Budget tuner?

The Yamaha T-1 is the one I have. If you want the best possible tuner buy under $100 this may be the one you should have too. It is not a super-tuner, nor could be at the price, but it is astonishingly musical.

I also like Rich's suggestion, above, that you consider a receiver from the seventies. It is true that some of them had excellent tuners. Luxman, Sherwood, Marantz, Harman Kardon come to mind, but the Sherwood may be the best suggestion for the price you want to pay. Sherwood was renowned for its tube units in the sixties, and the tuner sections were the best part of their later receivers.

I third (or second, or fourth) the Sansui suggestion - it's a buyer's market right now with lots of decent ones available for very little money. fmtunerinfo.com as suggested is a great starting place, but don't be afraid to drag in one they don't list - they don't cover everything that's out there. And above all, as Aball suggests - get an MD ST2 antenna - even if you pay more for it than the tuner itself, this antenna is for real - you won't want to be without it.

I'm going to disagree just a little from the above post. I've been watching tuner sales on ebay, etc for a while now, and it appears to be a seller's market. I think most people use fmtunerinfo.com as sort of the bible now for which tuners are the best to get and from there, vintage MAC's, Sansui's, Pioneer's etc., are commanding very high prices, much more than just a few years ago. My suggestion is a real sleeper, the Yamaha CT-1010. If you read the review on fmtunerinfo.com, it didn't get high marks, only because the person submitting the review had a bad unit. So this tuner, which was Yamaha's next down in line from what people consider to be the best Yamaha, the CT7000, has much of the CT7000 incorporated in it and will sell for about $75.00. It is a fantastic tuner but because it didn't get the "thumbs up" from fmtunerinfo.com, it's not highly sought after, so at the prices it sells for, it's an absolute steal. Good luck!
Mike.

Michaela - I think we're still watching the same program. You've named a unit not "blessed" by the fmtunerinfo site - I'm also not talking about the top Sansui models, but an echelon of well-built "second-tier" models (not so highly-acclaimed), also around $75-$100 used. It's clear that a "blessing" on fmtunerinfo is worth more than it should be - the buyer's market is in the plentitude of very good "also-rans" of interest that aren't receiving this price attention.

It'd be interesting to know if there's anything at all to get excited about in the "dregs" on Ebay - quartz tuners in the $zero-$50 range. Some look serviceable, maybe even nice, but do any of these sound any good, or draw/hold stations at all well - or is all of this stuff early-generation and of little interest?

you can still get a sansui off ebay at decent prices-i got a t80 a month or so for 9$ -thing is in great shape just a light out on the front pannel-it sounds nice also.