EQUIPMENT HISTORY:
Everything I am describing below is IMPORTANT, read it please!
This tuner is part of my "collection" of all things audio, both professional and consumer gear. I like to listen to all types of audio equipment, look inside and see the build quality and just appreciate the engineering skills (or lack of) in the early days of audio equipment.
Since the early 1990's this tuner has been sitting in the storeroom of my previous business. We actually used to use this tuner for "off air" monitoring of radio broadcasts. It is no mistake by SONY that this fits a standard rack cabinet shelf perfectly. After a time it no longer was necessary to use this tuner so it was put away, fully functional but just excess to our requirements.
Over time it seems to have gathered a few cosmetic marks and scratches (mainly to the top area) but it remains in pretty good cosmetic condition.
SONY CORPORATION (JAPAN) have been in the electronics 'game' for many many years, producing both professional and domestic products. Kids these days only think of SONY when it comes to gaming equipment, SONY are far more than a 'gaming product' company.
Their major area of design and production has always been professional equipment in the broadcast, video and music industries and even today, a walk around just about any broadcast studio or video/audio production facility will have SONY badged equipment in use.
SONY Corporation knows how to design and manufacture very good equipment and when they ventured into the domestic audio market, this tuner was one of their consumer products but with a few extra quirky facilities added.
Solid as a rock, well laid out inside and engineered with the possible exception of the frequency display on the front panel, more about this further in the description ... please read below
So, enough introductions ... let's take a look at what I have to offer
SONY - AM-FM Analog Stereo Tuner
Model: ST-A30
Left the factory in the period 1979~1980
Multi AC input voltage (for international use) 100-110-220-240V
Fitted with an Australian 2 pin plug (no earth is connected)
Frequency range:
AM 522Khz ~ 1622Khz
FM 87.5Mhz ~ 108Mhz
Sensitivity: 1.3uV S/N 26dB
Audio frequency response: 40Hz ~ 12.5Khz
Maximum HD 0.15% Mono 0.4% Stereo
Stereo output: 2x RCA Phono female panel mounted sockets
Screw connectors at the rear for 300 Ohm or 75 Ohm impedance FM antenna systems
Built in AM ferrite antenna (adjustable)
Tuning is analog mechanical, dial pointer is a backlit arrangement with a mirror inside the scale.
Servo assisted tuning - nice clear indicator of a correctly tuned station (low-centre-high)
Hi-Blend control - this can help reduce background hiss (uses high end audio frequency mixing) but you do lose some channel stereo separation
De-emphasis select switch - when FM audio is broadcast, it actually has the high end boosted to improve the signal to noise ratio. Tuners normally have a fixed de-emphasis built into the circuit design, to restore the original audio signal characteristics. This tuner though has a switch at the rear, two position.
Position 1: 75uS (American system)
Position 2: 50uS (European system)
DIMENSIONS:
430mm x 70mm height x 250mm depth
Note that this width (430mm) sits very nicely on an equipment rack shelf.
COSMETIC CONDITION ...
USED
After 50+ years, I was amazed to be truthful!
This is an old school tuner, meaning the external case is constructed like a battleship! All metal, mostly pressed steel. No prissy plastic in the case. Well laid out access panels for internal access to the tuner board, topside and underneath.
Unfortunately this makes the equipment heavy, weighing in at 3.5Kg
Some scratching and marks to the top of the case but nothing dramatic. Absolutely no severe damage, such as when equipment is dropped!
Front display area is clean
All knobs and buttons are present and undamaged
The labelling on the front panel has let SONY down a little though, it is quite thin and although most of the labelling is intact, it has worn around the area of the Power ON-OFF switch.
THE DOWNSIDE
Yes, there is a down side to this classic tuner from SONY.
The design of the frequency dial pointer/indicator leaves a bit to be desired. While it may have been super-youbeaut high tech back in the late 1970's, it is not so good now! The ability to tell where you are tuned to (which frequency) depends totally upon a small lilliput incandescent lamp which sits inside a red translucent point at the back of the display system. As is always the case .... these lamps fail!
Our technicians actually went to the trouble of trying to source another lamp, these are tiny at 2mm diameter and the AC voltage fed to the lamp is 12V - that is the spec's of the lamp they used but .... note that the tech's did consider using LED's but that doesn't work well either because the light that is emitted from the SIDE of the lamp is used for the backlighting whereas LED's tend to "front project" the emitted light.
The lamp does allow the user to view the frequency in VERY LOW LIGHT conditions because the lamp is just not bright enough to light up the pointer properly. It may have been better for the techs to fit a 9V lamp which would have resulted in more light output but a shorter lamp lifetime.
What this means is that using (tuning) the frequency is not the easiest thing to do - you need to work almost in the dark! Actually I noticed today that in normal ambient room lighting you can see the pointer, but only just!
TESTING ...
As this tuner has been sitting in the storeroom amongst all the other gear I am going to find new homes for, I tested it over the last week or so ...
AM is working fine
FM is working fine and the servo function/indicators and stereo lock indicators all work. Just a quick note here, to achieve stereo lock you need to have a signal strength of at least 3~4 on the signal strength bar meter to the left of the panel. Once you have centre tuned the radio station signal, it takes around one second for the stereo indicator to switch on (although I can hear that the audio output has immediately switched to a stereo signal).
Tuning across the scale is smooth (super smooth) with no backlash.
The tiny push buttons all work fine (AM-FM-STEREO-HI BLEND)
De-emphasis slide switch on the rear panel is also working fine
Long term stability is fine, I left the tuner sitting on a single frequency for over 24 hours and there was no frequency drift.
I hope that someone appreciates what this SONY Tuner represents from a bygone era
