Budget tuner?

Any Sansui TU-XXX tuner.

NAD 4300 (I own) or 4155 (check out fmtunerinfo.com ratings). The NAD 4300 originally retailed for $495 in 1988, I paid $125 on ebay and it is much, much better than the $1300 receiver that it replaced. I'm not a big fan of the older analog tuners (who needs extra work) as you can get a good solid state tuner as more and more people abandon the FM world. You can pay alot more and not get something as good.

Get lazy and find a rotel, denon or sony with remote. I got my denon 380 for about $120 and it sounded as good as my MD101 for almost all broadcasts (there is very little high quality radio in my area). There might be the rare occasion where a live broadcast could be a little better, but for 500 less and a nice remote, it's worth having the denon.

I had harman kardon tu-940. A wonderful tuner. I guess you can buy it easily at very low price.nb

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.