FM alive and well here...curious question

Since I love KCRW from Santa Monica so much. I bought a xdrguy modified Sony XDR F1HD tuner (discontinued model) from eBay. It was delivered yesterday.

I have a Magnum Dynalab St-2 antenna (located in a porch) and this antenna is connected to my Magnum Dynalab Signal Stealth. I am using a coax cable splitter to send the antenna signal from the Stealth to 2 tuners, the Sony (FM + HD) and a Magnum Dynalab 205. The analog output of both are fed into my Benchmark DAC2 HGC. I can quickly switch the inputs from each analog tuner. So it is easy to tell the differences in sound quality. This is in office system.

I did a quick test this morning while KCRW was playing music on FM (news for most of the afternoon). The Sony ($350 after mods) was almost as good as the $2000 Magnum Dynalab 205 on FM. Pretty shocking give how low cost the Sony is (although upgraded with mods). The Magnum sounded bigger slighter less constrained but the Sony was pretty close.

I bought the Sony so that I can listen to the HD stream of KCRW which plays music 24 x 7. The sound of that is not as good as FM (sounds a bit harsher, but surprisingly not too bad). So I can now see why people are raving about this Sony tuner. A tremendous value.

Someone earlier in the thread asked what was to bit rates of the internet radio that I was listening too. It was 320kbps or lower. In fact I was a paid subscriber to MOG streaming service and they did 320kbps. I liked that stream quality when I listened on my cheap AudioengineUSA A2 speakers but when I upgraded to KEF LS50 speakers the music was not tolerable for me on 320kbps. FM sounds great on these same speakers.

Anyways, I thought I would share some of this ramble with you all.

yyzsantabarbara-

I suppose if I lived in an area with no reception, I would rig something up. 

 Getting a handful of stations (including the awful rock stations) is a luxury. Our Classical station has been doing the pledge drive and I've heard "movie themes" way too many times. 

Thats when I bounce between the 88.1Jazz and KCRW.
Both come in strong here, on the coast in Long Beach. On good days I dial in a "9" with dead center tuning-just great Mac/tube sound.

The Jazz station has unfortunately morphed into once in awhile "straight ahead" Jazz and most of the time smooth jazz with a standard squeezed in. Better than nothing.

I use my tuner on occasion and actually have the antenna in the attic- I have not gotten around to running the cable but it's something I had planned to do.  Basically one good FM station in the Chicago area that I like.  
But I recently purchased the Sony HAP Z1ES digital player and it came bundled with tune-in radio.  It sounds better than any tuner I have ever heard and opens up access to a tremendous amount of world wide broadcast and online stations.  
Running the cable to my attic just went from a "maybe someday" to "probably never".  

I never would have sold my old Yamaha T-1 Tuner if there were any good FM stations in my area. Nothing but commercials, DJ's talking over songs, and the same songs played over and over. Soundds like AM to me. I would rather play a record or a cd. Radio too annoying and irritating.

zar-

I think it is also is dependent on genre station listened to. If it's rock and pop, yes. On the PBS stations, not nearly as much, but the on air guys are flapping their gums way more than in the past. Some of the reason may now be listeners/corporations just have to cough up more dough to just stay viable.

Our fearless leader cut even more money from public broadcasting, which has been going on for awhile, now.

I gave up on R&R radio in the 80's.