Personally, my favorite tuner for living out in the boonies is the CCPlus radio from the C. Crane Company. Mine is coupled with their Twin Coil Ferrite AM antenna and a T-bone FM antenna, all from their catalog. I have over $300 invested in this little setup, but it works great. As far as recording, C. Crane also offers the "Versa-corder" which records radio to cassette. I don't have one, but I know folks that do, and they love them.
As far as sound goes, the best-sounding radio I have is a Boston Acoustics Recepter Radio HD tuner. I've never used it for HD...I honestly just bought it so I could say I had an HD Radio. However, this little set is by far the best small radio I've ever heard. It, to me, sounds even better than the expensive Bose units. Then again, it wasn't exactly cheap. However, they do make it in a less-expensive non-HD version. That version, though, is only Mono. Keep in mind, though, that you'll need a better FM antenna than the one that comes with it.
I hope this is helpful!
