Sean O'Leathlobhair wrote:

(big ol' snip)

Or in other words, how much has the sound quality of FM tuners
improved in the last 20 years? There have been considerable
improvements in ease of use, I now have preset stations, RDS and
remote control which are all very nice. But I wonder if the new one
sounds much better than the old one did originally.

I would say that the sound quality of FM tuners has decreased steadily for
about 15-20 years. There are a VERY VERY few high end tuners that can
compete favorably to most higher-end tuners of two decades ago. While
shopping for a Magnum Dynalab, I ended up getting an ancient Sansui TU-9900,
and I'd argue that they're fairly comparable. (the Sansui after an alignment
may be better)

Nobody listens to music on FM anymore. Most of the stations are heavily
compressed, which makes a good tuner pointless. Most of the stations
compress because they can put out a higher apparent signal level, and
besides--no one has good tuners anymore. It's a big vicious cycle.

I'm lucky--including campus radio, I have three excellent stations locally
that broadcast the highest quality signal possible. Now I just need to find
someone to align this ol' tuner of mine.

Colin