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With many local radio stations that we regularly listen to, I'm looking for a modern and low priced stereo receiver which boasts excellent FM and AM over-the-air performance for a spare room.
I have a nice pair of Monitor Audio S6 speakers and a bookshelf full of reading material and wish to have great radio playback too. It will not be using any other sources.Does anything like this exist in today's market? The usual suspects are from Yamaha, Onkyo, Sony, etc. I currently have an old NAD 7225PE receiver that picks up some stations well and other more distant ones are problematic, AM is pitiful.
Thank you.
Edits: 03/14/19 03/14/19 03/14/19Follow Ups:
i) for FM, andii) for AM.
Does your living situation preclude external antennas, directional in the case of FM?
What stations, transmitters where, and etc?
Good antennas with a basic rcvr will beat any rcvr without good antennas.
To me it is entirely possible that your existing rcvr with good antennas will do the job.
Warmest
Tim Bailey
Skeptical Measurer & Audio Scrounger
Edits: 03/15/19
I am using my old FM 6 mounted on the roof with a rotor, I can pull in stations over 90 miles away at times. I regularly listen to a station about 60 miles away...
with DTV HD and SD, view-on-line, and two FM and two AM networks. No ads except for station promos.It's only 7 miles away, but this is a hilly city, so a tight pattern is vital. ? Canberra. I live between two large hills, and the signal passes several on its way. The other station has two transmitters. It's secondary is real close to the side and rear of us, and it comes in clean on this valve tuna!
And I feed four FM leads with it, individual runs from inside the loft to all three FM stages. Another FM stage is on the cards.
One of which needs to be driven hard. It's FM stage used to be mono, as it was once a simulcast rcvr, valve front-ends and mono outputs. It is now heavily modified.
i) It's MPX and output stage are SS and big MFPP opt caps for the deep bass, which ABC Classic can deliver.
ii) The two AM stages now form one wide audio-bandwidth stage. This used to be fed by a random wire about 80 ft long (to a neighbour's chimney) into a 'varicap & coil' antenna-tuner, thence into the AM stage. I will be buying a remotely tuned & powered, shielded-coil type AM antenna on the mast, real soon now, and mount it on that same mast.
iii) Its PP 6BM8 stereo output stages are OFF for now, so this tuna has a big PSU. One day, I plan to take the OPTs out and have a small stereo PP amp built with a new PT and LCLC PSU, and 4 new noval sockets. I'll probably remove the phono stage and anything else then.
The DTV antenna is for Band III VHF and is pointed at the same tall tower.
Warmest
Tim Bailey
Skeptical Measurer & Audio Scrounger
Edits: 03/28/19
Nice Tim, I am using the old FM 6 antenna. Where I live it is all flat as a board, so stations are easy to pull in. My Kenwood tuna pulls in stations from 60 and 90 miles on a regular basis weather permitting.
to use for that, plus any amount of cathedrals, choirs, chamber orchestras, and etc to record.
One of the smaller (but expandable) groups is the Australian Haydn Ensemble who the ABC have issued recordings of. The CD they used to persuade them, was by me! Back when I was recording for our local 'community FM station'.
https://artsound.fm/
https://www.australianhaydn.com.au/events/2019-announcement
They are sometimes broadcast by the ABC, but so far only as live recordings and extracts from the CDs.
All the female musicians are babes, to boot! And, they do HIP.*
Trisha and I first met them, on their first concert tour, here in Canberra. I'd been given free tickets by Artsound and that was the beginning of great friendships. Late Summer and wet, and sticky so they were re-tuning* between movements.
Warmest
Tim Bailey
Skeptical Measurer & Audio Scrounger
I've thought about the Dynalab sr100 antenna but it seem very large for our little spare room. Are there any other indoor antenna options?
:-)!
Warmest
Tim Bailey
Skeptical Measurer & Audio Scrounger
Run the SR100 as high as it will extend, ALL the time, as that will help with gain. It's the sole MD indoor antenna that's any good.But you may have to re-aim it for a few stations. If you can mark the axes on a white base it can sit on, that may help you remember each station's needs. Note that your interior will affect the axis that works best.
