[Bill Noble[_2_]]

I went out and bought one of these based on this recommendation and several
on the web - my comment is that the tuner is quite nice electronically, but
from a human factors point of view it is useless - I may get rid of it.

I (like I suppose some other people) have my stereo in a cabinet. The tuner
sits on top of a CD player - I expect to walk up and interact with the tuner
by pressing buttons or rotating a tuning knob - this is impossible with the
Sony - all the controls are on teh top and in my cabinet I can't see the top
much less interact with it in a meaningful way

The unit has no memory - or at least a short memory - I turn my stereo off
with a master switch (because the stupid Mark Levison equipment draws nearly
full power when off) - I don't want to go around flicking individual
switches - when power is removed from this unit for more than a certain
amount of time (the Sony FAQ says 1/2 hour) it forgets presets and stuff

the remote is small, easy to loose and illegible to those of us of "a
certain age" - in my case its use is mandatory because as I noted one can't
reach the buttons located on the case top - I really don't like remotes, the
ones for my other equipment mostly sit unused in the cabinet next to
whatever they control - so if the unit only had a couple of controls on the
front, I could ignore the remote and it wouldn't be a problem.

that said, it does sound good - if I can figure out some way to live with
its flaws....

"Fred." wrote in message
...
I just installed the Sony HD tuner at my office today and was very
impressed. The location is on the the first floor of a steel frame
building with the bulk of the building on one side and a levy on the
other, plus a number of trees enhancing the view, but not FM
receiption. The antenna system is indoors, a standard 300 Ohm twin-
lead folded dipole connected to the 75 Ohm input with a matching
transformer.

With my conventional tuner, which may be none too great, I was
receiving one station well enough that I could listen to it, plus 5 or
6 others well enough to follow, had I wanted to endure it. Once I
connected the tuner I was receiving 8 FM HD stations, and 14 analog FM
stations at listenable clarity, most of them quite clean, and another
5 analog stations I considered marginal, but at a raised standard of
marginal.

By the way, don't get carried away by my enthusiasm. What I hear is,
IMO, very good for FM reception, but nowhere near CD quality. The HD
is low in noise, has a good stereo image, and sounds clear but a
little brittle. The FM is noiser, has a noticably poorer stereo
image, with a little slurring overall, but otherwise seens more
natural than the HD. To me, the brittleness is less annoying than the
noise, but with fine enough reception I might change my choice.

Because the antenna which came with the radio is a little less
conspicuous, I tried swapping it for my dipole and transformer. No
dice; about half the stations disappeared. So if you're stuck with
an indoor antenna, you might want to spend a few dollars, and it
should be just a few, on the dipole and transformer.

Our local public radio is HD and has some live broadcasts in the
evenings, sometimes the local symphony, which is quite decent, and
sometimes other local soloists, so I'm considering buying another for
home.

Fred.