I have a small space into which I want to put a decent stereo. I bought a
Sony "bookshelf" system, recommended by both the clerk and a customer who
was there to buy a portable system. It fits and it sounds good (to my
somewhat ruined ears, at least). But, the tuner is terrible. I went back
to the store, where they sold me a powered antenna. It's better, but still
not as good as it should be.

I have a 10-year-old boom box. When I put it near the same place, it works
perfectly, with nothing but whatever it has for an internal antenna.

The guy at the store says all the mini systems have more or less the same
tuner (on a chip?). He thinks the only possible upgrade is a "real" stereo
tuner, but I don't have the space.

Any suggestions?

Dick.'

On Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:56:10 -0500, Dick Monahan dick.dickmonahan@com wrote:
I have a small space into which I want to put a decent stereo. I bought a
Sony "bookshelf" system, recommended by both the clerk and a customer who
was there to buy a portable system. It fits and it sounds good (to my
somewhat ruined ears, at least). But, the tuner is terrible. I went back
to the store, where they sold me a powered antenna. It's better, but still
not as good as it should be.

I have a 10-year-old boom box. When I put it near the same place, it works
perfectly, with nothing but whatever it has for an internal antenna.

The guy at the store says all the mini systems have more or less the same
tuner (on a chip?). He thinks the only possible upgrade is a "real" stereo
tuner, but I don't have the space.

He's full of ****. Return it and buy any brand other than sony, such
as panasonic. The problem is that sony got cheap and didn't want to spend
the extra penny to do it right.

"TCS" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:56:10 -0500, Dick Monahan dick.dickmonahan@com
wrote:
I have a small space into which I want to put a decent stereo. I bought a
Sony "bookshelf" system, recommended by both the clerk and a customer who
was there to buy a portable system. It fits and it sounds good (to my
somewhat ruined ears, at least). But, the tuner is terrible. I went back
to the store, where they sold me a powered antenna. It's better, but
still
not as good as it should be.

I have a 10-year-old boom box. When I put it near the same place, it
works
perfectly, with nothing but whatever it has for an internal antenna.

The guy at the store says all the mini systems have more or less the same
tuner (on a chip?). He thinks the only possible upgrade is a "real"
stereo
tuner, but I don't have the space.

He's full of ****. Return it and buy any brand other than sony, such
as panasonic. The problem is that sony got cheap and didn't want to spend
the extra penny to do it right.



A good tuner can be hard to find even at higher prices. The manufacturers
seem to think we can't hear the diference. (They're probably right for the
most part.)

Mark Z.

On Tue, 8 Feb 2005 20:17:33 -0600, Mark D. Zacharias wrote:

"TCS" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:56:10 -0500, Dick Monahan dick.dickmonahan@com
wrote:
I have a small space into which I want to put a decent stereo. I bought a
Sony "bookshelf" system, recommended by both the clerk and a customer who
was there to buy a portable system. It fits and it sounds good (to my
somewhat ruined ears, at least). But, the tuner is terrible. I went back
to the store, where they sold me a powered antenna. It's better, but
still
not as good as it should be.

I have a 10-year-old boom box. When I put it near the same place, it
works
perfectly, with nothing but whatever it has for an internal antenna.

The guy at the store says all the mini systems have more or less the same
tuner (on a chip?). He thinks the only possible upgrade is a "real"
stereo
tuner, but I don't have the space.

He's full of ****. Return it and buy any brand other than sony, such
as panasonic. The problem is that sony got cheap and didn't want to spend
the extra penny to do it right.



A good tuner can be hard to find even at higher prices. The manufacturers
seem to think we can't hear the diference. (They're probably right for the
most part.)

Yes, but an average tuner is litle more than an RF transister and a tuner
chip. Sony shouldn't have gotten cheap on the RF input stage. I guess they
wanted their expensive gear to seem worth the extra hundreds of dollars by
skimping the penny out on the minisystem.

"TCS" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 8 Feb 2005 20:17:33 -0600, Mark D. Zacharias
wrote:

"TCS" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:56:10 -0500, Dick Monahan dick.dickmonahan@com
wrote:
I have a small space into which I want to put a decent stereo. I bought
a
Sony "bookshelf" system, recommended by both the clerk and a customer
who
was there to buy a portable system. It fits and it sounds good (to my
somewhat ruined ears, at least). But, the tuner is terrible. I went
back
to the store, where they sold me a powered antenna. It's better, but
still
not as good as it should be.

