Sony XDRF1HD HD Radio Tuner

This Sony Tuner (not a radio) is a technical tour-de-force. Ignore any negative reviews of it where the bottom line is the consumer didn't understand they were getting a tuner, not a radio, simply because they failed to read the product description. Some people can't put the batteries in the remote control correctly either for this same reason, God bless 'em!

I was looking for a new tuner to add to my stereo system to replace a decades old Kenwood KT-815, and at the same time I was aware of the arrival of HD radio and wanted to be an early adopter. Using Internet Google research, I was impressed by the online reviews of this product, especially by those radio enthusiasts (DX'ers) looking for outstanding reception capability. I wanted to know how well it performed (outstanding), how dollar effective it is (great! wonderful bang per buck!), and if it made a noticeable difference in my FM listening experience (definitely!). My research also told me of its size (small, which is good), and that HD radios or tuners costing several times more did not match the Sony's performance.

My only cons:
- Batteries not included for the remote
- No way to enter station frequency directly, but there are many presets available as a consolation
- It is a warm running unit, and I added little extension feet to raise it up a bit for better airflow and cooling

Bottom line is if you have a stereo system and want to break into HD radio cheaply and cheerfully, this unit is a good way to experience HD FM and HD AM.

I wasn't sure that a 100 dollar tuner would work that well but I'm very pleased. The tuner locks right into the stations and gives a clear signal both to the regular broadcast and the second carrier wave.

I've owned the best and most expensive FM tuners ever made. This little Sony HD-AM/FM tuner delivers the BEST quality FM reception I've ever been able to capture. Multi-path has always been a problem and my Carver TX11b tuner gave the best results until now. The Sony XDRF1HD eliminates multi-path and delivers the true promise of HD AM&FM radio. My one very small gripe is that there is no way to defeat the HD reception, just to hear the quality difference between regular FM and HD-FM. [...]

I use this tuner in Japan as analogue FM, because the selectivity to 100kHz adjacent channel is very good.
Due to sporadic E layer, plenty of FM stations, China, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Phlippines, can be heard in Japan. But if use conventional tuners or scanners, interference with 100kHz adjacent channels is occured.

I noticed that some weak points as follows;
1)The internal irregular noise can be heard when no FM signal channel and weak analogue signal channel.
This noise can not be heard when fair or good FM signal strength.
Perhape,this noise oriented in analogue FM decording.
2)There is no switch for stereo/mono change. Perhaps, the internal irregular noise does not occured on mono mode. When weak signal listening, very useful the switch for stereo/mono change.
3)Japanese FM Band 76-88MHz CANNOT be heard this tuner, then this tuner is the clock mode use only.
4)When AC plug off from concent, the preset channels are none.

This is more a criticism of HD Radio in general, as this tuner manages to receive stations well at my location with the included simple wire dipole antenna. But I've found that while, yes, there's no static and very little hiss, the audio is hardly "CD quality" - virtually indistinguishable from ordinary analog FM. Perhaps it *could* be CD quality, but broadcasters are not sending that quality of sound (similar to the situation with HDTV, where the potential is there, but most of the content is mediocre - Seinfeld reruns at 720p? give me a break).

Here in the SF Bay area, there are probably over a dozen HD stations in addition to analog FM, but I can't honestly say that the wider selection is a big improvement, certainly not to compare with satellite radio. But satellite stations tend to play long loops (e.g., 24hrs) where you hear the same stuff over and over again (and for $13/month!). So between satellite, HD, and analog FM, there's no clear winner. You get what you pay for, approximately.

Aside from that, this tuner does an adequate job and doesn't look bad. I tried the AM tuner, and that works fairly well, and HD AM is noticeably better than analog AM, but there still isn't much I prefer to listen on AM, HD or otherwise.

Some nits: why doesn't the clock time get set automatically from the air? And where are the EPGs like one day may be there on broadcast digital TV? This is what bleeding edge is all about ...