Are you referring to a TU-919?
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normansizemore"The tuner on my 9090DB is better performer than my McIntosh MR-78" You're McIntosh tuner obviously needs repair, alignment, or adjustment for this result that you report here to be factual, accurate, and true. |
I have a TU-717 that I got from the original owner. It’s been modded/upgraded according to fmtunerinfo and is mint condition. The sound stage is amazing. You that are unfamiliar with the fmtunerinfo site should take a gander, especially at the shootout pages. You might be surprised at what some of those old tuners are capable of. The 919 is a step above mine, it’s also a fine tuner but I’d venture to say it should be serviced and caps replaced. Most folks in here probably never heard of the Kenwood L-027 but here’s part of the write up from the shootout page. . Copy/paste from the fmtunerinfo site: The Sansui TU-919 sounds SO much like the L-02T that I found it quite disturbing. They had the same low, lush, powerful bass. The imaging was excellent on both, they were both very three-dimensional in their presentations, the highs were sweet and never fatiguing, and I could listen to either of them for hours. It took me a very long time to come up with any sonic differences. Female voice and highs were just a touch lighter with the TU-919, or should I say the L-02T was a touch darker-sounding? The differences were very, very slight. At times, while listening to female vocals, I imagined she stepped off the stage and sang to just me through the Kenwood but stepped back on the stage and sang to everyone at my "table" through the Sansui. Just an image of the slight differences. The technical side of me was disturbed that it was so hard to tell them apart. One tuner’s audio stage uses discrete transistors and the other tuner uses op-amps in the audio section, but in a unique way. Why do they sound so similar? Just good designs? Luck? The planets were aligned just right? Whatever, the L-02T may have met its match. |
I have the Sansui 717, 719, 919, and 9900. From the Kenwood side, have the 8300 and KT917. From the Yamaha line, I have a hot rodded T-2 and the CT7000. The audio stage on the T-2 is completely redone with Vishay resistors....HUGE improvement in resolution..... 919 is really good, great ability to pull in a station. Better than the 700 series, and 8300. Similar to the 917. The 9900 is really nice too. depending on prices, any of the top tuners from that era are going to be good. When you get to the top tuners from Japan in that era, the majors were throwing real engineering horsepower at FM improvements. Even if the alignment is off a tad, they still sound really good. Now all you need is a good signal for them to pull in..... |