I am continuing to use the Sony ST-S730 ES tuner in the kitchen, and as I've been busy sorting my stuff from my former workplace and integrating it into my new home headquarters, it's about all I've been playing for the past three weeks, to the local classical and jazz stations through my on-roof whip antenna.
The 730ES is unimpressive in grabbing distant stations, but on local stations it sounds great, perhaps one of the best sounding FM tuners ever. James Bongiorno famously checked it a prototype for Sony and said it had the lowest distortion he'd ever measured--until it drifted. He told Sony the drift was unacceptable, and he didn't believe later they'd fixed it.
I have not noticed any drift in my 730ES. The similarly good (better at distant stations, but equally good sounding) Kenwood L-1000T has horrible drift, and since Bongiorno was a longtime admirer and critic of Kenwood tuners, I sometimes wonder if Bongiorno had gotten the two confused. (He'd be outraged at such a thought, no doubt. He never confused anything.) Of course, it's easy to "see" the drift on the L-1000T because of the built-in (but low resolution) LED spectrum scope the tuner has as a tuning indicator. The Sony has no such fancy indicator, only a dumb strength meter that simply maxes out on nearly any signal. Perhaps if I was measuring the distortion I'd notice the drift. But also I can hear the drift on the Kenwood--It drifts about 50kHz off in 24 hours of operation. Which I can compensate with the fine tuning controls. So I use the nominal positions if the tuner has just been turned on, and another setting (-50kHz) if I keep the tuner running 24/7, which currently I'm no longer doing as the better antenna the 730ES is connected to now is so much better it makes it pointless to run the L-1000T on the old indoor antenna it is connected to. I may swap in the L-1000T on theoutdoor antenna soon, but while perhaps slightly better sounding it's much less easy to use from the front panel.
Here's a great inside picture of the Sony ST-S730ES. It's not as impressive inside as the Kenwood, but it's more impressive looking inside than other top Sony digital tuners, and top digital Yamahas like the TX-1000. I sometimes had regrets not getting a possibly more well known Sony ST-5, but from the inside the 730ES seems to have all that tuner did, and more.
One downside, and perhaps it's just my kitchen system, but sometimes there is simply way too much bass at some low frequency I've never figured out, perhaps 20-30 Hz. I'm thinking it might arise from some kind of PLL error.
The 730ES is unimpressive in grabbing distant stations, but on local stations it sounds great, perhaps one of the best sounding FM tuners ever. James Bongiorno famously checked it a prototype for Sony and said it had the lowest distortion he'd ever measured--until it drifted. He told Sony the drift was unacceptable, and he didn't believe later they'd fixed it.
I have not noticed any drift in my 730ES. The similarly good (better at distant stations, but equally good sounding) Kenwood L-1000T has horrible drift, and since Bongiorno was a longtime admirer and critic of Kenwood tuners, I sometimes wonder if Bongiorno had gotten the two confused. (He'd be outraged at such a thought, no doubt. He never confused anything.) Of course, it's easy to "see" the drift on the L-1000T because of the built-in (but low resolution) LED spectrum scope the tuner has as a tuning indicator. The Sony has no such fancy indicator, only a dumb strength meter that simply maxes out on nearly any signal. Perhaps if I was measuring the distortion I'd notice the drift. But also I can hear the drift on the Kenwood--It drifts about 50kHz off in 24 hours of operation. Which I can compensate with the fine tuning controls. So I use the nominal positions if the tuner has just been turned on, and another setting (-50kHz) if I keep the tuner running 24/7, which currently I'm no longer doing as the better antenna the 730ES is connected to now is so much better it makes it pointless to run the L-1000T on the old indoor antenna it is connected to. I may swap in the L-1000T on theoutdoor antenna soon, but while perhaps slightly better sounding it's much less easy to use from the front panel.
Here's a great inside picture of the Sony ST-S730ES. It's not as impressive inside as the Kenwood, but it's more impressive looking inside than other top Sony digital tuners, and top digital Yamahas like the TX-1000. I sometimes had regrets not getting a possibly more well known Sony ST-5, but from the inside the 730ES seems to have all that tuner did, and more.
One downside, and perhaps it's just my kitchen system, but sometimes there is simply way too much bass at some low frequency I've never figured out, perhaps 20-30 Hz. I'm thinking it might arise from some kind of PLL error.
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