I recently purchased a Rotel RT-1084 from the original owner. I don't have a spot in my rack for it, yet, so I put it on top of my Lumin to give it a listen, this morning. The original seller purchased it in 2008, at Listen Up, and kept the tuner in immaculate condition. The original box contained all the original accessories, remote, optional Sirius accessories, literature and receipt. Including shipping, I paid $325 for the tuner. The original price with the satellite radio accessories was a bit over $1000. The seller was asking a bit less than most sellers over the last few years because I've had a "saved search" on eBay to notify me every time there's a listing. As it turns out, this one was listed on Audiogon.
I listened via the analog outputs because I didn't have a digital cable at hand.
On HD broadcasts, analog broadcasts, and Sirius broadcasts, the sound was the best I've heard from a stand alone tuner. The original owner included the Sirius receiver and antenna so I decided to try it and it worked. I don't have a Sirius account but still received the programming. The tuner made Sirius listenable - I've never subscribed to it (I assume one still needs a subscription?) because I can't take how unnatural Sirius sounds in any car in which I've heard it.
While the Lumin sounds decent streaming stations via Tune In, the Rotel sounded incredibly better on the same stations. I didn't get to compare the Rotel to the built in HD tuner of my Marantz home theater pre-amp but I'll eventually do that when the Rotel finds a space in the rack. The Marantz sounds very nice and listenable (more listenable than other tuners I've owned) but my guess is the Rotel might be a higher quality tuner component.
Eventually, I'll try the digital output of the Rotel to see if an outboard DAC further improves performance. As it stands, the analog output was great and I would be entirely satisfied with using the analog outputs.
Highly recommended if someone is looking for a stand alone tuner with HD/Sirius capabilities and flexibility of connections.
