Review in STEREO magazine (Germany), Issue March 2007
Accuphase DDS FM Stereo Tuner T-1000
FM Broadcast With Digital Quality by Uwe Kirbach
Accuphase has long ago signed up to the hall of fame for making brilliant FM
tuners. The new T-1000, which is to process analogue radio waves in the digital domain, can be considered another milestone.
FM broadcast? Well, for most people this means flat sound, silly commercials and often a noisy, sometimes sizzling reception. Perhaps just good enough for piped music in the background, drowning out other noisy sources or merely for having some company whilst doing some lonesome work at the PC. On the other hand,
when a couple of years ago that nice little, retro-designed Tivoli radio hit the market many of us could experience anew what FM broadcast can also be, namely a good and round sounding medium to entertain you 24 hours a day, provided one has tuned to the right stations.
And there were those notorious discussions and statements about FM
broadcast eventually being substituted by digital radio. But what has really happened since? The digital satellite radio DSR has been switched off and Astra Digital Radio will be history as soon as the last analogue TV stations have ceased their transmissions. To this date DAB is lingering about with more or less poor sound and hardly any programme variety. In Sweden they already stopped further tests with
DAB because of its typical shortcomings. To sum up: the threat of having FM
broadcast also switched off in this country by the year 2010 has become meaningless in the meantime, and it's an open secret for insiders of Bavaria
Broadcast Corporation that the short- and medium-term plans concerning DAB have failed and therefore terminating FM broadcast is a very long way off.
This is one reason why it can still be worthwhile to devote oneself to a really good FM tuner as it will certainly not become obsolete in the future. The other reason is most likely known by all those who already had their "initial great radio experience",
i.e. live-broadcast and uncompressed programmes of culture and classic music being offered by nearly all radio stations under public law. A top-notch tuner would in any case allow you to be aurally transported to the venue of sonic origin, like only the best analogue turntables and digital players could do that. In this respect a good tuner may also be the most reasonable source in a high-end audio chain. Just think of it: all of the big radio stations are equipped with superb, carefully maintained technology, such as microphones, mixing consoles and tape recorders, whereby the latter are regularly fed with wonderful tape recordings from huge archives. And not to forget the transmission facilities which are actually providing a direct line so to speak via your antenna into your favourite radio stations respectively their studios.
It may have become evident in the meantime that a tuner fan is writing here.
Well, gentle readers, I have indeed become one since I found out as a young boy how interesting it was to listen to the sounds from a small transistor radio under the quilt whilst my parents thought I was fast asleep. Today I have a classic tuner installed in every room, including an Accuphase T-106, by the way. In my large listening room there is a recently refurbished, unsurpassed Marantz 10B at it's sonic best. Be warned however because the 10B is oh so rare, in particular if you want to acquire one that's suitable for the German broadcast network and which has its