I am very lucky as I don't need to re-aim my outdoor Yagi. One transmitter is within a km off to the RHS and rear, and the other high power item is what it's aimed at! 10km away between hills.
Warmest
Tim Bailey
Skeptical Measurer & Audio Scrounger
Edits: 03/16/19 03/16/19
SR100 extended vertical as high as it goes worked well for me. Really surprised how well this $40 indoor antenna pulls in stations. Highly recommend!
:-)!MD are an advertising driven company.
MD do not make valve tuners, and their valve line-output models would sound just as good with a FET in follower mode.
A tube/valved tuner uses valves in its RF and IF stages, where the real advantages* lie, but you then need an alignment and a directional high-gain antenna, to get those advantages.
* mostly, the ability to resist overload effects from Out of Band signals (to either side of band II,) and very low noise & distortion, if driven hard, and resistance to in-band overload.
My valve tuner uses an SS MPX kit with large MFpolypropylene coupling caps. It sounds really good, driven hard a by a 7 element FM Yagi.
It was once an old Kenwood W8 simulcast rcvr. Its two AM stages now give me wide audio b/w AM, which is still available down here.
Warmest
Tim Bailey
Skeptical Measurer & Audio Scrounger
Edits: 03/18/19
"it is entirely possible that your existing rcvr with good antennas will do the job"
I was thinking the same thing. Also, the NAD might benefit from an alignment. All receivers drift with age. Sensitivity specs for most receivers of that era were just as good as newer models.
--------------------------
Buy Chinese. Bury freedom.
For roughly $500 this may be of interest. Unfortunately, no AM, but that may be a non-issue. It's very tough (impossible?) to find music of any kind on AM, these days.
BTW, scan the archives for posts about FM antennas. If a GOOD antenna can be installed, the NAD 7225PE could get a new lease on life.
Eli D.
Thanks for your advice.
AM is more for talk radio and Christian teaching which we like too.
The only good antenna I could find for a fair price is the Dynalab SR 100 for $45 but it's so big.
Current Mac lineup might be worth a look. Won't be inexpensive, though, of course.FWIW": Your best bet, if cost is a factor, might (??) be a modern integrated amplifier with a modern -- or perhaps a somewhat vintage tuner.
For example, I have a Parasound T/DQ-1600 AM/FM stereo tuner here that is pretty "hot" as a radio and has pretty good sound quality. I don't know how easy or hard one of these would be to find, but if you found one, it wouldn't be expensive (tens of dollars, most likely).
all the best,
mrh
Edits: 03/14/19 03/14/19
I'm sure I can get better sound w/ tuner and integrated amp, but was trying to keep it very simple. I'll causually keep eye out for Parasound tuner and could move Rotel tuner from main system, but I don't want this room to be all about a stereo. Large speakers are bad enough but my wife thinks they're beautiful next to oak bookshelf.
Speakers are easy -- folks are raving about the KEF LS50 ('specially the wireless, active morph)... or, if you're cheap (as I am), the ELAC Debut 2.0 B6.2 (catchy name, eh?) ain't bad at all.
Parasound also made that tiny little ZTuner thing for a while -- I've never heard one, but, again, fairly inexpensive and very small.
Outlaw still makes a reasonably "old school" stereo receiver that, at least when it was introduced, was well reviewed, and well received.
I have little experience with new stuff, unfortunately. It may well be that modern Yamaha, Marantz, or Onkyo 2-channel receivers are "fit for purpose" even for radio -- but I dunno. Sorry!
all the best,
mrh
I had a vintage mac receiver a few years back, but they are to pricey where I'm at now. Not sure I need a high end receiver or even the Outlaw just for the FM section. I really don't want to change my speakers as the MA's are nice.
I -- ahem -- still kinda like Yamaha.
{Marky sticks his hands in his pockets, looks down and shuffles his feet}
I've got this Yamaha... thing , you see.
all the best,
mrh
Mark, will Yamaha's current R-S202 pass muster? Multiple vendors sell it at $130. Yamaha has "better", but a quick glance by me suggests you're buying convenience, not performance, for the extra $.
Eli D.
Edits: 03/15/19
FM is probably serviceable.
The AM is probably terrible , though. AM's been an afterthought in almost all hifi receivers for decades :(
all the best,
mrh
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