Finally put up a nice antenna, now I need a good tuner to go with it...

premiumplus

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#21
T-85 is in a different league
Okay, I'm convinced. What would you call a good price for one, Joe? There's one now that is clean and at $225, and then there's another one that has a power switch that looks scoggled up for $45...I want a nice, clean one. Is $225 a fair price, or would you hold out for a better buy?
 

Gepetto

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#22
Okay, I'm convinced. What would you call a good price for one, Joe? There's one now that is clean and at $225, and then there's another one that has a power switch that looks scoggled up for $45...I want a nice, clean one. Is $225 a fair price, or would you hold out for a better buy?
150-175 is the current going rate...200 on the upside if it is mint or near mint.
 

grapplesaw

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#27
Sansui tu919

If you want one of the best tuners I have a cherry tu-919 tuner with rack Handles along with a very clean au 515 amp with rack handles for sale. Maybe i will sell my tu-9900 tuner also, undecided on this one.
I can ship the tu919 in an original Sansui box which I got with the au 515 (the box has to go for the greater cause)


Pm me if interested
 

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#28
Both Sansuis are great tuners, Glen. The TU-9900 would be a hard one to part with.

Nando.
 

orange

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#29
If you decide to sell the TU-9900 let me know, there is a TH member who dreams of owning one although they tend to go out of his budget on eBay.
 

grapplesaw

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#30
Both Sansuis are great tuners, Glen. The TU-9900 would be a hard one to part with.

Nando.
I agree Nando. The tu-9900 has been with me to long to let go. The tu-919 is a different thing all together. It was the last and maybe best Sansui tuner built. I just do not use it any more. I bought it from germany years ago and flew it here. It was my one and only purchase from Europe. Came from a dealer there.

Glen

This from http://www.fmtunerinfo.com/sansui.html

Sansui TU-919 (1979, $585, front, closeup, back, inside, block diagram, brochure1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) search eBay
The TU-919 is now widely recognized as a top tuner and a worthy rival of Sansui's classic TU-9900 (if perhaps a bit short of a TU-X1). The TU-919 has a 5-gang analog tuning capacitor with a digital LED readout like the TU-719 has. Our panelist Bob has details on the TU-919's 4 filters: "The filters are set up a little differently than, say, a KT-7500. The TU-919 uses three 280 kHz GDT flat group delay 3-pin filters for the wide IF bandwidth mode, and what appears to be one 150 kHz 3-pin filter for narrow mode - all Murata, and well-matched stock. In narrow it is using all 4 filters, and in wide just the three 280 GDT's. As a result, the wide mode is not super wide, and really almost makes the narrow extraneous, sort of like the Accuphase T-100 or Kenwood KT-8005 or 8007. The TU-919 would probably be great for DXing with a 110 kHz filter in narrow for getting adjacent channels." The TU-919 is more sensitive than the TU-717 and 719, and our audiophile reviewers agree that the TU-919 sounds great. AM radio listeners should note that the TU-919 has a wide-narrow filter for the AM band which can eliminate typical AM splatter noise, making it the best-sounding AM section Bob has ever heard. He adds, "Sensitivity is very good, and the TU-919 excels in having probably one of the best stock stereo blend noise filters. It really does a good job killing the noise, keeping the stereo image, without rolling off the highs. The ergonomics are good, but you are wishing you could turn the crystal lock off on occasion. It locks on and hangs on well past the indicated dial marking, then lets go and steps to the next frequency (in .1's). It's just odd because you are now well past where the dial says you should be. It does this in both directions, depending on which way you approach the station."

Our contributor Ed Hanlon did some work on a TU-919: "My favorite tuner of all time is a newly modified TU-919. First off, we defeated that silly quartz lock tuning (but kept the pretty green LED on all the time). Next we rearranged the filter configuration so that instead of 3 filters functioning in wide mode, now just two do. The narrow band, which before only added a fourth filter to the 3 in wide, now has 2 filters. So instead of being a 3+1, this tuner is now a 2+2. Wide bandwidth has enhanced fidelity, and you can even notice a difference between the wide and narrow settings! And unlike our first go-round with defeating quartz lock tuning (in the TU-719, perhaps?), defeating the lock on the TU-919 works perfectly. Right now I'm listening to WQXR-96.3, with no splash from my local station on 96.5, and it sounds wonderful. The one nit I can pick: even with the stereo threshold cranked all the way down, this tuner will pop in and out of stereo on very weak signals. By changing the pot that controls the stereo threshold, the user can decide how much noise is too much, and has the option of using the very fine FM Noise Filter this unit employs. It looks like the stereo threshold will affect the muting, meaning that if we change that pot, we may lose the muting function. I say 'who cares?' I never use FM muting anyway."

