The Sound, The Looks, The Preformance This Unit was made to last :)

I did find it sooner :(

A buddy of mine had the tx 9500 II I herd FM like never before So I bought Pioneer through the years I had not bought a tuner because, I knew I wanted the TX-9500. after all these years looking for this unit, it fell into my hands by LUCK!!! driving home one day, on the road side a guy is selling junk I noticed a couple of bright stereo pieces I hit the brakes backup & there it was the TX-9500 II in near mint condition I could not belive it priced for $10.00 I got the TX-9500 & the Pioneer SA-7500 both for ten bucks WOW. brought them home plugged them in. The Sound was there, It is the best tuner I have ever experinced HANDS DOWN

Similar Products Used:

SPEC-1, SPEC-2, SG-9800, SR-303, RG-2, CTF-1250, RT-909, DT-500, HPM-1100

All the dang filters this tuner has all work to it's strength. The two levels of muting work wonderful. The tuning knob is heavy and is extremely smooth. It's just a stunning looking piece of classic stereo equipment.

Like someone said. that lamps do burn out. But the thing is over 25 yrs old now. So something had to give.

I'd been looking for a vintage (over 20 yr old) really good FM tuner for a while. After reading online, I kept coming back to the Pioneer TX-9500II tuner. Time and time again this was the tuner everyone seemed to fall in love with. I have to say that I do indeed like the smooth open and very sensitive sound this tuner puts out. I am hearing things from FM radio that i have never heard before. I would say the sound is nearly CD quality. It's that good. IT's simply a beautiful looking tuner if you like the silver faceplate like I do. The tuner is heavy.. weighs in I think at about 20lbs. It's way overbuilt too. It's from the days when stereo equipment was built to last. It seems that most of todays stereo gear is only made to last a few years before it's no longer any good. This is not the case with this Pioneer tuner. If you find one at a reasonable price. Pick it up and hook it up to a amp and take a listen. Make sure you use some kind of antenna. Without an antenna, the tuner is very weak in dialing in any stations at all. I hooked up a simple "T" shaped indoor antenna.. and have no trouble receiving most all the stations in my local area. An outdoor antenna would be even better.

Similar Products Used:

Sansui digital tuner (POS) lol

Excellent sensitivity and selectivity (in narrow mode), even better when modified with new filters.

Hard to find replacement lamps for the front panel.

I purchased a nice example of a Pioneer 9500 II AM-FM tuner. The AM section is mediocre, but the FM section is one of the best that I have used. I have a 6 element yagi mounted to a rotor in my attic, and I can consistently receive many stations 60 miles away, and some of the stronger ones 75 - 80 miles distant. The sound is very neutral, good stereo separation and has outstanding quieting on strong signals. I did purchase a technical manual for it and I carefully realigned it after installing narrow filters, but I did not have to bother with realignment - the improvement was slight. The narrow filters were well worth the small investment of time and money because the new filters have less insertion loss and improve the sensitivity and selectivity quite a bit. I paid $155, a real bargin. It's worth having a good technician install narrow filters and realign it; even if your total is $350 its a bargin.

4 stage preselection!! More than 100dB if and image rejection.

front illumination lamps don''t live >10 years...

I have owned a Pioneer TX-9500II for about 15 years. Bought it at a discount price around 1984. When the receiver was introduced in 1978 it was the top line receiver model of Pioneer. New price was 1758 dutch guilders in 1978. I used it with a rotatable 6 element yagi antenna. An oscillosope connected to the scope output for minimizing FM multipath reception. Great for FM-dxing! Back then, FM audio could really be very good quality. Nowadays the audio is heavily processed, coming from mpeg sources and using a quality FM receiver is of no use anymore.

Similar Products Used:

none

100% analog, good sound, well built and inexspensive

Uses electrolytic couping caps in MPX and audio circuits, possibly the cause of slight clipping in the audio.

An Ebay find for $70. A simple tuner from the 70's with the basic necessitites-IF band select, four dial markers, two levels of muting, multipath switch, test tone oscillator, detector output, horz/vert scope connections, AM bar antenna, balanced and unbalanced FM antenna inputs and fixed/variable audio outputs.
Uses four MOSFET's in a two stage RF front end with a 5-gang varable capacitor. Usable sensitivity is 8.8dBf Mono and is flat within 0.5dB from 20-15kHz with 0.5% distortion.
I enjoy listening to tuner and find it easy to listen to unlike like some of the digital tuners I've had. At night with IF selected to narrow I get a few college radio stations 20 miles away with just a dipole lying on the floor.

Similar Products Used:

Kenwood ST-K50

The only tuner I've had since 1978: has no sound of its own, but is absolutely cruel on bad broadcast conditions

needs a good aerial (external, of course) to get the best of it, and an osciloscope to get it (the aerial) right: it's not bat news though

OK, it's an old, very old tuner, and I would not have the heart to send a line on it had I not seen there was one already online: after all, it's a 20-and-more-year-old-machine and I would think nobody would care for it, but James did. So do I. It deserves great respect, and offers absolutely dependable performance. It sounds absolutely neutral and natural. Later tuners (any brand) have turned out to be absolutely mediocre (Day Sequerra excepted) on this point. Pioneers (any kind of machine, not only tuners) have turned out to be absolutely mediocre also. It was a great time for tuners then, and the TX-9500 was a real winner, something of a Rolls Royce of tuners. If you care for FM broadcast and find one easily on hand, stick to it if you can. There's nothing to compare to it these days.
I have nor quoted the price paid because it was aroud a thoudand bucks 20 years ago in Brazil, which would sound quite like "once upon a time"...

Similar Products Used:

other older Pioneer, Marantz and lesser brands