That was me who did the comparison elsewhere on the MR74 vs the MR88. I've since upgraded a few of my components and was thinking of trading in my MVP871 and MR88 towards an MCD500, so I fired up the MR88 again for a fresh look at things.
As I mentioned originally, the MR88 pulls in stations that my Modaferri modded/aligned MR74 simply cannot pull in, or at least not as effectively. There is a station from a college about 30 miles from me that I can pull in with the MR74, but it's difficult to pull in a stereo signal. The MR88 pulls it in with minimal noise and never jumps back and forth to mono. I also have great luck with another very low power college station nearby. Otherwise, signal strength isn't an issue as I live within 5 miles of all the major transmitters in Chicago.
As for sound quality, I'm still a bit divided. The MR88 does provide a bit more in the lower end than the MR74 does. However it seems to be the highs are much more defined on the MR74 and the sound is more open. I've even tried comparing with the HD features turned off to prevent lossy compression or low bit rates from interfering and the 74 often sounds better on the highs. That said, I can't tell if it's because the MR74 is coloring the signal to something that just sounds better to my ears. I also like the ability to choose my own stereo filter setting on the MR74.
Other than it's ability to pick up the distant stations, there are other features I like on the MR88. Most of the major stations in Chicago have an HD sub channel (for better or worse) and some have an HD2 or 3 with alternative content. I've found I think 2 HD sub channels that are broadcasting AM content, which is a nice option. I've yet to hook up the RAA2 antenna, but I can't imagine it's going to be worse at getting stations than the ferrite rod on the back of the MR74. Lastly, the inclusion of the XM tuner is a nice feature and I'm looking at picking up one of the mini-tuners.
Even though I currently only have one listening setup, I'm keeping both tuners. I will probably retire the MR74 for a bit and keep the MR88 as my main tuner for now. I think both tuners are worthy additions to any system.
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