I suspect I am typical in having something which passes for a tuner in the shape of the ubiquitous Denon TU260L-MKII picked up cheaply. I don't assume for a moment that it's anwhere the Linn Kudos or NAT-02 I listened to 10 years ago but different home, different aerial set-up and different broadcasting environment makes comparisons pretty worthless.

I can never quite bring myself to take a chance on a Magnum Dynalab in case FM is short-lived or in case the difference in sound quality is not as vast as has been painted, the Leak Troughline presents a dichotomy of opinion from superb to you-have-to-live-next-door-to-the-transmitter.

Smart money might be on the latest Sony or Denon hybrids although it seems the FM performance will not be noticeably better than I already have. The Marantz ST-7001 just might be a smart move.

Then we have the 70's uber-Tuners, from Japan mainly, as picked up by folks like Tony L and allegedly one of those hidden secrets, until you try bidding on eBay or wonder if you're picking a lemon rather than something sweeter as there must be some to choose and some to avoid amongst the similar-styling.

The main problem seems to be that most comments are of the I-just-bought-this-it's-great kind which doesn't give a lot of perspective as folks don't seem to write a lot about how they have found different tuners to perform. Dem or home-dem opportunities are not generally realistic either rendering it all as a bit of a lottery.

So every few weeks I think about improving the tuner and I go round a wide circle of everything I have just written. Then, one of life's events takes priority and distracts me for a while and I do nothing. Then it starts again.

I bet I'm not the only one.