Sony HD Tuner.

I just got mine today, yet another Christmas present to myself.:D My denon receiver couldn't pick up a station if it was broadcast from my neighbors house. I picked this unit up for $79.50 on Amazon. I got it for 2 public radio stations I can only get in my car. Amazingly, it picks them up with ease. I am only using the cheap dipole that came with it. I may hook it up to my roof antenna, just to see what else I can find. It locks onto anolog stations great, and the HD stations are an added bonus. 96.9 here is "classic" rock, but they have an HD channel, and it only plays the Blues which is my favorite. This is a great tuner (not a radio) for very little coin. I have mine hooked up to my 2 channel McIntosh rig, and of course hooked to the Sierra's.
Happy Holidaze.

Jim

I've been eyeing this tuner myself. It has received very positive reviews and seems to be a true bargain.

I just got the sony hd tuner about a week ago and was a"and B"ing it against my old sony st-730 es fm tuner, its not even close my 730 just blows it away, the 730 has a larger and deeper sound stage, it's more 3 dimensional sounding, better stereo separation, upper mids and highs are much better on the 730, the sound goes way past the speakers were as on the hd sony you only hear sound in between the speakers and it is more one dimensional sounding, when going back and forth i notice you are missing allot of sounds on the hd tuner that you can easily hear on the 730, if i could sum it up, the hd tuner sounds like you are listening to a amplified clock radio, the only nice thing about it is that it's reception is very good and it is cd quiet, i ran the test on my infinity renaissance 90's, adcom 710 preamp,pass x250 amp, on my second system , polk speakers the hd tuner sounded as good, if not better than my harmon receiver, but my polk speakers are not as revealing as the infinity ren 90's are, with the ren 90's if you have a weak link in your components the rens will reveal it, i am sending my sony hd tuner to be modified by radioxtuners.com mike, the owner told me that if i get the Treble Correction and Audiophile output with active filter (Xtreme) mod done that the new sony hd tuner would blow away my old sony st-730es, i have to wait two months to get it done because you have to get on a waiting list, when i get it back i will post the results, check out Mikes sit he does a bunch of mods to the new sony hd tuner, radioxtuners.com

Thank God I don't have your refined ear!
Lets see if I have this right you feel that "the hd tuner sounds like you are listening to a amplified clock radio," yet you are going to spend $150.00 on mods to make it sound like what?
The place that does the mods refers to it as an exceptional tuner, that can be made better with their mods.
I am quite happy that my hearing is so out of whack that i enjoy this " clock radio".

like i already mentioned, it does sound pretty good on my polk speaker system, the polks are nowhere's near as revealing of a speaker as my infinitys are, my infinity renaissance 90's are planar speakers, they are just so much better at revealing the weakest link in your electronics, you could easily hear the true sound quality of the sony tuner on the infinitys, the mod that i am having done, Treble Correction and Audiophile output with active filter,
Bypasses the sony hd tuners output amp and filter with a better circuit. Custom made with high quality components. Puts the tuner right up with the best out there in terms of audio quality
(xtreme) upgrades the output caps to Nichicon Muse, the opamp to a Linear Technologies chip and the Resistors to PRP's and larger filter cap,
Mike, from radioxtuners.com told me the opamp used in the sony hd tuner is of very low quality and with the upgrade the tuner will sound much better than my sony st-730 es, like i said, when i get the tuner back i will let you guys know if the mod is worth getting, as of right now i can't even listen to the sony hd tuner on my infinitys, it really sounds bad on them.

Got it.

Was listening to the sony hd tuner over the weekend and added the forced analog switch to it, in analog this tuner sounds a world better than it does in hd, now when i compare it to my sony st-730 es tuner it's sounds very close, in analog it is still quieter than my 730, the upper mids and high frequencies have more detail now, the sound stage increased and there is better stereo separation too, i come to the conclusion that hd's audio sounds really bad compared to analog, hd's background noise is just quieter, but at a price to audio quality, i can't wait to get the mods that i described above done, i think it will sound even better.

Well, i just got my sony hd tuner back from radio x tuners and had the extreme active filter mod done, before i shipped it out i bought a sansui tu -717 off ebay and was comparing the two tuners, the sansui sounded much better than the sony hd tuner, i had radio x tuners install elna silmic 2's instead of the nichicon muses for the coupling caps, now i would say the sony sounds as good as the sansui, they are very close, definitely worth getting the mod done.