Customer Reviews

Sangean HDT-1 HD Radio Component Tuner, Black

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm an audio freak, and I particularly like "over the air" radio versus satellite. I live in a rural area in Vermont and my FM tuner has to be a good one. I have a Magnum Dynalab hooked up to one of their fancy base loaded whip antennas and it works very nicely. It has great meters and switches and looks really "hot." It's connected to an old Yamaha C-1 preamp and a matching B-1 power amp which drives a pair of matching Yamaha NS-1000 studio monitor speakers. I also have a pair of modern towers for fill in. After reading some reviews on modern tuners I opted for the Sangean HDT-1X. It arrived today and I hooded it up so that I could flip a switch and compare the Magnum Dynalab ($1,000) to the Sangean ($200). After a lot of tuning, switching and comparing the Sangean is better. First, it gets both analog and HD.... and in HD it decodes three channels of programming on a single frequency. The Dynalab only picks up one. On DX (distant) stations the Sangean is fully as "hot" in the front end. The Sangean also has better adjacent channel rejection. The sound quality from each is very similar, with the Dynalab sounding more "open" and "airy", I believe because the Sangean has some auto filtering that pulls out the "hiss." I actually like the hiss sometimes as it makes me feel like I'm really hearing something "live and over the air." My only criticism of the Sangean is that it lacks the ability to select filtering and a few other esoteric functions. However, for pure performance and value this is DEFINITELY a Five Star unit. Comes with remote, cables and easy to understand manual..... and NO... I don't work for Sangean... I own a newspaper, so this is the real story!

It does everything it promised to do, and does it all well. Besides listening to previously unavailable channels, I have found another benefit. The rebroadcast form my satelite radio receiver is further enhanced by tuning it through the HD receiver over the receiver in my tuner/amp.