Are there any new receivers that have decent radio reception? Just picked up a new Onkyo receiver and the FM tuner has ok sensitivity but terrible selectivity. The AM section of the timer is practically useless. The sensitivity of the AM is absolutely horrible. I'm using the included loop antenna for the AM and a T type antenna for the FM. The receiver I have is model 8220. Sounds fantastic otherwise. I'm old school and demand decent tuner performance somewhere close to what I get in the car.
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Stereo receiver reception
- Thread starter toddalcorn
- Start date
I bought a new JVC receiver 25 years ago and the AM section was garbage. Even then they figured no one cared about the AM capabilities.
You won't get the kind of performance of a car radio from a home receiver. They weren't designed for that. Most people would be content with good sound on locals only which is why they have the bandwidth of a Mack truck. I picked up a Technics tuner with selective IF width which closed up the splatter from strong adjacents even with a 6 dB amp. AM is another story. I've used quite a few separate components to get what I wanted. There's not too many one-size solutions to wide FM and narrow AM widths.
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I would suggest you start reading HAM radio publications. The DX folks on this site are very knowledgeable too.
If you can find an auto junk yard you might score an old Motorola car radio which we used for an old EBS in a high rf site in the 1980s. IIRC the old Ford in dash mono radios (around 1975) were really good just driving around Signal Mountain (Chattanooga) where several TV and FM stations had their antennas.
If you can find an auto junk yard you might score an old Motorola car radio which we used for an old EBS in a high rf site in the 1980s. IIRC the old Ford in dash mono radios (around 1975) were really good just driving around Signal Mountain (Chattanooga) where several TV and FM stations had their antennas.
Look at reviews on Crutchfield: https://www.crutchfield.com/
I haven't heard a listenable AM radio section in a home stereo receiver since my dad's old Scott receiver from the 1960s.
You could try to find a Denon TU-680NAB on Ebay if you really want to hear "hi-fi" AM radio through your receiver, but why? Otherwise, why not use something like a Qodosen DX-286 and plug its output into your receiver, if you must. But your stereo hi-fi speakers will emphasize all the undesirable high-frequency noise and it's better to listen to AM on a good standalone radio with its sound quality tailored for it.
The Sangean HDT-20 component tuner has good reception, supports HD Radio, and is not very expensive. That could be a nice upgrade.
You could try to find a Denon TU-680NAB on Ebay if you really want to hear "hi-fi" AM radio through your receiver, but why? Otherwise, why not use something like a Qodosen DX-286 and plug its output into your receiver, if you must. But your stereo hi-fi speakers will emphasize all the undesirable high-frequency noise and it's better to listen to AM on a good standalone radio with its sound quality tailored for it.
The Sangean HDT-20 component tuner has good reception, supports HD Radio, and is not very expensive. That could be a nice upgrade.
Maybe consider going in another direction. I bought one of those Qodosen DX-286 portable FM-AM receivers last spring and its reception is excellent, and the flexibility built into it is almost overwhelming. Maybe, for somewhere between $75 and $100, consider picking up one of those -- possibly a gently-used one -- and patching it into one of the line-in inputs that you won't be otherwise using, and get your signals into the receiver that way?
Sansui's 1980s tuners with multi-system AM Stereo are great for cleaning up AM reception, especially at night, because they use a synchronous detector, which greatly reduces the effects of selective fading and and skywave/groundwave cancellation. Plus they have a filter which does an excellent job at removing the hiss from a weak FM Stereo signal while still preserving nearly complete stereo separation.
There's also the Meduci MW-2A which is an analog AM-only tuner with selectable bandwidth and C-Quam support, but no FM section. It's a very niche item but here it is if that's what you want:
meduci.com
AM STEREO
The world of AM Stereo renaissance radio reception, with samples of some powerful technical discussion.
I hated the 2007 Kia I owned, but the one good thing about that car was that its factory radio had a very effective AM noise blanker. When I drove under a noisy power line, there was no buzzing or crackling; the audio just got distorted, and if the interference was especially bad, it would start sounding choppy, as the noise blanker removed increasingly large portions of the audio waveform.
@toddalcorn, take the advice of of the people recommending the Qodosen DX-286. It was built by an electronics engineer who is also a radio nerd. He integrated an actual automotive radio chipset into the unit, and as a result, it has extremely good AM and FM reception on par with the better automotive radios from the past. The headphone output provides full FM stereo and can be used with an appropriate adapter cable to drive the line level inputs of other audio equipment (just don't set the volume adjustment too high). You might still want to acquire a more "serious" tuner eventually, but the DX-286 is so good for the price that it will easily tide you over in the meantime.
