But that's not all, since it also offers a continually updated list of the most important and popular movies of the moment. Let’s call it 9.5 out of 10.Īll the tuners used the same antennas, by the way.Tuner Radio Player is, as its name suggests, a music player made specially for Android smartphones. One station was clean and clear in stereo on the Carver, weak and mono on the Denon and MCS, and totally missing on the Marantz. What I found interesting was that on FM, due to some special circuitry, very weak and close-spaced stations were able to be received even better than on the Denon. Like the Denon, the Carver includes selectable bandwidth on both AM and FM (on both tuners the effect is different but definitely helpful with reception and sound quality), as well as special noise reduction circuitry that worked better for me than did the Denon. KFI (640 AM), for example, sounded as good as if it were on FM … and I used the FM version of KNX (97.1) for comparison. ![]() AM was even cleaner sounding, with a special sparkle in the high end that made stations on America’s oldest band sound better than any other tuner I have ever tried. I’d rate it a 6 out of 10.īut just like I remember, the true holy grail was the Carver. It is better than a typical AM tuner from that era or now, but it just didn’t sparkle like the others in this comparison. Reception on both AM and FM was fine, but the fidelity of the AM side left a lot to be desired. The tuner is one of the earlier designs and did not include the expanded AM band that was proposed in 1988 and added in 1995, those stations from 1620 to 1700 kHz. The MCS tuner has a solid build quality … metal front panel like the Carver, though not as substantial. ![]() Plus, I liked the rugged appearance that included a full aluminum front panel that reminded me in-quality of the early superb Harman Kardon Citation tube series we once owned. ![]() I had previously compared the Denon and Carver head to head back in the early 1990s and decided to keep the Carver because at the time I felt it performed a bit better. I finally got around to doing so.The contenders: the Denon, also known as “the Super Tuner,” a Carver TX11b, and a Modular Component System (MCS) 3050, a tuner once sold by JC Penny when it offered a line of component stereos under their house brand, much like Sears did with its LXI and Proformance brands. I wanted to compare it against a couple of other tuners from around the same era, all of which are capable of receiving analog AM stereo, among other features. Sure digital HD radio is available, and some HD tuners, namely those from Sangean and a long-discontinued Sony, do a spectacular job receiving stations clearly with the added benefit of decoding digital HD streams that are sent along with the analog stations.īut for pure sonic performance on analog signals, the Denon is a tremendous tuner. Since that time a lot has changed in radio itself, but in general, tuners have not changed all that much. At least the National Association of Broadcasters thought so - they commissioned Denon to build it and take advantage of the latest technology and designs in order to showcase AM and FM broadcasts in all their glory. I spoke of doing a tuner comparison previously when I acquired a Denon TU680NAB tuner, at one time considered by some as the holy grail of home component tuners.
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