Vintage Tuners

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Hi Newbie,

If you haven't already, check out fmtunerinfo.com. You'll find a lot of information, links and reviews of vintage tuners. Sadly, ebay may be your best source, but you could also check audiogon.com. This site is mostly high end, high $$$, but I have seen some vintage pieces there too. I can personally vouch for the Magna Dynalab F101A Etude. Very nice.

Have fun,
Looney
 
I have owned a Revox B760 for 25 years and see no need to upgrade. Fmtunerinfo.com gives it high marks.

From an engineering viewpoint, the front end design is one of the best I have ever seen. Revox liked tantalum caps and used them in the audio signal path, so I replaced those where possible and upgraded the opamps on the audio board to NE5534s.

They do show up on Ebay but the price is usually bid up very high.

Regards,
Ray
 
For the pleasure : a lovely, rather small and real vintage, I own is a Sansui TU555, it has a circular dial and is almost as fast to tune as a digital one. You have the curious feeling that the tuning knob is of the just right diameter. Sound is very good too. I used to own the TU777 with similar aesthetics but much larger and wiht a larger tuning knob : less nice to tune, and a less magic sound despite the greatest complexity. I love these beautiful vintages.

~~~~~ Forr

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DNSEY
---Leak Troughline---
I've got one for about £ 10 alltogether with what may be the first solid state Leak amp (called stereo 30). Inside this valve mk3 tuner, nothing seems to have ever been changed and it's still working fine. It hasn't a stereo decoder so I've to add it some day. The Troughline series 2 and 3 are considered by bristish magazine Hifi-World as the best sounding tuners ever made.

~~~~~ Forr

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You're very fortunate!
It's well worth having your tuner realigned to get the maximum performance from it.
The original Leak multiplex decoder wasn't very good, so you're missing nothing there - they work best with outboard decoders.
Unfortunately, the Stereo 30, despite being designed as a replacement for the celebrated Stereo 20, is very average - but still worth £10 on its own!
 
What used to be East Germany has lots of vintage audio gear on ebay. Couldn't believe my luck when I read the specs of the Akai AT-93 on the tuner site:

http://www.fmtunerinfo.com/reviewsA-N.html#akai

I stole it by bidding 3 times more than it was likely to fetch. :)

Even then I got it for 53 euros, in total £70 inc exchange rip, shipping and registered posting of my cash payment. My very first piece of true audiophile equipment.
 
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Joined 2002
johnthedoctor said:
What used to be East Germany has lots of vintage audio gear on ebay. Couldn't believe my luck when I read the specs of the Akai AT-93 on the tuner site:

http://www.fmtunerinfo.com/reviewsA-N.html#akai

I stole it by bidding 3 times more than it was likely to fetch. :)

Even then I got it for 53 euros, in total £70 inc exchange rip, shipping and registered posting of my cash payment. My very first piece of true audiophile equipment.

When I worked for Akai I redesigned the power pcb of AT93 for my own purposes. The tuner can be better with a better PSU. Every supply is taken form the same 15V source which is not the most elegant solution. Apart from that it is a wonderful tuner, full class A and without global feedback....
 
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