I have a 10-year-old boom box. When I put it near the same place, it
works
perfectly, with nothing but whatever it has for an internal antenna.

The guy at the store says all the mini systems have more or less the
same
tuner (on a chip?). He thinks the only possible upgrade is a "real"
stereo
tuner, but I don't have the space.

He's full of ****. Return it and buy any brand other than sony, such
as panasonic. The problem is that sony got cheap and didn't want to
spend
the extra penny to do it right.



A good tuner can be hard to find even at higher prices. The manufacturers
seem to think we can't hear the diference. (They're probably right for the
most part.)

Yes, but an average tuner is litle more than an RF transister and a tuner
chip. Sony shouldn't have gotten cheap on the RF input stage. I guess
they
wanted their expensive gear to seem worth the extra hundreds of dollars by
skimping the penny out on the minisystem.

Preaching to the choir. I've posted many times about cheap tuners, and
rotten quality FM broadcasts. People around here are probably tired of
hearing it.

My latest rant:

Require all broadcasters to junk their Opti-Mods, etc in favor of a simple
DBX 2 to 1 compression. No worse than what most of them are using right now,
gives them all a level playing field, AND is reversible at the receiving end
for hi-fi purposes.

Mark Z.

On Tue, 8 Feb 2005 20:17:33 -0600, "Mark D. Zacharias"
wrote:


"TCS" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:56:10 -0500, Dick Monahan dick.dickmonahan@com
wrote:
I have a small space into which I want to put a decent stereo. I bought a
Sony "bookshelf" system, recommended by both the clerk and a customer who
was there to buy a portable system. It fits and it sounds good (to my
somewhat ruined ears, at least). But, the tuner is terrible. I went back
to the store, where they sold me a powered antenna. It's better, but
still
not as good as it should be.

I have a 10-year-old boom box. When I put it near the same place, it
works
perfectly, with nothing but whatever it has for an internal antenna.

The guy at the store says all the mini systems have more or less the same
tuner (on a chip?). He thinks the only possible upgrade is a "real"
stereo
tuner, but I don't have the space.

He's full of ****. Return it and buy any brand other than sony, such
as panasonic. The problem is that sony got cheap and didn't want to spend
the extra penny to do it right.



A good tuner can be hard to find even at higher prices. The manufacturers
seem to think we can't hear the diference. (They're probably right for the
most part.)

On the other hand, the "My First Sony" (a very robust tuner+cassette
player) we bought for our son outperform most other tuners in the
house when it comes to receive stations without multipath or other
distortion! Hi-fi it ain't (mono through a 4" speaker), but it's damn
good reception. It is the only receiver we have that can recieve a
strong station 10 km away within sight, without choking. What gives?

Per.

Mark Z.

On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 21:44:06 +0100, Per Stromgren wrote:
On Tue, 8 Feb 2005 20:17:33 -0600, "Mark D. Zacharias"
wrote:


"TCS" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:56:10 -0500, Dick Monahan dick.dickmonahan@com
wrote:
I have a small space into which I want to put a decent stereo. I bought a
Sony "bookshelf" system, recommended by both the clerk and a customer who
was there to buy a portable system. It fits and it sounds good (to my
somewhat ruined ears, at least). But, the tuner is terrible. I went back
to the store, where they sold me a powered antenna. It's better, but
still
not as good as it should be.

I have a 10-year-old boom box. When I put it near the same place, it
works
perfectly, with nothing but whatever it has for an internal antenna.

The guy at the store says all the mini systems have more or less the same
tuner (on a chip?). He thinks the only possible upgrade is a "real"
stereo
tuner, but I don't have the space.

He's full of ****. Return it and buy any brand other than sony, such
as panasonic. The problem is that sony got cheap and didn't want to spend
the extra penny to do it right.



A good tuner can be hard to find even at higher prices. The manufacturers
seem to think we can't hear the diference. (They're probably right for the
most part.)

On the other hand, the "My First Sony" (a very robust tuner+cassette
player) we bought for our son outperform most other tuners in the
house when it comes to receive stations without multipath or other
distortion! Hi-fi it ain't (mono through a 4" speaker), but it's damn
good reception. It is the only receiver we have that can recieve a
strong station 10 km away within sight, without choking. What gives?

Sony didn't get cheap and trim off the penny that time.