New MR89 Tuner

[Fbgbill]

I would love to own one but where I live, there are only about 2 FM stations available and I would need to erect an outside antenna I guess to get those.

[W9TR]

It will be interesting to hear this baby. DSP can bring a lot to the table that an excellent analog tuner would be hard pressed to match. That’s one of the things that make the Accuphase tuners sound so good - their digital signal processing. If the RF front end is as good as McIntosh knows how to make it, then adding a digital FM discriminator, digital filtering to get rid of all the HD and SCA crap, and stereo decoder would be the bomb in terms of audio quality.

I wish they had kept a linear tuning dial and used the meters for signal strength and multi path. McIntosh owners already probably have two sets of meters on their gear anyway.

Why do I hate Hybrid Digital (HD) radio? Let me count the ways.
* Creates on channel interference increasing noise especially in older timers.
* Increases first adjacent channel interference.
* Has higher distortion and lower fidelity than analog FM. I personally find it fatiguing.
* Uses proprietary codecs, the details of which have never been published.
* Is a proprietary format owned by a single entity with all licensing revenues going back to that entity.

[Vintage Pete]

Originally Posted by W9TR

I wish they had kept a linear tuning dial and used the meters for signal strength and multi path. McIntosh owners already probably have two sets of meters on their gear anyway.

Exactly! While attractive, I can barely tell this tuner from one of their integrated amps (which don't really look like integrated amps of yesteryear either).

With all of the knowledge and expertise they possess after all this time, they could have really hit this one out of the park with a beautiful linear tuning dial, dial pointer, and traditional signal strength and tuning meters. They could still have included the window with the station information, etc.

But, they've chosen instead to make many of their products generic and cookie-cutter looking, all for the sake of including big output level meters that aren't needed on a tuner, in this case.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by Masterlu

Retail $5,500 USD

Thing is, folks with a Mac rack want a Mac tuner. I play my MR87 for about 3-4 weeks out of the year at Christmas but couldn't do without a Mac tuner. I don't see much difference spec wise in the new tuner. I like the look of the MR87 better. The MR87 utilizes DSP and pulls in a huge number of stations. The key to FM is an outdoor antenna. I recently replaced mine and noticed a significant improvement. No tuner no matter how expensive or powerful can compete with an inexpensive but properly installed outdoor omni directional antenna. If you want even better performance add a rotor.



If you are going to install an antenna it must be properly grounded. Very important. I also installed a junction box (circuit breaker) between the tuner and antenna to protect from power surges.

Best

Charles

[Vintage Pete]

Originally Posted by Charles

Thing is, folks with a Mac rack want a Mac tuner. I play my MR87 for about 3-4 weeks out of the year at Christmas but couldn't do without a Mac tuner. I don't see much difference spec wise in the new tuner. I like the look of the MR87 better. The MR87 utilizes DSP and pulls in a huge number of stations. The key to FM is an outdoor antenna. I recently replaced mine and noticed a significant improvement. No tuner no matter how expensive or powerful can compete with an inexpensive but properly installed outdoor omni directional antenna. If you want even better performance add a rotor.

I play FM constantly when not having an actual "session", or watching TV. When I am home, my main system (with an MR78 Tuner) is on without exception. It's only turned off when I go to bed, or when I'm at work. So, I'm easily listening to FM 80% of the time.

I own an MR74, MR77, MR78, and an MR80 (which needs repair). I also own a Marantz 150 which is on duty in my office system. I'll stick with these tuners. My MR78 sounds great and pulls in a boatload of stations, even with an indoor Terk powered FM antenna. An outdoor antenna is still on my list, I'll likely go with a Magnum Dynalab ST-2.

[prepress]

Originally Posted by Vintage Pete

Exactly! While attractive, I can barely tell this tuner from one of their integrated amps (which don't really look like integrated amps of yesteryear either).

With all of the knowledge and expertise they possess after all this time, they could have really hit this one out of the park with a beautiful linear tuning dial, dial pointer, and traditional signal strength and tuning meters. They could still have included the window with the station information, etc.

But, they've chosen instead to make many of their products generic and cookie-cutter looking, all for the sake of including big output level meters that aren't needed on a tuner, in this case.

Mac's meters are popular, which might explain why they're on a tuner. I suppose there could be some diagnostic benefit as far as monitoring channel output levels or something, but I think this would take some getting used to for me if it were in my rack. An overload on meters is possible.

[John Jordan]

While the MR 89 is not in my future, an occasional thought to sell the 85 has certainly diminished. Using a TERK FM 50 in the attic yields a pretty good smattering in these mountains of the lower west of the river Hudson Valley. May not be the WNEW/ WMMR or my Alma-Mater's WTSR of the 70's but a great conduit to music that otherwise would have been overlooked and certainly a very close second to say the least!

Yeah I concer, Mr. Dan (may he be resting peacefully with Ms Marlene) was correct; "No System is Complete Without a Tuner."

Enjoy the Sounds!

John

[Vintage Pete]

Originally Posted by prepress

Mac's meters are popular, which might explain why they're on a tuner. I suppose there could be some diagnostic benefit as far as monitoring channel output levels or something, but I think this would take some getting used to for me if it were in my rack. An overload on meters is possible.

Popular, okay....but yes meter overload is possible. I would also mention that while we have these nice looking meters, we apparently have no output level control-so it seems the meters are really just to look at with no real value such as level matching to other components. I've always preferred to have an output level control on a tuner.

The very same thing is true with the new MCD12000 CD player/DAC. While the deck is certainly spectacular looking, here we have output level meters but no level control.

[Thebenz]

Wow, you guys are passionate about your fm radio! My point was listening in the home not the car. However, the content on the radio is just not great in my opinion, and the commercials etc. I don't think this is about quality of signal etc for me, it's about where things are headed big picture wise and, this unit didn't make sense. I'm sure it's amazing but, $5500 is a bit jaw dropping even for McIntosh.

[dkorbal]

Per a quote from j3brow on another thread.

'They wanted to keep the dial but couldn’t. The company that made the analog dial, stopped making them. This info is from a McIntosh employee, Kenneth Zelin. I think we all agree the dial is beautiful."

Personal for me it's a lot of money to spend on fm radio especially if you have access to other conduits (iradio, internet radio, tidal, roon) for radio.