fish@ihlpg.UUCP (Bob Fishell) (11/20/85)
*** E A T IT *** After a year's delay, Radio Hack finally began selling their MTS stereo decoder. After looking at what MTS-ready TVs and VCRs cost, I decided to get one, at a cost of $140. The unit looks like a miniature FM receiver, with a dull-metallic front panel and fake wood-grained cabinet. Tuning is analog, with a switch that controls VHF low(2-6), VHF High(7-13), and UHF bands. There is no superband VHF band selection, so the unit cannot be connected directly to most cable systems. There are switches for stereo/mono recepion, secondary audio broadcast, and a "stereo synthesizer," which I'll get to later. Pilot lamps behind the dial indicate the presence of stereo or secondary audio signals. There is a tape monitor loop, and a switch to control it. There are volume and tone controls, and there is also a 1/4" headphone jack. The rear panel has both input and output connections for the video signal. 300 and 75-ohm connectors are available for VHF. There are two pairs of audio jacks for the tape loop. The unit has an integral power amp which is connected via push-contact terminals to a pair of speakers. Hack will throw in a pair of 4" speakers w/enclosures for an extra $10, if you buy them with the unit. The amplifier is rated at 2.5 w/ch, which is no good if you intend to drive anything other than a pair of squaukers such as those which are optionally sold with the unit. THD is rated at 1%; channel separation and S/N are not great, but are acceptable. I connected mine to my stereo system through 330-ohm resistors connected to the speaker jacks. When I want to watch TV without my sound system on, I can switch the speaker outputs to another, small amplifier and a pair of bookshelf speakers I had laying around (Hack didn't provide the switch, I did). Again, the unit is too underpowered to drive real speakers. The sound quality is decent, but not as good as FM stereo. Occasionally, you can hear compander noise. Since this occurs on some broadcasts and not others, I suspect this is due to an imbalance between the compression applied to the L-R signal and the unit's expander. The stereo is exaggerated; I suspect the L-R signal is boosted disproportionally in order to compensate for the mediocre channel separation. Again, this could just be a mismatch on the compansion. The audio track on "Amazing Stories" sounded pretty good last week. The pseudo-stereo that's broadcast when they're not pumping true stereo is not impressive, but it's not as objectionable as the "stereo synthesizer" that's built into the unit. This circuit is evidently nothing more than an unbalanced equalizer which sends parts of the audio spectrum to one channel, parts to the other. The effect is a bit like listening to cross-phased speakers, something that I don't like. Altogether, I think the unit is worth $140, and provides a welcome alternative for consumers that want MTS TV, but aren't willing to scrap their perfectly good mono TVs and/or VCRs just for the upgrade. Still, Hack could've made this box a little better. The amplifier is a joke; they should just have provided preamp outputs. Separate bass and treble controls would have been nice, too, instead of that moronic "tone" control. The "stereo synthesizer" is worthless. Finally, I'd like to have a control by which I could adjust the L-R signal in order to provide proper balance. __ / \ \__/ Bob Fishell ihnp4!ihlpg!fish
brown@nicmad.UUCP (11/21/85)
In article <1453@ihlpg.UUCP> fish@ihlpg.UUCP (Bob Fishell) writes: [author talked about Radio Shacks MTS TV tuner] >Altogether, I think the unit is worth $140, and provides a welcome alternative >for consumers that want MTS TV, but aren't willing to scrap their perfectly >good mono TVs and/or VCRs just for the upgrade. Still, Hack could've made >this box a little better. The amplifier is a joke; they should just have >provided preamp outputs. Separate bass and treble controls would have been >nice, too, instead of that moronic "tone" control. The "stereo synthesizer" >is worthless. Finally, I'd like to have a control by which I could adjust >the L-R signal in order to provide proper balance. Your review is pretty accurate except for the pre-amp output. The unit DOES have a pre-amp output. Use the tape jacks. I do not use the built in amp. Use the tape out jacks to the input of your amp. That is how I use it to record 'Amazing Stories' in full stereo. I would not what you did, ie, wire up the speaker outputs and switch them around. When the tape jacks are used, the internal stereo synthesizer is not available. It is only available at the speaker outputs. Do you have a balance control on your FM receiver? Use the one on the amp instead. You probably mean BLEND control, to control separation. The stereo separation is bad enough (about 20 db MTS spec), that I wouldn't want to blend any of the available separation together. Again use the tape out jacks to your stereo to improve the quality. At 200 watts/channel, the beginning soundtrack to 'Amazing Stories' sounds real good. CD quality it will never be. It will never be the same quality as FM. Too much video interference. -- ihnp4------\ harvard-\ \ Mr. Video seismo!uwvax!nicmad!brown topaz-/ / decvax------/