Re: Helpful hint on AM reception

[Sven Franklyn Weil <sven@gordsven.com>]

On Sun, 12 Nov 2000, Martin J. Waters wrote:

>         If, like me, you have a fancy "tuner" or "receiver" as the
> centerpeice of your home stereo, but the AM reception is really bad, you
> might try this.

I have two such radios at home - a Harmann-Kardon and a Marantz.  Since I
paid nothing for the former and 25$ for the latter, I can't really
complain.  But I was really dissapointed by the quality of the AM section
in these radios.  

In their time, they were probably in the 500$ to 600$
category - and they have superb FM tuners and - INMHO delicious-sounding
amplifiers, but the AM part just blows.  

I think the manufacturers assume that people who buy these radios don't
listen to AM except for the 1010-WINS or 1030-WBZ news-quickies,
preferring instead the superior quality of FM.

On top of the lousy AM recption, the dials on these radios are so
hyper-sensitive, that breathing on the knob wrong will make it go
off-center.

P.S:  An article I read in Consumer Reports stated that most modern-day
digital-tuned receivers also don't have much in the way of an FM tuner
either.  I guess most people are now opting to just get the radio for its
amplifier section and have the tuner for when they're too lazy to play a
record. :)  

--
Sven F. Weil
email: sven@chookus.com
WWW homepage:  http://home.gordsven.com/gordsven/sven
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