Tuner Recommendation for New York City

Hi everyone, great to see some of my fellow New Yorkers posting! I recently sold my Terk-FM Pro (a good antennae in the right place) for the same reasons. I live on the second floor of a 15 story building surrounded by other buildings of equal height. Talk about "surround sound". I am considering the MD "whip" antennae as well. Guess I'll have to order one and just try it. If anyone gets it before I do, please keep posting your impressions. *Current system: Musical Fidelity A3 Tuner, Harmonic Technology "Magic"interconnects with Harmonic Tech's Pro-11 AC power cord. I like to listen to WFUV (Fordham University's station at 90.7) but sometimes I can't get it, and when I can it's not very clear.
Anyone here who wants to shoot me an email at: butlermusic@mac.com feel free to so.

I just did a "shoot-out" with 6 different omnidirectional FM antennas last night. While these are all primarily designed to operate outdoors, you could use them indoors if you had no other options. None are big i.e. "TV antenna" sized or difficult to assemble.

Given the location that you folks are in, i would HIGHLY recommend playing around with the "junk" wire dipole antenna that most "audiophiles" laugh at. Not only do these have the advantage ( at least in your type of situation ) of being bi-directional to help null out multipath, it is actually tuned quite well in comparison to other "brand name" designs. You can position it for your at least a few of your favorite stations, which should give adequate signal strength and help to minimize reflections from nearby buildings. I would try to orient the dipole so that it is away from large metal structures and possibly near a window for best results. With a relatively decent signal, these "throw-away" antennas will hold their own against "products costing well over 10X, and maybe even 100X the price" : )

In plain English, i found that the MD antenna did not perform that well and you should save your money. This is especially true if you are planning to use this product inside of a building. It was very sensitive to what was in the nearfield and easily detuned by a human's physical presence or other "conductive" objects. The wire dipole was FAR, FAR less sensitive to this type of de-tuning due to the difference in polarization i.e. vertical for the whips and horizontal for the wire dipole. Given the near identical design, i would venture to say that the Fanfare would react quite similar in overall performance. The Metz antenna, which is the company that builds the Magnum's for them, would also offer the same results.

One other hint. Look for a good tuner with a HIGH "selectivity" rating. Since most of your problem might be due to front end overload i.e. stations coming in on more than one point on the dial, stations bleeding through other stations, strong stations sounding somewhat fuzzy or furry / lack of definition, etc... this would be more important that ultimate "sensitivity". To achieve high selectivity requires a circuit that is of "high Q" design and tubes TYPICALLY don't fall into that category since they are broadband by their very nature. Sean
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I will give my opinions as well, the others are very good also.

I am using the Fanfare FT-1A and I am very happy with, VERY! I find it to be quite musical and I chose it over the Magnums due to the remote and the presets. I think you would be quite happy with the MD's or Fanfare.

If you don't mind the size (and looks), consider a McIntosh MR78 or MR80. For the most part these can be found plentifully, are highly rated, can be upgraded (by many different techs) and their value seem to hold well.

I have the Fanfare FM-2G antenna Sean mentioned, I did not compare this to anything so I can't comment there, but I am quite happy with my reception.

My first recommendation to move across the bridge to Fort Lee where I experience, for the most part, great reception from the New York City stations. If that is not a possibility then read on.

I have a Fanfare FT-1A tuner that I love. I am on the 14th floor which is toward the top of the building facing the Hudson River. I have used the whip antenna and the Terk powered antenna in the past. I now use the Magnum Dynalab silver ribbon antenna with better results than the previous two antennas. I am told that if you can place the whip on your terrace or outside of your window it will easily outperform my current setup. There is an antenna made by a company called Godar that sits on top of your tuner that is supposed to give good results. I have not heard it so I cannot say how it performs.

It is difficult to determine what overkill is in terms of tuners. I use my tuner more often than any other source and it is my least expensive source component. In my system the tuner is a bargain. At some point we are able to get 90 percent of our current systems abilities for half of the cost. That extra 10 percent is what we pay for in High End audio equipment. That being said, I have seen numerous advertisements for High End tuners from New York audiophiles who felt that it was overkill for the esoteric tuners.

Good Luck

Harumph, I used the MD Silver Ribbon antenna with a 20+ year old Yamaha T-550 tuner (bought right here on Audiogon for the whopping price of $20) for about a year while on the first floor of a building in the West Village and then gave up. Since I've moved (top floor of a five floor-er surrounded by much taller buildings on all sides near Union Square) the tuner's lived in the closet. I never could get much in the way of a signal (let alone programming) that impressed me all that much. Maybe I should try again....? I guess this is one vote for how not to do it.