"Colin B." wrote in message
...
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.



Most FM stations are flooded with advertisements and 90% crappy music too,
that probably is the biggest reason for it's decline aside from the
convenience of CD's.