Our panelist JohnC did a comparison: "I initially felt that my modded TU-919 was better sounder than my TU-9900, until I got around to replacing the 9900's op-amps, direct coupling the output and bypassing the variable output control. Huge, huge improvement, made the 919 sound flat, and this after having felt that the 919 was my reference. Relooked at the 919 and replaced a couple of electrolytics with some film caps, and a couple of other things knowing now what could achieved, and it came in much closer than it had been." See how one TU-919 sounded compared to other top tuners on our Shootouts page, and read our panelist David "A"'s Ricochet. [JC]

The TU-919's normal sale price range on eBay is $500-700, but higher is possible for particularly nice ones. A TU-919 in good condition with rack handles can easily sell for $800 or more
 

Elite-ist

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#31
Glen: I guess I talked you out of selling it. I am a fan of Pioneer tuners of that same vintage and the Sansui TU-9900 would be one that would be difficult for me to let go... at any price, if I had one.

Nando.
 

Elite-ist

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#32
I use a Pioneer Elite F-91 tuner in my main system, pictured at the top of this stack:



However, I do have a few other tuners. An interesting one I recently sold as a combination deal was a Technics ST-8600 along with the SU-8600 integrated amplifier. I have another Technics ST-8600 that I kept.



Nando.
 

grapplesaw

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#33
I use a Pioneer Elite F-91 tuner in my main system, pictured at the top of this stack:



However, I do have a few other tuners. An interesting one I recently sold as a combination deal was a Technics ST-8600 along with the SU-8600 integrated amplifier. I have another Technics ST-8600 that I kept.



Nando.
Very nice!!!!

The pioneer Elite is very nice indeed

Here is an other one to think about

I need to figure out how to add photos. It is an other perfect unit just like yours look Nando


Kenwood KT-990D (1988, $375, detector/MPX scheme: PLL detector, "Direct Pure" linear multiplying circuit with MC 1495L) search eBay
Somewhat of a sleeper until Jim's Shootout hit the presses, the fairly common KT-990D is a humdrum-looking black digital tuner. It has the electronic equivalent of 5 gangs, but 2 are in the local oscillator, so it's really like 4 by our traditional method of counting. The KT-990D has 2 ceramic filters plus an LC filter for the Wide IF bandwidth mode, and 3 ceramics in Narrow. The output amp is an NJM4560. There is a Direct Loop Linear Detector (DLLD), which is Kenwood's implementation of a phase locked loop detector, only seen on top performance tuner models. The "Distortion Cancellation Circuit" appears to generate a distortion-canceling signal that is mixed into the signal to correct for IF filter non-linearities. Our contributor John L. reports, "The KT-990D has a button labeled RF Selector that switches between Direct and Distance, which is the same as local/distant. There is also a button labeled Active Reception that switches between letting the user manually select the IF and RF settings or letting the tuner automatically select those settings."
 
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Elite-ist

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#37
Was that picture taken with flash, Lee? It's hard to take a good picture in the man cave without lots of lighting and, especially, when your subject is silver and desirable.

I had a Pioneer TX-9500 II put on hold for me at one time at Innovative Audio. It was as nice as yours, but I thought with the SX-1980 receiver, I already had a good enough tuner section, and passed on the tuner.



Nando.
 

Elite-ist

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#39
Very nice!!!!

The pioneer Elite is very nice indeed

Here is an other one to think about

I need to figure out how to add photos. It is an other perfect unit just like yours look Nando
Thank you, Glen. I like a few of the more modern slim-line tuners, including that Kenwood KT-990D. I use a Denon TU-460RG downstairs.

Nando.
 
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