jrethorst wrote:I'm in need of a new old tuner, and have settled on one of these two. I much prefer tubes, as my PAS-3x and twin Mk III amps will attest, but since mostly all if not all radio stations these days have digital signal paths, I wonder whether there's an advantage to a tube tuner. I also have the impression that they need alignment more than SS tuners do. Any thoughts welcome.
John R.
OK - let's put down a few myths before going any further, with specific reference to the FM3.
a) A careful alignment using fresh signal tubes (nothing to do with the audio sections) will last many thousands of hours all other things being equal.
b) What you hear is analog, what your tuner receives is analog. What is 'digital' within modern tuners is the system that sets internal frequencies and holds them, and filters for station holding. Again, not so much to do with anything you are hearing - other than being a bit better at station-keeping and noise rejection. And there are definite advantages to digital tuners under difficult conditions.
Now, cutting to the chase - and whether you want an FM3, 5, or AF6 (I keep all three):
FM3 - if your target stations also happen to be torches, and some small distance apart in frequency, you will very much enjoy the FM3. By 'torches' I mean that they are in good line-of-sight, within 50 miles and around 5,000-or-more watts. It is not as if the FM3 is deaf, it is NOT that. But it has no mute, and it likes a strong signal for the least noise. And if ever there were a tuner that wants a decent antenna, it is this one. But it has very mellifluous sound. This tuner was largely worthless at our summer house, with our (single) target station being about 65 miles and 2 valleys away.
FM5 - a better tuner for more difficult situations and where you are dealing with tougher hearing conditions. Properly aligned, they can be very nice indeed. The sound is solid-state, but nothing to cry about. This tuner did fine in mono at our summer house, and drifted in and out in stereo.
AF6 - as above, but with AM. And, as it happens, the AM section is not half-bad. Not as good as my Grundig Satellit 700 for DXing, but good enough for a daily driver.
Note that the FM3, like most vintage Dynaco tube products has been subject to many tweaks and improvements over the years. And whereas the factory-built defects are well known and understood, the Full Stock version is no slouch at all. I have done most of the tweaks to mine, what they do is tighten the edges more than make quantum improvements. For all that, they are cheap enough and simple enough to do that I found that tightening worthwhile.
As an aside, the incumbent at the summer house is a Hafler DH330 - and there are no flies on that beast, at all. Clean stereo from the target station day or night and whether we are running the LED lamps or not.
