higinbotham@relyon.dec.com (Brent Higinbotham) (06/29/90)
There has been occasional discussion of tuners here, but I've seen
nothing dealing with actual A/B home comparisons, which is what we did last
week. Ken Gosselin, Andy Croswell and I (in conjunction with some earlier
listening with my brother and another friend) sat down to audition 4 tuners I
had in my listening room: an NAD 4300, the Denon TU-800, a Magnum Dynalab
FT 101a, and a Luxman T-117. These tuners, with the exception of the NAD, are
highly rated in Stereophile's notorious "Recommended Components" listing. We
were listening through my old Lafayette Criterion 3001/ESS speakers*, recently
rejuvenated by the addition of an Adcom 565 pre-amp to my Adcom 555 power amp.
* A digression:
For a while now I had been considering replacing these
speakers. They measure 25x14x14, have a 10 inch paper woofer, and the Heil
ribbon tweeter. I listened to quite a few speakers in the 400-900/pr. range,
taking the best sounding home for further auditioning. While this or that
speaker excelled in certain small areas, none actually warranted the
expenditure. My original (naive) hypothesis was "speakers MUST have come a long
way since I bought these babies". I was apparently wrong. What has come a long
way is electronics. Replacing my old set-up with the new Adcom pre-amp, was
like lifting blankets off my speakers! (New Audioquest type 4 cables helped,
too) The guys will agree with me, they sound great, and were a sensitive tool in
our tuner evaluations.
I have a simple dipole run out my window and mounted on the peak of
my house. Inside, I split it to connect through a balun to any two tuners at
once. We matched volumes on all tuners.
Visually:
We all liked the warm glow of the Magnum's 3 analog meters --
Multipath, Tuning and Signal strength. And though it has a digital frequency
display, this was the only analog tuner of the bunch, with a nicely weighted
flywheel. Controls were basic and easy to understand. More on controls later.
The NAD was also a clean, elegant design with flywheel tuning.
But it is a digital tuner, and has a five bar signal strength meter and an LED
that lights when center tuning is achieved.
The Luxman was a more standard digital design, i.e., busier,
but not that bad. It had four vertical (three blue, one red) bars of 4 segments
each to approximate signal strength. Other LEDs and words advised you of
various states of the tuner. This was the "lowest" unit, about 2 inches high.
The busiest of all was the Denon. All read-outs were the same
gentle blue, but there were lines connecting this and that. The signal strength
meter had a useful seven segments, but they were divided into little lines to
look like 28! It had 30 pre-sets (!) requiring you to enter the number, plus
ENTER.
Before I get into control usefulness, the list prices of the units are
as below, followed by the "deal" price:
DENON 500$ 450$ (new)
NAD 500 375 (display = looked at)
LUXMAN 600 410 (demo = operated)
MAGNUM 775 705 (new)
Reception Controls:
Luxman was the worst. Two controls -- IF width, two position,
which worked reasonably well, and a button marked (something like) Auto Stereo/
Mono Muting. On "auto stereo" it would not stop on weaker stations, even when
they were being received in stereo. You would have to tune in Mono, then switch
to Auto just to see if the station might actually be coming in in stereo. An
awkward arrangement.
Denon had most everything you needed. A very nice three position
IF switch (with "super-narrow) that worked fine. Three levels of muting were
provided. MPX NR (blend) worked about as well as most, but we all prefer OFF and
ON rather than OFF and AUTO. The unit's downfall was the MODE switch. Again,
the "A" word: STEREO AUTO or MONO. A microchip decides for you, locking you into
mono (at the right times, but you could not override it just to check the nature
of the stereo signal), and bouncing you in and out of stereo ("AUTO") when you
wish it would just leave you alone in mono. This was considered a major weakness
of the unit.
NAD was pretty basic. IF wide/narrow, mono/stereo (simple, huh?)
and NR on/off! (The only thing you had to pay attention to was that NR is
normally engaged. You have to press the button to shut it off. But at least you
can -- most all of these "gradual blending of high frequency signals into a
clean usable stereo signal blah blah ..." seem to be very close to a mono/
stereo switch. I gather NAD's version is based on the Schotz system.
