Onkyo T-5000 vs. Sony ST-S370 tuners

Spurred by JP´s recent review of his Toshiba tuner, and his subsequent challenge for me to post a review of my own, I thought I´d follow in the same line, and do a tuner review, only in this instance a comparative one between the two tuners I own.

Let it be known that not once, in my over 34 years of audio-mania, have I invested in a really good tuner. I don´t think there was any specific reason for this, other than that when I was bitten by the bug, around 1972, radio had already taken second place to vinyl and R2R´s, and, therefore, I probably never regarded radio as a serious source.

Besides, I never was, untill quite recently, the type of casual listener many people seem to be content being. Listening to music, or, as so very often was the case, to the system, was always a matter of choice to me. I would have to choose whatever kind of music I was in the mood to listen to, and then immerse myself completely in it. Radio listening meant that only by chance I´d get to hear what I wanted at any given moment.
For these same reasons, I believe, even while driving, I rarely listen to radio. In the car CD´s rule, and usually they are of the rock variety. I reserve my favourite classical music to the cosiness of my listening room.

But I digress. The stars of the show are the Sony ST-S370 Quartz Sinthetizer Digital Tuner, I bought new in the early 90´s, I believe, and the analogue Onkyo T-5000 I bought only a few months ago to replace the former, after I was truly disappointed by its performance after years of laying dormant in the loft.

The Sony was a mid / low price unit at the time, highly reviewed by the press. The Onkyo, on the other hand, was averagely priced as regards mid 70´s gear 2nd hand prices usually are here, and being a 3 gang tuner I believe it was a BOTL unit. I had it realigned, its power supply upgraded, and a few caps replaced, to great effect.

Physically, they are typical of their respective eras. Rather than describing them, the pics bellow really are worth 1,000 words. You pic your favourite, I know which is mine.




Neither tuner is really more than featherweight, the Onkyo obviously less so, due to a bigger case, but particularly a much larger and thicker face plate. Plenty of empty space inside, in both cases.




As I intended, from the start, to do an A-B comparison, connecting the two units simultaneously to my pre-amp, switching back and forth as required, and wanting to avoid a “Y” adapter for the antenna cable due to signal loss, I was faced with the problem of having to plug – unplug the antenna cable everytime I switched units.

My son then reminded me I had installed a powered signal amplifier when I set up two TV sets in my children´s bedrooms, sharing one antenna cable only. I had the solution to my problem at hand.
Though it is meant for TV it works superbly on FM, and the signal at both tuners was close to maximum, as normal for the stations I usually listen to. If there was any noise introduced by the amp, I honestly couldn´t tell.

The system used was my main system as described in “Members Systems” for those of you interested. It is, in every respect, and hoping not to sound outrageously snobbish, an above average system, with a very powerful, dynamic, realistic and revealing sort of sound, that easily shows differences between components.
To maintain all things as equal as possible, I used similar pairs of QED interconnects, and to avoid judgment errors induced by possible differences in output levell, I adjusted the very useful levell output knob on the Onkyo until it matched the output of the Sony, which is amazingly low.



I tuned in, one after another, and switched back and forth between the two tuners frequently, my four favourite radio stations. Two of them play normally music from the last couple of years, another one plays pop / rock from the 70´s mostly, and the fourth plays mostly classical, with some jazz in between.

Cutting it short, here is a summary of my conclusions:

1- Though I don´t have acess to the units specs, it looks as sensivity and selectivity are very much comparable. Both signal meters read similar on all occasions, and there never was any interference from adjacent stations. Spurious noises were totally absent from the Onkyo, and not quite so with the Sony.
Signal to noise ratio also seemed better with the Onkyo, having somewhat less background hiss than the Sony.
Mind you, all these conclusions might have been totally different had the review been carried out in a fringe reception area.

2 –In terms of sound, I was never a sucker for stereo image, or soundstage, or whatever you want to call it. I find instrumental separation rather more relevant, by which I mean, for example, being able to distinguish between the different voices in accompanying chorus, or between a couple of acoustic guitars playing together.
The Onkyo is the clear winner in this respect, however I also noticed a spreading of the stereo image with the Onkyo, both in the vertical and the horizontal planes. With the Sony it´s like the musicians and instruments had all recessed in size, as well as packing themselves tightly together at the centre of the stage, which in turn had become lower.

3 – As mentioned above the sound spread somewhat more with the Onkyo, but more importantly the decay of the notes was much more natural with the Onkyo. The vibrato of plucked strings was not cut short like in the Sony, and similarly brushed cymbals on drum sets was more extended in the Onkyo.

4 – So, we have a clear winner on all counts in the form of the Onkyo, right?
Well, not quite, one area where the Sony was noticeable better was on bass extension.
Comparatively, the sound of the Onkyo was clearly brighter and thinner than the Sony´s, lacking the foundation upon which all music is built – Bass. I don´t mean that mid-bass honk that some equipment has designed-in to fake real punch, there just doesn´t seem to be much going on bellow 100/120 hz in the Onkyo.

5 - I was lucky enough to have caught a song of which I also have the CD, The Waterboys – The Whole of the Moon.
Right after this song had finished playing on the radio, I grabbed the CD and listened to the same song. Good grief, the CD was miles ahead, soundwise. Much better just about everywhere. I then resumed, and finished the session for this review.

Final Notes.

So, to sum it up, either none of my tuners is up to the quality of the rest of my system, or radio broadcasting quality has really fallen these past few years over here. Could it be that we finally caught up with the developed countries ( remember I´m in Portugal ) and now have most of our radio stations broadcasting in digitally streamed music?

I remember the time when a good FM broadcast, like the Proms in the UK, where I lived for 2 years, were actually better than any other source you could think of.

Jorge

Great review, Jorge. See? You could do it, though it makes my Hitachi review look paltry in comparison.

- JP

Yeah, I actually enjoyed myself enormously doing it.

I think more will follow shortly. Just gotta be in the mood, which ain´t allways the case.

Jorge

You sound like my wife.................