Dan, thanks for the comparo. You did a great job with this.
I wrestle with the idea of a new tuner. I've been using a Mac MR-80 since I bought it new decades ago ... back when I was using a biamped Infinity RS 2.5 speaker system. At that time, an excellent tuner was at the heart of virtually every serious hi-fi system. I bought the MR-80 after auditioning a bunch of other top tuners. At the time, it was arguably the best available.
The MR-80 has been serviced a few times over the years and still sounds great, but of course the quality of FM has declined steadily over time. It's not only the programming that has suffered, but SQ as well. The addition of an HD signal contaminates the analog FM signal, imo ... at least to a point, and most FM stations compress their audio much more than was common back in FM's heyday. So while it's always been true that an FM tuner is only as good as the signal it receives, high quality FM signals are more rare than ever.
Even though I still listen to FM, all this makes it very difficult for me to justify the cost of a new FM tuner. I love the look of the Magnum Dynalab tuners and they've sounded great when I heard them at audio shows and - were I to upgrade - I'd also consider another Mac. But to spend that kind of dough just for FM? It's difficult to rationalize here in the third millennium.
Of course, much in our little audio pursuit is difficult to justify, so perhaps it's not fair to single out FM for warranting spending restraint. Since buying the MR-80, I've gone through a few speaker systems, preamps, amps and sources. Every change has resulted in a worthy audible improvement. Would an upgrade from an MR-80 also result in improvement? Quite likely! Would it be worth the thousands of $$$$ necessary to get there? It's a thought I ponder.
This review gives me a little more to consider - so thanks for that, Dan. Perhaps it is fortunate that I have no local dealer or pal to loan me a new Magnum Dynalab. Without the benefit of a direct comparison, the MR-80 still sounds great.
|