[Audio Empire]

On Wed, 17 Nov 2010 06:50:46 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"Audio Empire" wrote in message


I don't doubt this at all. But let's face it, the 10B was
exorbitantly expensive in it's day (IIRC, the Marantz 10B
was about US$750 in its day.

If you looked at the 10B as a technical product, its construction and
pricing seemed to be pretty reasonable.

The box was pretty much full of parts. If memory serves it was farly heavy.
It
had a complex high-performance IF strip, multiplex section, and built-in CRT
tuning display. I don't think that there was a lot of fat. This wasn't like
the radios of the 1930s that did just about anything with a tube that they
could to increase the parts count.

In the day one might pay between $200-300 for a minimalist high end H.H.
Scott, or just under $400 for the far more complex top-of-the-line Fisher.
The price ladder to the 10B had a number of highly placed rungs.

Actually, arguably the best FM stereo tuner of that era was the H.H. Scott
4310. I knew FM radio station chief engineers who swore by them and said that
they had better RF and audio performance than did the 10B. The 4310 was a
handsome unit but it lacked the visual appeal of the 10B, not having the
oscilloscope. What it did have was much better stereo demodulator circuit
than did the Marantz. The 10B's multiplex circuit had lousy SCA filters. If
you tried to listen to a station which was stereocasting AND broadcasting
SCA, the tuner would whistle and there was no way to "tune" it to eliminate
that whistle. Over the years, a number of people have offered circuit mods to
address this problem, but to my knowledge, Marantz themselves never fixed it.


4310s were de rigueur if your FM station was part of the ad hoc "QXR Network"
on the east coast in the mid 1960's. This "network" stretched from Bangor
Maine to Washington DC along the Eastern Seaboard and originated with WQXR in
New York City. Affiliates, would pick-up the signal from the closest sister
station to New York city that they could receive with full quieting. Then
they would rebroadcast it. The tuners used were usually kept at the
transmitter site, and the antennas were high-gain log-periodics that were cut
to the frequency of that sister station. The tuners needed to have superior
RF performance for this duty and outstanding s/n. I always wanted one, but
they were far rarer than Marantz 10Bs. IIRC, they sold for about $500.



At this same time, one could
buy a very good-performing EICO HTF-90, factory built,
for about US$55).

A reality check. According to the 1964 Radio Shack catalog page 30, their
(pretty competitive) price for the assembled HFT-90 (mono) tuner was $69.95.
This is a mono tuner and *not* competitive in any way with the stereo
Marantz 10B. The Eico multiplex adaptor was $64.95 wired. The price for a
truely competitive assembled Eico stereo tuner was thus over $130.

OK, I got mine in 1962. I got it as a kit for $39.95 (bought from Allied) and
the stereo multiplex decoder I bought was a Knight-kit and it sold for $30. I
believe. The factory-built HFT-90 was $54.95 at the time. I remember that
clearly. If the price went-up in the ensuing couple of years, it went up.

In those days I used a Sherwood tuner whose street price was about $150.

Also a good urban/suburban choice. If one didn't NEED the RF performance,
there were a lot of decent, reasonably priced FM tuners available from Scott,
Fisher, Sherwood, Knight, Heath, Eico, Pilot, even Dynaco.

That means that it was mostly bought by wealthy people.

Virtually all of the truely wealthy people I know spend their money on homes
and boats, and have minimal audio systems.

And I'm sure that just as many wealthy people did buy fine audio systems. I
was friends with a local doctor in my home town (due to our mutual interest
in audio). He had a JBL Paragon speaker system (lovely piece of walnut Danish
modern furniture, mediocre - but interesting - speaker system) Marantz 10B,
McIntosh pre-amp/amp, Empire 298 'Troubadour" turntable/arm, Stanton
Cartridge. He also had a large colonial-style mansion, drove an XKE, and kept
a 40-ft sailboat at the local marina.

Different people had different priorities and all of this is anecdotal
anyway.


If they have a good audio ststem
it is part of their HT room. The truely elaborate audio systems I know of
were purchased by upper middle class professionals - doctors, lawyers, etc.
Newly not-so-rich.

It's this same dynamic (I believe) that drives a lot of
the prices in high-end audio these days. With the
possible exception of speakers, I think that most
high-end audio components are WILDLY overpriced. I cannot
see how any amplifier or CD player or DAC can be worth
some of the prices I see being asked for this stuff.
electrical components are simply not that expensive. Even
the best of them.

Agreed. IME high end audio kinda left this earth in the 80s and 90s. In the
60s and 70s the money spent on McIntosh or Marantz got you a technically
superior piece of hardware compared to a Scott or Fisher, which in turn got
you a technically superior piece of hardware to the common mass-market stuff
like a Magnavox or a RCA.

You are pretty much correct. Marantz, McIntosh, and the Harman-Kardon
Citation series was the creme-de-la-creme and these components were, for the
most part, what would today, be considered, "state-of-the-art". Occasionally
Fisher or Scott would make a superior product (like the aforementioned 4310)
and generally, these brands, among others represented good value for money.
I had a Marantz 10B once, I pulled it out of a "junk
pile" at an FM radio station that was redecorating.
"You're throwing this away?' I asked the chief engineer.
"Yeah, we just bought a Day-Sequerra as our studio
monitor. You want the old one?" DID I! Luckily, I could
do my own alignment. I had my Dad's old TV-FM signal
generator . As you say, it was easy to align of you
followed the instructions. I "retired" the 10B when I
bough a Yamaha T-85 tuner in the early '80's. It was more
selective, more sensitive, had a much better stereo
demodulator and to my ears, sounded a bit cleaner as
well. It's a moot point now, of course. There is no FM
left worth listening to....

I never compared my Pioneer TX9100 side-by-side to a 10B, but other than the
missing oscilliscope, it had everything it took to beat it. Being solid
state with crystal filters, it never needed re-alignment, and for the most
part it never had been manually aligned because it was built right from the
beginning.

The Yamaha T-85 is (I still have it, but there's nothing to listen to any
more. The FM band is just junk now-days, so I haven't turned it on in years)
digitally tuned, has THREE separate, selectable crystal IF sections for
narrow, normal, and wide bandwidth, a PLL multiplex demodulator (but all
tuners had that by then), and used discrete devices in the audio section and
no electrolytics in the audio path.

One of the best FM tuners I've ever had is almost an after thought. It is in
my Sansa Clip Plus portable digital music player that cost me about $35
including shipping. Its weakest link is its antenna which is also the
headphone cable. It has no manual adjustments at all.

I've done some online checking and the FM tuners in $1 all-in-one chips may
put even the 10B to shame with impressive features like double conversion
receivers.

Technology does that. It's funny, as technology gets better, the
infrastructure to support it makes the advances in that technology moot.
Incredible FM performance from cheap chipsets, and nothing to listen to. Cars
that can do 200 MPH+, and even in Europe, speed limits are being imposed
where just a few years ago, one could drive as fast as one liked but the cars
weren't as fast or as safe as now.

The little Sony tuner that we oohed and ahead over about a year back is
actually a very expensive and overbuilt device. A lot of its relatively
massive size and cost are due to its HD FM features, not its basic
functioning as an traditional FM stereo receiver.

Yet it's a very cheap device at less than $100.