Practical advice when buying a Tuner
When it comes to good music in the home, you have to be careful in choosing tuners. Tuners are not that easy to choose from, they are particularly hard to audition in-store, as the reception there may be extremely poor. So if possible, try to arrange an in-home trial. Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) Tuner Presets Radio Data System (RDS) Band Type Station Memory Remote compatibility Menu Entry System Colour
To help you make the right choice when looking for a tuner, you should consider the following points before your purchase.
1. Look closely at the functions. How many pre-set stations can be stored in the memory?
2. Try to avoid non-digital tuners because they give a lot of trouble during tuning between stations.
3. Check if tuner has Digital Audio Broadcast (DAB) and Radio data System(RDS) facility.
Until now, analogue radio signals such as FM or MW have been subject to numerous kinds of interference on their way from the transmitter to your radio most probably due to mountains, high-rise buildings and weather conditions. DAB, however, uses these effects as reflectors creating multipath reception conditions to optimise receiver sensitivity and by using a tiny non-directional stub antenna you can receive CD-like quality radio programmes even in the car without any annoying interference and signal distortion. DAB can carry not only audio, but also text, pictures, data and even videos - all on your radio.
Many tuners allow you to preset AM or FM radio stations, so they can be easily navigated with a touch of a button. Most systems allow at least 10 AM/FM presets. Number of presets can range from 10 to 100. An average tuner must have at least 20 to 30 presets.
The use of more and more frequencies for radio programmes in the VHF/FM range make it inceasingly difficult to tune a conventional radio to a desired programme. This kind of difficulty is solved with the Radio Data System. Once a radio is tuned to a programme service broadcast within a network, using the RDS feature Enhanced Other Networks (EON) additional data about other programmes from the same broadcaster will be received. This enables the listener, according to his choice, to have his radio operating in an automatic switch-mode for travel information etc.
It is useful to find out that how many and which bands your tuner is covering. It might be covering any or all of these bands. FM, AM, MW and LW.
Tuners with station memory helps you to find out your last chosen station with one touch and in some tuners you can find up to last ten stations. Station memory also helps you to store your favorite stations. Station memory is normally available to FM radio stations only but you can get tuners whose station memory cover all frequencies. It is important to find out that your chosen tuner can store only last station or any station of your choice.
Not all tuners come with remote control or even have remote compatibility which has real advantages. If your tuner is remote compatible make sure it is compatible with your receiver or amplifier. Mostly same makes of tuner and receiver can cope with remote compatibility.
Menu entry system enables you to write text of your own choice for your favorite stations.
Tuners are available in different colours and you can choose your favorite colour or colour to match other equipments in your room.
