doug s. wrote:

i have never heard the rel.  but, if you want to hear a tubed tuna at its best, pick up a sherwood s3000ll or later, get it serviced, and run it thru one of your mpx decoders.  or get one w/a built-in sherwood mpx.  this is tube sound as good as you are going to get, imo.  it should rival your tu-x1 for sound, tho it will not be as sensitive.  i have a couple different sherwoods - s3000lll mono, s2100-ll stereo, (both never serviced), and a refurb's s3000v stereo.  the sound of these, (the mono iteration being run thru a studio-12 decoder), all rival my refurb'd modded tu-x1 for sound.  don't let the low price fool you.  they were all better sounding than the modded-to-the-gills mac mr65b i used to own.

Doug, the REL is gone and I frankly do not look into tubes tuners anymore. I am bit frightened from the result I got from REL. It is not that REL is bad tuner it is just so far from where I am with my SS tuners that it is not even comparable. Thanks, for pointing out the Sherwood S3000ll. I am not familiar with it but if to look at the circus that it shall have way less selectivity, less sensitivity and less gain then RELL

http://www.dvq.com/hifi/images/sher_3000.jpg

Perhaps if I have one falling on my laps I will try it but I do not no see myself to spend any targeted efforts to do so.

doug s. wrote:

(ps - why selling that to-die-for r&s decoder?)

Because I have two of them but I need just one.

Romy the Cat wrote:

doug s. wrote: i have never heard the rel.  but, if you want to hear a tubed tuna at its best, pick up a sherwood s3000ll or later, get it serviced, and run it thru one of your mpx decoders.  or get one w/a built-in sherwood mpx.  this is tube sound as good as you are going to get, imo.  it should rival your tu-x1 for sound, tho it will not be as sensitive.  i have a couple different sherwoods - s3000lll mono, s2100-ll stereo, (both never serviced), and a refurb's s3000v stereo.  the sound of these, (the mono iteration being run thru a studio-12 decoder), all rival my refurb'd modded tu-x1 for sound.  don't let the low price fool you.  they were all better sounding than the modded-to-the-gills mac mr65b i used to own. Doug, the REL is gone and I frankly do not look into tubes tuners anymore. I am bit frightened from the result I got from REL. It is not that REL is bad tuner it is just so far from where I am with my SS tuners that it is not even comparable. Thanks, for pointing out the Sherwood S3000ll. I am not familiar with it but if to look at the circus that it shall have way less selectivity, less sensitivity and less gain then RELL http://www.dvq.com/hifi/images/sher_3000.jpg Perhaps if I have one falling on my laps I will try it but I do not no see myself to spend any targeted efforts to do so.

there is no question that the sensitivity & selectivity will not be anywhere near tunas that excel in this area.  but, it is good enough for all but the most difficult reception conditions, ime.  mine fare quite decently in my present less-than-ideal location.  if you have good reception in your area, the sherwood will be fine.  but the sound is where these things excel, really.  as they are so dirt-cheap, and even pretty-cheap when completely refurb'd, you owe it to yourself to at least try one, as a someone obviously so interested in tuna.  ;~)

Romy the Cat wrote:

doug s. wrote: (ps - why selling that to-die-for r&s decoder?) Because I have two of them but I need just one. The caT

doug s. wrote:

if you have good reception in your area, the sherwood will be fine.  but the sound is where these things excel, really.  as they are so dirt-cheap, and even pretty-cheap when completely refurb'd, you owe it to yourself to at least try one, as a someone obviously so interested in tuna.  ;~)

Well, I might try it. They cost virtually nothing and the circuit looks like very simple. It might be fun to use it as a playground to learn how to properly align tuners. I do have sweep generator but no skills to do it myself. I do not mean to tweak the front-end as most of the “professors” do but I mean to properly co-center the IM stages. It is not the skills that I truly need but it might be interesting if I decided to go my version of the “best tuner”. I mean the tuner with no oscillator, no mixer, no IM at all, with a front end is tuned and aligned just for one caring frequency (WGBH), then limiters, detector and buffer. I would love to commission someone to build for me such a devise but I have no proper technical to do it.

doug s. wrote:

this is tempting to me.  you need to tell me, tho, what the one you are keeping does, that this one doesn't do.  ;~)  you can contact me priwately about it, if you don't want to diwulge here on-line...

Doug, I do not feel comfortable to contact you privately as it would say to myself that I want to sell it. I do not as I like that multiplexer. I have two: Rohde & Schwarz MSDC and Rohde & Schwarz MSDC2. There is ~20 years between them but they are essentially the same. The older MSDC that I sell is single ended and he yonder MSDC2 is PP. Both are refurbished for Sound and both sound the same. The older MSDC has arguably “bigger” bass but to a very-very-very small degree. I have a feeling that my MSDC2 decoders is juts better aligned for the signal of R&S tuner and therefore the MSDC has also more monophonic bass. Once again, the degree is very-very small and I consider that they sound the same. I kept two R&S decoders as my MSDC2 has only one multiplex input (the MSDC has two) and I thought to use the MSDC with REL. Since I let the REL go I do not need more extra MPX decoders. I try to convince myself that I need to keep MSDC2 just in case I come up with some other crazy tuner project but I would like do not encourage myself. So, I do not know if I sell it or now and play with it sell more like with Russian roulette…