Review in image hifi magazine (Germany), Issue 6/2006

Accuphase DDS FM Stereo Tuner T-1000
by Roland Kraft"The T-1000 is the ultimate luxury-class FM tuner representing a successful
blend of sound quality, performance and ergonomics".
A proud statement indeed. After all, we are not dealing here with anything thatincidentially may have come along but with an Accuphase. An Accuphase tuner, tobe more precise. It goes without saying that this new tuner would neither belong to
the "el cheapo" variety nor would it be equipped with run-of-the-mill technology.
Otherwise, this honourable noble maker from Japan would certainly be loosing morethan its excellent reputation. So, logically, you could expect Accuphase Laboratory tolaunch an FM-tuner that is going to please even the most discriminating "radiolistener".
FM? Wasn't there something else? Oh, yes, DAB: "Digital Audio Broadcast",
i.e. digital radio. By the way, there is the industry's vision of having millions of radiosin good ole' Germany eventually thrown into the dustbin, whereupon they would
make a huge profit in replacing them with DAB-compatible radios (however it shouldbe all clear that 99 percent of them are certainly not made in Germany but in Asia).
Consequently, the question may arise as to whether spending money on a fineanalogue tuner like the Accuphase T-1000 would be worthwhile at all.
I think we should all calm down a bit. It's because in Germany there will be no"hard" change, i.e. analogue broadcast technology being recklessly shut down in thenear future. Quite unlike TV, where you could help yourself with an affordable blackbox to also receive digital TV while maintaining your precious TV set, this would
mean to have millions of kitchen radios, radio-alarm-clocks, hi-fi receivers and carradios replaced fairly soon and at the same time would mean to provide DAB
exhaustively and at the same time guarantee a great variety of programmes. Hold
your horses, as the saying goes, because as far as DAB is concerned we could
expect a rather "tender" change, which, according to some insiders, may last well into
the year 2015 and even beyond. In addition, the recent EBU conference (wherefrequencies for all kind of public services and nevertheless for broadcasting are to beshared and administered) has yet to assign the hitherto analogue FM band to any
other future purpose. For this very reason, too, experts and insiders consider
analogue FM broadcast to be carried on for a long time, albeit perhaps in ten years
without the current programme variety but still interesting enough to justify the usageof analogue tuners.
As far as I'm concerned however, I tend to remain pretty sceptical in view of all
this: I doubt that the potentially good transmission quality in the digital domain would
likewise be used to come up with better sound quality. I'd rather venture to say thatthe priority will be to squeeze as many programmes as possible into the available
frequency bands. And if you are becoming aware of the present developments in thebig market of entertainment electronics, then every pessimist would expect nothing
better than the sound of MP3 mono, because, evidently, the majority of users isalready most happy with the "sonic squawking" downloaded from the Internet.
Yet before we end up once again in criticizing culture, let's get back to theAccuphase which was launched as a classic analogue tuner featuring most moderntechnologies. Quite evidently in opposition to other seemingly high-end-oriented
makers who have already opted for DAB receivers/tuners. As we are already used to,
the 12-kg-heavy T-1000 also comes along in a champagne-coloured, elegantly
designed outfit featuring a digital indicator for reception frequency, a classic signal
strength meter and - oh so beautiful! - a nice, large knob for station tuning. Behind
which you will of course no longer find any old-fashioned variable disk capacitor but apulse tuning system which, according to the Japanese, is to convey the conventional
feeling when tuning to radio stations. By means of a precision bearing and a fairly
large flywheel made from brass, this little trick achieves a perfect illusion indeed.
However it's much less illusion than know-how when we get to the circuitboard inside which occupies nearly one half of the housing's space. The old andnotorious method to add a tuner to one's product range by simply having the frontend acquired from an OEM does definitely not apply here. I trust half the engineering
team at Accuphase would rather commit hara-kiri than to bring shame on the brand.
As the motto has it: everything is home-made, including some highly innovative,
proprietary circuitries which, after all, are strongly distinguishing the T-1000 from it'spredecessor T-109V.
The newly developed front end employs the currently most modern technology
for PLL circuitry in a so-called "Super-Heterodyne" receiver, namely the direct digitalsynthesis (DDS). For this purpose the output of a quartz oscillator is supplied to afrequency divider to generate the timing (in other words the sampling frequency) withwhich the sine wave data are read out. Unlike conventional PLL circuits, DDS does
not use feedback, allowing it to produce an output signal of which the frequency
accuracy is exactly the same as that of the quartz oscillator itself. As there are no
unwanted frequency modulation components present in the IF stage, the SuperHeterodyne front end achieves a drastically enhanced signal-to-noise ratio andreception quality.
By the way, the T-1000 will please you with neither RDS (Radio Data System)
nor with an automatic station search function. I consider this a remarkable purist or, if
you like, audiophile approach with respect to tuner making. It does have station
memory though, namely 32 altogether. Besides that you'll find a fully shielded power
supply as well as - rather rare among tuners - balanced outputs. Last but not least
there is a digital output jack, too. The latter is actually no small wonder because after
the IF filter stage and the likewise improved FM stereo demodulator (where the highfrequency pilot tone is to be filtered out) the T-1000 continues to work by means of aDSP. Of course, for the digital signal processor the usable signal must be transferred
into the digital domain by an A/D conversion. Any dyed-in-the-wool analogue junkie
may now be put off upon reading this, but this is without question another possibility
for substantially improving a stereo tuner circuitry. With the help of DSPs and theappropriate software some features could be implemented which if they were to beexecuted the conventional way would either require an exceptionally elaborate circuitdesign or would be impossible at all.

