Luxman T-117 (1988, $600/orig $550, photo, schematic)
An extremely sensitive and moderately selective digital tuner, the T-117 has 4 gangs and 4 filters and should be easy to modify for sharper selectivity. Don Scott's review in Stereophile called it "one of the best sounding tuners ever," comparable to his reference Sansui TU-9900. Our contributor Jerry says the T-117 "is as clean as the Denon TU-767 and has sensitivity at least on par with the Yamaha T-85, but its sound is much richer than those two. I like its [sound] better than the Magnum Dynalab FT-101A or the tuner in the Magnum Dynalab 208 receiver. It is one hell of a good sounding tuner." Another contributor says he prefers the sound of the T-117 to all other tuners he's owned, including the Mac MR 78, FT-101A and others. Our contributor Mark H. observes that the T-117 "has an awful lot of buttons and tiny switches on the front AND back of it, which made me glad I had quit drinking 20 years ago."

One of the switches on the back panel enables the T-117 to tune in either 200 kHz or 25 kHz increments. .......

......See how one T-117 sounded compared to other top tuners on our Shootouts page.