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Sony XDR-F1HD (2008, $100,
photo,
service manual)
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Well, it's not "vintage," but this tiny (car stereo size) HD Radio tuner is a terrific performer except for audiophile use. Our panelist Bob says, "In my situation, it's about the same sensitivity and selectivity as my modded tuners, which is OK. I'm not a DXer. I can't listen to it for too long, though, on my reference system. A stock Yamaha TX-1000 just kills it for sound quality. The difference with a modern outboard decoder with quality parts is even more pronounced." The definitive review of the XDR-F1HD can be found on Brian Beezley's
website, and
The Audio Critic did another. DXer Tim McVey's
review includes bench test results, and Australian DXer Todd Emslie
compares the tuner to other modified tuners for DXing.
Our contributor Ken K. adds, "No doubt, this is one of the more sensitive and selective tuners available. AM selectivity is better than anything I remember from 40 years (off and on) of listening, including a Hammarlund SuperPro, Heathkit AJ-30, Alpine car cassette, a National NC-109, and all the hi-fi tuners I've used: Yamaha T-85, TX-1000, T-1, Onkyo T-4711, and others. Having said that, it's not orders of magnitude better -- it's just better. For the first time, I've managed to pull out some obscure daytime stations that are adjacent to weaker local ones with the Sony. However, it's just as susceptible to adjacent-channel HD hash as any other radio. It may be no more sensitive on AM, or slightly more so, but the noise floor is a little lower, allowing this kind of reception. It has also made me more aware of the RFI in my system. HD for casual listening does sound better. I haven't attempted any long-term listening for various reasons. So far, besides locals, I've gotten WOR and WFAN to decode, at about 300 miles, and WBZ, at about 470 miles, when conditions are good. It's almost completely immune to overload and harmonics, and definitely more selective. I'm using a 150' outdoor antenna, and without attenuation it overloads everything but the Sony. I've seen comments elsewhere that the Sony isn't that good with the supplied loop.
"FM selectivity is on par with the Onkyo, which is very good. It will, however, still lose adjacent channels to a strong local station or to HD buzz. Early on, it seemed the Sony would lose stations entirely at the edge of reception, or they'd pop in and out. On the Onkyo, these stations will fade, but usually not drop out entirely. There was some difference in the handling of that in the two tuners. I haven't encountered drop-outs lately. I really miss a dB strength meter on the Sony. As a result, I've settled into a pattern of chasing stations with the Onkyo and then switching to the Sony. It will get just about everything the Onkyo will, which I think is pretty good. During strong (not exceptional) conditions, I've been able to decode two or three HD FM stations from Washington DC at about 110 miles away, and Virginia Beach/Norfolk area stations at about 90 miles. It won't do this regularly, though. Locals are no problem, of course. The switch to an HD signal on FM isn't nearly as dramatic as the difference in sound on AM. I couldn't hear any difference on stations I tested with headphones. That might be an individual thing. Wish list: digital out, fine tuning, adjustable bandwidth, tuning knob, dB strength meter, designer display. I like it. It's my new AM king, and a companion to the Onkyo. It's a keeper."
Our panelist Ray did a shootout: "Since many have touted the XDR-F1HD's DXing capability, that's what I checked it for last night running against a Pioneer TX-9800. Equipment was a 10-element Yagi on a rotor about 28' above ground level. Both tuners were fed from a low-gain buffer/distribution amp. The contest results? They both won. The Sony is super easy to DX with; just tune the station freq. and point the antenna. That's as good as it gets and it IS good. In each case the Pioneer could equal or better the Sony's reception but only after very careful tuning and tweaking. Without the Sony leading the way I wouldn't have found so many signals to home in on. It's too early for me to comment on the Sony's sound but, as others have reported, it's one helluva DXer. In my 24+ tuners none has come this close to the Pioneer at signal grabbing and if you're a tad lazy like ol' RFM tends to be, the Sony XDR-F1HD is the champ... and a lot of tuner for $100 new." Ray supplemented his report with this assessment of the XDR-F1HD's sound: Even with a clear HD signal, "the cellos had no wood." At the same time, the same station's analog signal as received by his Technics ST-S505 had a full and rich sound, i.e., "the cellos had plenty of wood."
Our contributor doug s. chimes in: "I have a lot of sub-$500 tunas that sound better than the XDR-F1HD, unless you are talking about marginal signal-strength stations. Then, the Sony's superior reception moves it to the front, because of its amazing quieting with marginal signals. Its sound is a bit hard and fatiguing for serious listening, even with strong signals, and even on non-HD broadcasts. But it's fine for background listening, and its quieting ability with marginal signals makes it a great DXer. My XDR-F1HD gets one particular station I listen to, in stereo without any noise whatsoever, something that I cannot say about my better analog tunas, including Rotel RHT10, modded Sansui TU-X1, modded HK Citation 18, modded Sony ST-A6B, and since-sold modded Sansui TU-9900, to name a few." And our contributor Greg adds, "I don't find the XDR-F1HD's FM sound quality to be world-class. For example, to my ears its definition and breadth-of-life are significantly inferior to same via good, conventional solid-state tuners such as the Mitsubishi DA-F20. Your mileage may vary. Also, IMHO, the XDR-F1HD's soft-mute errs significantly too far on the side of HF rolloff for the sake of noise reduction as a function of low signal strength. Even for strong signals, the XDR-F1HD's de-emphasis errors are too great for my ears. And for weaker signals, the de-emphasis errors are a show-stopper to me. Too bad the XDR-F1HD doesn't include the option to disable soft-mute. As-is, the tuner's low-noise on weak signals is partly 'fake' SNR by my criteria because it's accomplished by severely rolling-off the upper mids and highs."