Magnum was the favorite. Again, four simple on/off switches. No
blinking signal diagrams or LEDs needed to clue you in. Flip a two-way switch
to point at the desired word: MONO or STEREO, WIDE or NARROW, ON or OFF (blend)
and ON or OFF (mute). A seal could operate these with his nose; none of those
tiny little buttons you have to press with a toothpick.
Listening:
Actually, though this process was the longest part of the test, it is the
simplest to sum up. I'll do it in two parts --
1. Reception
hands down winner,
the NAD 4300. This unit pulled in more stations, with more signal
strength, than any of the others. It produced a reasonable stereo
signal where the others could not. If you are interested in "DX"
and ease of operation, this basic machine is for you. AM reception
was probably the best (i.e., most) here, too.
The remaining three units came in close together, but with a slight
edge to the Magnum. The Denon and the Luxman were very similar in
their ability to pull in stations, but the Denon lost points because
of that aforementioned STEREO AUTO which just wouldn't let the signal
alone.
2. Sound
hands down winner,
Magnum Dynalab FT 101a (anyone surprised?)
A digression: don't forget, we are talking 101 *A* here. This is the
successor to the renowned 101. It boasts "25% more adjacent channel
attenuation", instant on capability (to relieve drift) -- thus the
replacement of the AFC switch with the defeatable blend switch
(thank goodness!), and a newly designed circuit board "wherein all
functions have now been integrated".
As they say up at AudioEnsemble, "The damn thing images!" It had a
broad soundstage, and a broad bandwidth (claimed to be 20Hz-17KHz).
I am particularly aware of highs, which the Heil tweeter reproduces
well. The Magnum was clean and even up there, much more so than the
other tested units. Ken thought the bass was much tighter and stronger,
and found a stronger center image. Nothing was out of place; it had
a nice "flat" quality, top to bottom.
The Denon and the Luxman sounded good. I would especially recommend
the Denon for a nice sound at a substantial savings over the Magnum.
All in all, my number two tuner choice. The Luxman was a bit behind
with a "rounder" or "warmer" sound some may prefer, bit which seemed
less natural.
A distant fourth was the NAD. As mentioned, it had the best reception,
but the worst sound. "Tubby", "chesty", "veiled" -- it sounded like a
pear to me -- thin at the top, heavy at the bottom. Like a jukebox.
If you like the sound some DJ's prefer to give their voices resonance
and authority, you might like the NAD. None of us did.
I am now the happy owner of the Magnum.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Brent "bIGhIG" Higinbotham
"It is the truth: comedians and jazz musicians have been more .WWWWW.
comforting and enlightening to me than preachers or politicians V _ - V
or philosophers or poets or painters ..." K. Vonnegut [ /" ]
|~=~|
<><><> higinbotham@relyon.enet.dec.com VWV
<><><><><><><> ...!decwrl!relyon.enet.dec.com!higinbotham
<><><><><><><><><><><> higinbotham%relyon.enet.dec@decwrl.dec.comkucharsk@number6.Solbourne.COM (William Kucharski) (07/02/90)
In article <4742@uwm.edu> higinbotham@relyon.dec.com (Brent Higinbotham) writes: >2. Sound > > hands down winner, > > Magnum Dynalab FT 101a (anyone surprised?) > > A digression: don't forget, we are talking 101 *A* here. This is the > successor to the renowned 101. It boasts "25% more adjacent channel > attenuation", instant on capability (to relieve drift) -- thus the > replacement of the AFC switch with the defeatable blend switch > (thank goodness!), and a newly designed circuit board "wherein all > functions have now been integrated". Hey, don't forget that the 101 is a pretty damn good tuner as well. Yes, there is a drift problem with power cycling, but then again my entire system has been powered down about three times in its entire life. If you leave the 101 on drift occurs once and you don't have to worry about it. However, I _DO_ wish that I could get that blend switch, but even the modifications you can have done to your 101 don't include it (sigh...). All in all, though, it's quite a bit better than the Carver TX-11a it replaced and the Luxman I auditioned at the same time... -- Bill -- =============================================================================== | Internet: kucharsk@Solbourne.COM | William Kucharski | | uucp: ...!{boulder,sun,uunet}!stan!kucharsk | Solbourne Computer, Inc. | = The opinions above are mine alone and NOT those of Solbourne Computer, Inc. =