Placing stereo decoding also in the hands of a DSP yields other advantages
like, for instance, an extremely good channel separation. Quite similar to theelsewhere mentioned digital direct synthesis in the local oscillator, the identification of
the stereo pilot tone is also taken care of by DSP arithmetic. It would just have tobarely detect the weakest pilot tone in order to have it generated itself via "Pilot Tone
Direct Synthesis (DS-DC)" as the Japanese have dubbed it, whereby this measure isto guarantee a good stereo separation even at high noise levels. With additional DSP
tricks the T-1000 is also taking care of possible crosstalk between channels. Now,
being connected with the digital technology employed in this tuner, it admittedly takessome time to get used to the total muting between stations worth receiving. In otherwords, when tuning up and down the frequency band it's dead silent in between
stations. Another property of the T-1000's reception technology is something one
would describe as the "immediate readiness" of stations including their side bands
worth receiving. However if the tuning knob is turned too swiftly it can happen thatsome stations are straight away missed. Therefore the basic rule for operating theT-1000 is to tune slowly! Provided a good reception, some strong stations come inand through the speakers with virtually no noise - a quite unusual pleasure.
The T-1000 is equipped with still another speciality function named"Frequency Trim". With this feature the reception frequency can be fine-tuned bysteps of 10 kHz (although our channel scheme is usually 50 kHz wide) while
maintaining the filter centre frequency bandwidth. This function can be useful when
there are two closely adjacent stations interfering with each other. Frequency Trimenables you to tune away from the area of interference whilst still staying tuned to thedesired station. The clever memory stores not only the station but also its linked
settings, like switched filters or frequency trim, etc. This is the big advantage of thetuner's DSP operation system which, I trust, will generally find much acceptance. On
the other hand there is not much to operate on the T-1000: the above mentioned
frequency trim, a button for forced monophonic operation, a button each for thestereo noise filter and muting plus of course the important memory button make it
altogether five and, well, that's it.
It's old wisdom of wireless operators (which cannot be repeated often enough)that even a high-tech tuner like the Accuphase can only be as good as its antenna.
Hook it to a one-meter-piece of wire and you'll be disappointed. Connect it to thesupplied FM bipolar room antenna and the (reception) fun will start there. However
the ultimate alternative would be a big professional FM roof antenna, which most real
tuner freaks would have at their disposal anyway. And there are those special easyto-mount FM pole-antennas (e.g. the ST2 by Magnum Dynalab). One cannot deny
the advantage of having these pole-antennas DIY-mounted in the attic.
What this fine Accuphase also tells us more or less in passing by is the clearly
qualitative difference of various FM stations. They come in by a wide range oftransmission as well as sound quality, reaching from rousing to unacceptable. Even
the never analytic but smooth and, under optimal circumstances, always spacious
sound of the T-1000 cannot obscure the fact that quite a few radio stations simply
don't know what quality means. Here, I'm thinking of both the transmitted soundquality and the quality of broadcasted programmes themselves, including some of
their "moderators". But that would certainly lead to another discussion… For our(tuner) luck however there are still some radio stations around which can indeed besavoured via the Accuphase and optionally recorded onto CD without much ado, i.e.

the need of an extra signal path. Here in Bavaria for instance it's Bavaria-4 "ClassicMusic" that deserves to be mentioned together with a great deal of praise. Oh, by theway: one of the most precise and informative place worth visiting for tuner
aficionados is the website www.ukwsender.de.
In the meantime it should have become evident that this Accuphase was notmade for long-distance station hunting, including noisy mono reception, but trimmed
to render well received radio stations with uncompromising sound quality in stereo.
With respect to its original design goal, namely to become the adequate tuner
component in a high-end audio chain, I think this goal has been very well achieved.
And just in case I haven't clearly mentioned it so far: the T-1000 is without any doubt
one of the sonically best tuners ever built!

image x-trakt
What I like:
The purist concept.
What's missing:
Just bits and pieces: perhaps an adaptor between IEC and F-type antenna input?
What a surprise:
The smooth, natural and colourful sound.
What to do:Give it a good warm-up and, yes, it really deserves a fine antenna.