kirkg@uw-june (Kirk Glerum) (01/21/84)
This last Christmas, I shopped for stereo gear for my father. The
receiver I eventually picked was the NAD 7120. It has a digital tuner,
which is what my question involves. The FM frequency increases by
increments of .05, which is the sort of thing I always used to laugh at,
since all FM stations broadcast at odd tenths. So between the possible
stations of 101.1 and 101.3, the receiver will tune to 101.15, 101.20, and
101.25. The salesman told me that this was for people in places where the
frequency will drift away from the designated number, so you can realign
your receiver to match. I countered with the Technics (among others)
method of having the receiver center in exactly on the signal, to some
unknown precision. He said fine, but if the signal was too weak, the
receiver wouldn't be able to find it to fine tune it.
So which method of tuning is preferable? Or do all the analog fans
out there dislike digital tuners as well as discs?
Kirk Glerum
...decvax!microsoft!uw-beaver!uw-june!kirkgjreuter@cincy.UUCP (Jim Reuter) (01/25/84)
The salesman who said the .05 frequency increments on your receiver was for people who lived where the frequencies drifted was a blowhard, at least as far as this countries FM broadcasts are concerned. FM stations are required by FCC regulations to stay within 3 kHz of their center frequency, which is an increment of .003 on the receiver! Anyone who drifts beyond this is broken and must shut off the equipment or fix it. Generally stations hold much better accuracy than that. I once heard a rumor about some european countries having stations on the even tenths (like 101.2), but don't know if this is really true. Jim Reuter
danny@alice.UUCP (01/28/84)
The amount of frequency drift in the carrier freq of a commercial FM station is negligible; ditto for a well-designed digital FM tuner. The main reason for .05 MHz steps in some tuners is that the European band plan allows for stations at .05 Mhz increments (93.05, for ex., is a possible European FM channel). Some tuners allow you to select either .2 (US) or .05 (Euro) increments. Under some circumstances where the desired station is being interfered with, some people perceive less distortion when slightly mis-tuned (96.35 for 96.3, for ex.); this might be a legitimate (tho not very strong) argument in favor of a non-digital tuner or a digital tuner with Euro-increment capability. Don't believe everything (anything?) the salesperson in the audio store tells you. (Ditto Usenet, judging from some recent contributions.)