Price Paid:  $100.00 from for sale ads in Stereophile

Summary:
The thing I liked most about this tuner was it was fully tweakable. I had it adjusted by a friend who is into Ham radio and understood how to tune a tuner. Excellent reception, and wonderful selectivity. The analog output stage was a bit dated sounding, but probably due to its age and was most likely resolvable. Ugly, mine was used in a recording studio for those time when radio reception was needed, so it was a bit banged up, but still ugly styling. Funky name "Charlie the Tuner" ;)

Very good bargin if the $$ is right. Also, FM only...

Strengths:
good selectivity

Weaknesses:
looks

Similar Products Used:
carver, yamaha, dynaco

Summary:
The Sumo Charlie tuner is a nice digital fm tuner that offers five presets and is quite affordable (I purchased mine used for $150). While it can't compete with the high-end crowd of Macintosh, Accuphase or the upper levels of Magnum-Dynalab, it does offer an amazing amount of bang for the buck. Many folks think this to be the best tuner for the budget audiophile. I have to agree.

The tuner I have has a black face plate with the standard Sumo lettering, which looks remarkably like the text from a Star Wars movie. Build quality is good, but not excellent. The unit is very simple to operate, but there are no dials, remote control or direct input: only up and down buttons.

While it may lack the gee-whiz good looks and blinking lights of some of the higher priced products out there, it does delivers great value. Strongly recommended.

Strengths:
Great reception, simple

Weaknesses:
Somewhat dated aestheticly (very 80's)

Summary:
The Sumo "Charlie the Tuner" is a nicely built unit, and is also visually appealing. I had the pleasure of owning one of these tuners for a period of about six years and it served me very well. The audio performance of this tuner is very good, although I would suggest that a dedicated roof mounted antenna is a must (preferably with an antenna rotator). This tuner has an uncanny ability to pull in distant stations, when hooked to a proper antenna. McIntosh Labratories used to publish a FM Guide that was available for the asking, and it lists all of the FM Stations currently operating in the United States. Sitting down with this guide, you would be amazed at how many stations you could log into with the Sumo, simply by tuning to the frequencies listed, and rotating the antenna for the strongest signal. These tuners can also be had at a bargain price, in the used classifieds. Nice job Sumo !