
W9TR
Super Member
This is a miss. Not just because of the price, but because it was designed by someone who doesn’t know tuners.
Meters display L,R output level only.
Should be signal strength and tuning/multipath.
I already have blue meters on my amp and preamp, thank you very much.
Why no beautiful analog dial? FM is retro, this should be too. They could have made a custom OLED covering the entire front panel. That would be bitchin’.
Where is the oscilloscope? At this price I want an O’scope dammit. A real nice OLED one between the meters, if you have to keep the digital frequency display.
RF performance based on published specs is just mediocre, like the MR 85, etc. Bring back 5 gangs of discrete varactors for tuning, discrete RF amps, doubly balanced mixers. Everything past the IF should be custom digital.
I think I just described the new Accuphase tuner.
Meters display L,R output level only.
Should be signal strength and tuning/multipath.
I already have blue meters on my amp and preamp, thank you very much.
Why no beautiful analog dial? FM is retro, this should be too. They could have made a custom OLED covering the entire front panel. That would be bitchin’.
Where is the oscilloscope? At this price I want an O’scope dammit. A real nice OLED one between the meters, if you have to keep the digital frequency display.
RF performance based on published specs is just mediocre, like the MR 85, etc. Bring back 5 gangs of discrete varactors for tuning, discrete RF amps, doubly balanced mixers. Everything past the IF should be custom digital.
I think I just described the new Accuphase tuner.
dinger
Active Member
100% Agree. Unfortunately it was design by someone who knows the target market which is not people who appreciate a serious tuner.
Spiffpeters
Member
I probably wouldn't pay $25 for a tuner. Radio's best days were over a long, long time ago.
AM dial is a wasteland of lies and half-truths that only serve up rage. FM is just an automated playlist with phony personalities pretending to be DJ's.
Radio is just a corporate rag these days.
AM dial is a wasteland of lies and half-truths that only serve up rage. FM is just an automated playlist with phony personalities pretending to be DJ's.
Radio is just a corporate rag these days.
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Late Boomer
Super Member
Agreed with the above.
Corporate.FM - watch on Amazon Prime for $2. “The radio industry… is an example of an industry that was doing pretty well, and they gutted it.”
Also, sometimes it feels like the big exclusive brands try hard to make their product as ugly as possible. Even if I wanted to spend $5K on a tuner, definitely not on this one based on the looks alone.
300man
Super Member
No. I spent $300 on a very good used tuner last week...it works great and It's fun to tune around. If I had spent a the $5500 on the Mac I doubt it would be much better of more fun.
However I am considering spending a little less then 1/3 the price or the new Mac tuner on a MR78...
However I am considering spending a little less then 1/3 the price or the new Mac tuner on a MR78...
audiofun_21
Active Member
I always wonder why so many high end equipment pieces have "low end looking displays", is it to preserve the old seventies monochrome ascii computer video display terminal font look?
Or are the elcheapo Chinese displays the only ones manufactured?
How many years will such display last?
Still, this tuner looks nice, to me.
No, not spending 5500 on a tuner since 55 would be more than enough, but if having to choose between spending 5500 on some expensive watch or the tuner, I would go for the tuner
Quite the opposite… the two line VFD that McIntosh uses in all their higher end gear is actually one of the *best* aspects to me. And mind you it is an ACTUAL vacuum fluorescent display module not just a cheap LCD made to look like a VFD as JVC did in the 80s for a time. A fancy color LCD with fake bouncing meter displays would, ironically, be the “cheap Chinese” option since virtually EVERYTHING uses color TFTs these days (and Anthem/NAIM/NAD for example do exactly that in various pieces of equipment).
The VFDs are classy and nostalgic to me and actually a sign of a higher quality product. The only thing I could possibly ask of McIntosh is to update these to a tighter pixel count graphical version (think of something like the DMDs on the backboards of 90s pinball games in a tiny form). They did in fact do this on their MB100 media streamer but never on any of the other gear.
NOW… let’s move on to this silly tuner. If one is after a modern Mac tuner, The MR88 absolutely blows this thing out of the water. I’m actually shocked that McIntosh still found there was enough of a tuner following to even produce this.
However, what they’re really doing here is taking the already somewhat disappointing MR87 (due to the loss of HD and XM chips/bands) and taking a cheap shot to sales by tossing in an absolutely worthless pair of output level meters then repackaging it as a new model. Perhaps the FM circuit is improved over the MR87, but even then it’s not terribly interesting without HD support and the gorgeous VFD tuning scale.
McIntosh missed a clear opportunity here by at least making the meters relevant to FM tuning. But they aren’t that at all. They are simply another meter slapped on a box. Absolute pass on this thing. Btw… 5500.00 would be MORE than enough to get yourself a pristine MAC6700 with either the TM2 (HD) or TM3 tuner modules *already* installed, plus a 200w per channel amp, preamp, MC/MM phono and DAC all in one box.
I'd rather spend the money on a nice vintage Mac tuner from the days when FM was treated as a serious source, then go on a little getaway with the remainder of the cash.
That's completely untrue in my area of Calif. If you really believe that, why are you wasting your time on the tuner forum?