Our contributor Pete says, "My unit was a brick as far as performance. There had to be something grossly out of alignment, or perhaps the FM front end suffered some electrostatic damage, either through handling or during manufacture. To make matters worse, the Sony tuner seemed to have a very soft limiting curve. It sounds like it was poor implementation of the Philips chipset in this Sony tuner. The AM performance, however, was very good. It is actually suitable for MW DXing when used with a tunable passive loop antenna such as the Terk AM loop. I've got 18 other communications receivers that already do a better job at that, so I couldn't justify keeping this unit around." And our contributor Ken W. adds, "The muting curve on the XDR-F1HD is from their implementation of the post-demodulation signal processing. Some people seem to like it, but for my weak signals I find it annoying. Recently I measured the noise figures of the front ends on the XDR-F1HD, Sangean HDT-1, Denon TU-1500RD, and Kenwood KT-7500. The XDR-F1HD's was 8 dB, HDT-1 was 7 dB, TU-1500RD was 4 dB, and KT-7500 was slightly less than 3 dB. You can guess which tuner is used for weak signal reception here. However, I do routinely use the Sony for listening to tough signals adjacent to any of the local stations." But our contributor Dave O. points out that Ken is "getting dramatically different measurements from what Brian [Beezley], other engineers (even in Europe), others here [in the
FMtuners group], and myself are getting from our Sony tuners. I don't have many strong signals around me, and I get similar measurements to Brian's, and fabulous DX results from the Sony. I have four of them in my home BTW, and the DX performance is similar on all of them."
Our contributor Nick tells us how the XDR-F1HD fares in the UK, where stations can be heard 100 kHz away from strong locals: "It is a HOT DX machine! Is it better than the Onkyo T-4970? Yes it is - the DSP filters are razor-sharp and totally symmetrical, unlike the DYNAS asymmetrical response from the Onkyo. I've still not had the time to do a really thorough tune around, but I'm already hearing things on the Sony that were either impossible or very unlikely on the Onkyo. As for the audio quality, the sound is very clear and 'bright' and the tuner produces noise-free stereo on stations that before had some hiss. However, compared to the Onkyo the audio seems to lack 'authority' and the Onkyo just sounds more 'natural.'"
Our contributor Chuck speculates on the marketing strategy behind the XDR-F1HD's design: "The RF section of the tuner is extremely sensitive, allowing it to pull in many more stations with only a poor antenna, so you have the illusion that you have the same selection of channels on FM that you have now on satellite. Some folks called the Sony tuner's great DXing ability a fluke, but it seems to me that high sensitivity was the plan all along. It also has an overabundance of digital processing in its front end, so FM noise is lowered, but everything sounds like an MP3, just like satellite and internet radio. What common listener will be able to tell the difference? It's interesting that the analog reception is processed digitally in this tuner, possibly to match the noise level of the HD signal. This is probably important for fringe reception where the HD sidebands are not always receivable, and blending of the two is required. But, an important side effect is that even astute listeners now can't tell how 'digital' HD radio sounds, since there's no way to compare directly when listening to a strong local station. No wonder there is no way to defeat the IBOC detector or the adaptive noise reduction. I think this is the likely strategy of terrestrial broadcasters, and why industry conglomerates are so hot on HD radio. They don't care about the audio quality issues, since clearly the majority of the consumer market does not care. They simply want to provide more ways to broadcast ads, and they recognize that satellite radio and the internet are taking their listeners."
Our contributor Scott needed a more sensitive tuner than his Naim NAT 05, so he bought an XDR-F1HD from our panelist Eric. Scott reports: "The Sony is simply an outstanding tuner (all comments on analog FM only). The Naim was great until KDFC 90.3 classical moved their transmitter. The Sony pulls in the signal and plays it in full stereo amazingly. The NAT 05 is the best tuner I have ever heard, still, but one must have a good signal. With a good signal it sounds better than the Sony, no doubt. However the little Sony is so great I purchased another one as a backup!" And our contributor Ray D. did a sort of shootout between the XDR-F1HD and some analog tuners, including a Mitsubishi DA-F30, which you can read about in our writeup for the latter tuner.
After Sony discontinued it, eBay sale prices for the XDR-F1HD shot up and since early 2013 seem to have stabilized in a typical range of $180-325 for unmodded units, or $450-600 or higher for upgraded ones. We've seen frequent lows around $150 and a high of $544 for an unmodded piece, but
don't overpay -- this is an extremely common tuner!
.
