re-discovering radio as source

took delivery last week of the Denon TU-260 MkII Tuner, bought for around £48 inc, and being the first 'radio' source played through the amp and speakers I now have, I was very pleased with the result - and wished that I'd bought a s/h FM Tuner earlier.

What I do like is the 'roundness' of the sound compared with CD replay. although the soundstage is big and bold, the hi-lo range of FM seems to be less than CDreplay, but compensated by a rounder, sweeter top end.

what is addictive though is all that new music that the radio can give me, without having to change CDs all the time!!

OK, have to confess that I'm still using the internal aerial supplied, so scope for improvement. And there's all those digital channels I'm not getting. I can get those through my Sky+ box, with better quality than DAB: I have plans to pipe that digital (optical) out to my Dax Decade to decode but switching on the TV monitor to listen to radio (would) still feels odd.

what proportion of your music listening happens via 'radio' when compared to 'CD' or other source?

 

9:30pm,

I'm sitting at the computer with the radio on ABC Classic FM listing to...
SYDNEY INTERNATIONAL PIANO COMPETITION OF AUSTRALIA
Direct broadcast from the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall presented by Marian Arnold
PRESENTATION OF AWARDS AND RECITAL BY THE FINALISTS

Fantastic sound from my old Kenwood KT-727 tuner

Alan

 

i use a pc / squeezebox / dax2 as my source - this allows me to play losslessly ripped (flac) music and internet radio streams very easily. i can even include a radio stream in a playlist so it will switch over to radio at the end of my list so as not to leave a silence.
for internet radio - quality depends on the streams resolution - most are 96k mp3 which isn;t great - about hte same quality as my old arcam dab10, listenable but noticably gritty. once above 128kbps it improves a lot but most of the stations i listen to are the 96k (various trance / chillout stations not r1 etc). i can also use my ntl cable box to listen to loads of different radio stations if i want to but tbh cannot be arsed.
cheers


julian

 

There's that word again

I must admit radio 6 is wonderful, and many an hour will be spent listening to that once I get a Dac

 

well I listen to Radio 3 and ClassicFM most of the time I listen to radio - mostly when I am driving and occasionally on my PC or at night in my bedroom.

I must say I like radio for the variety and for finding new music.

I have no radio on my hifi setup though. I am planning to use the receiver part of the surround amp (i will eventually get soon - prospecting) to give me the analog radio, and potentially in the future try the DAB stuff.

Jack

 

Neyank, many think that Troughlines are the best FM tuners ever made.

Big radio buffs change the stereo decoder in them. You can get this done at www.emporiumhifi.co.uk in the UK, or seeing as you're in the states just order the board and get it done locally..

Or not ! - if you're happy in stock form.

nice radio you have there.



Chris

 

I lust after a Tandberg 3001A tuner.



Some audiophiles think the black, 8-gang 3001A, sometimes called the TPT-3001A, is one of the best-sounding vintage tuner.

 

I used to have a TU-260 Mk2 tuner. It was noticably poorer sounding than my Sky+ box playing DAB. It was even more noticably poor than me playing MPC files from my hard drive, through my soundcard. Waste of money IMO.

 

Well yeah, but i did say IMO (which means In My Opinion).

Besides, I'd have a hard time believing anyone would prefer the Denon to the Sky box, but there you go

Then again, I couldnt be arsed messing around with it to try and get a good signal. Too much like hard work in my room at least.

 

I rarely listen to much radio these days, I can't really get a very good signal despite having a good 3m worth of aerial which despite being on the ground floor should be adequate, it seems my mums rubbish philips ghetto blaster type job can pull in a clearer signal with its inbuilt 1m aerial - I'll investigate a new aerial sometime I think.

My tuner is a Marantz ST6000, which I bought s/h for £90, not sure whether it was worth it really, probably not given the amount of use it does get, but an occasional listen is nice, and it does look nice on the equipment rack . One thing I have been tempted to do is record onto the PC from the radio, some live D&B sets off radio 1s late night and such like....never been awake when some of it is on though (usually quite late )

 

I'm very much looking forward to the summer's Proms on Radio 3 - and DAB @ 192kbps sounds pretty decent to me.

 

OK, you've digital source from CD and DAB - how do they compare?

 

I've got a 4'x3' antennae aimed straight at Holme Moss http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/holmemoss/holme-moss-on-ice.asp this give me a very good signal on my Audiolab 8000T.

Used mainly for Radio 4 news & comedy and Radio 3 music. Evening concerts, Late Junction for a very good selection of "different" music, even a recent interview and profile of PJ Harvey!

Andrew

 

Arguably it's not really a fair comparison as I've got a fairly cheap tuner and a reasonably posh CD player. I don't think DAB is as bad as many people make out - some people reckon FM is better but you can only really compare the two if you've got very good FM reception which I never did.

128kbps is OK for background listening but the high-frequency chattering noise and lack of detail do get on your nerves if you're listening seriously. 192kbps (as with most of Radio 3's programming, particularly the Proms) is pretty damn good IMO - there's still a touch of high-frequency noise discernable on sibilants and the like, and you don't quite get the space, detail and dynamic range of a good CD recording, but I'd guess a lot of that is due to the constraints of recording "live" somewhere like the Albert Hall rather than necessarily the technology. If the BBC starts offering 256kbps services within the next few years then DAB should be a really exciting prospect.

 

For discovering new music I quite often listen to http://soma.fm/ and keep an eye on the artist if I like whats playing.

I tend to listen at 128K

 

DAB is great for time-shifting. I record hours of Late Junction, Mixing It and Jazz on 3 onto my HD recorder through the optical out on my DAB tuner. Previously I used to miss most of this stuff. And BBC 7 is great, despite the criminally low bitrate and mono signal.

For "normal" listening, analogue all the way, either through my Pioneer TX-9800 classic tuna, or recently-acquired Leak Troughline II, shortly to be stereofied with the addition of an external decoder.

-- Ian

 

"OT question:

I have some musical fidelity gear, but I have not auditioned the a3cd. Does it really recover subtle ambient cues, and decay well? That was the weakness of my Arcam cd-23T"

It seems fashionable to knock MF stuff, but I've been very happy with the A3. it's very good at picking up low level detail, on quiet classical pieces you can hear a musician breathing or sometimes the rustle of clothing. Play's Black Sabbath nicely as well !

When I bought mine 2 years ago I auditioned it with an Arcam CD72 and bought the MF. Although as the Arcam was £449 new and the MF was £425 s/h it's probably not a fair comparison.

I don't know how it would stack up against the uber expensive gear some forum members have , guess I'll have to start going to Hi-Fi shows, there being a lack of decent dealers in Liverpool.

 

Oo, you git!! didnt know you had that!!!

no fair


will be interested to hear what you think of it. ''Word on the street'' is poor reception, but incredible sound. Maybe being in central London poor reception might not be such a problem!

 

i frequent Radio 1xtra and Kiss FM on Freeview...so much so i'm quite tempted to get a dab unit for the car...
otherwise, i have a Harman Kardon av reciever and thats about all the representation FM gets in Rory's hifi setup

 

tried my first FM vs digital testing last night but to no final end. In the FM corner is the star budget Denon 260 MkII, with indoor aerial, fed into AudioLab 8000 in integrated mode. In the digital corner is Sky+ box, with outdoor dish, fed into Meridian 561 then 10m length of 75 Ohmn coax into Dax Decade and AudioLab 8000S in poweramp mode.

first round: more detail on the digital but pleasanter in FM

need to look again at what I'm doing in the Meridian 561 ...