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I think the Qodosen is the best option out there today. The audio quality is excellent and there are multiple bandwidth options on both AM and FM. That said, the "automatic" bandwidth option for FM works well and, in most cases, you won't need to change it. Four AM bandwidths are available. The only downside I've found is that the battery is very slow to recharge. Make sure you have a good quality Li-ion battery. Amazon has sold a package with the radio plus two rechargeable batteries which I found to be a reasonable deal.
The Tecsun PL-320 is also a good option, and has a reported 9 kHz bandwidth (though I suspect it's a little less) available on AM but the AM automatic gain control is way too aggressive on some signals for my taste. The FM sound quality is acceptable but not as good as the Qodosen, in my opinion.
If it's like its predecessor, the HDT-1 (or 1X), the AM bandwidth is adaptive, based on signal strength. The maximum bandwidth is 5 kHz with a brick-wall roll-off, which can sound odd.
Even 45 years ago, the reviewers, such as Leonard Feldman, of stereo equipment in the hi-fi magazines of the time didn't give much coverage to the AM sections of the receivers and tuners that they wrote about. AM audio bandwidth was already constrained and most manufacturers treated AM as an afterthought.
So, sure, you could go to a vintage receiver or tuner, but proceed with caution, for many reasons. The New York Times' Wirecutter section has some advice: The Perks and Perils of Buying Vintage Audio Gear
For FM listening the Sony XDR series of radios have been a favorite of DXers and I still think they are one of the best at selectivity and sensitivity, and great stereo separation even on weak signals. There are 3 different models, all use the same AM/FM DSP chip. The XDR-F1HD is the component model with line out and no speakers. The XDR-S3HD has speakers and headphone out so it can be connected to a receiver. The XDR-S10HDiP has speakers but no headphone out, but its the cheapest/most available model on the second hand market and can be modded to have audio out by splicing into the speaker wiring. For AM listening these radios are great DX machines, but they are limited to narrow ~5khz audio by default and that cannot be changed. You pretty much need to go for a radio made before 2000 if you want good audio on AM.
Along with the extra battery I purchased an external charger as well. Charges faster and I always have a charged battery available.
A few years back, my Kenwood Integrated amp died and I went to our local Best Buy and bought a new Sony Receiver to replace it. The selectivity and sensitivity of that receiver was almost "non-existent." I purchased a rebuilt Kenwood KT-7500 (1977-1979) tuner off of Ebay and ran it through one of the Aux connections on the receiver. During the same time frame, I had a Sangean HDR-18 (HD Radio) I had bought for my Dad but he gave it back to me. (too complicated for him to use). I ran the HDR-18 through one of the other Aux connections on the receiver and compared the two tuners. The sound of the KT-7500 in Analog was far superior to the HD audio coming out of the Sangean HDR-18 Radio. Sadly, consumer audio equipment is just not made to the level of quality it was in the '70s. If you can find a vintage tuner that has been refurbished, then, in my opinion, that would be your best option for listening to AM and FM Radio in 2025.
It still won't matter for AM if you're in an area/house that has a lot of electrical interference. Also the old tuner won't have the expanded band for AM, either.
Are you comparing the analog audio from a full-channel, full-bandwidth FM signal to the audio of the same station/channel, or an HD subchannel? Because if you're not, if you're listening to *either* the main channel in HD mode – especially if that station is multicasting and therefore giving a reduced bitrate to the main channel – or one of the bitrate-constrained subchannels, it will never sound as good. The only way to truly do an A-B test is to disable the HD mode on the HDR-18 (if that's even possible) and compare analog to analog.
BTW, I agree about older equipment. I'm still running a Sony ST-80F tuner into a Sony TA-1150 amp into H.H.Scott speakers in my office. I bought all of those in the first few years of the 1970's, and they still sound great for 50+ year old audio equipment. (It's only my hearing that's suffered the ills of time.)
It depends on how old and which model. I had a Technics receiver from the mid-1980s with digital tuning which covered 520 to 1720 kHz on AM, albeit with a very narrow audio bandwidth.
If the HDR-18 is anything like the HDR-14, HD mode can't be disabled.
I perceive that it was around 1993 when performance started regressing. I have an NAD 4300 tuner that I bought in St. Louis in 1990, and had refurbished around 2005. It sounds excellent and has superb sensitivity along with two bandwidths, digital tuning with a knob...no skew buttons...I hate skew buttons, and even a tolerable AM section. I bought a second one on eBay about 15 years ago as a backup. Both tuners are in service; one upstairs, one downstairs.
Unfortunately, with Voltair devices and other things crappifying many FM signals, high-quality equipment mercilessly exposes deficiencies in today's FM stations' audio chains. iHeart in particular makes analog broadcasts sound as bad, if not worse, than their bit-starved digital equivalents.