Golden Age sentimentalists often allow nostalgia to colour their opinions. They soon learn that because something is old (or glows in the dark) doesn't mean it's good. But one antique which does live up to its reputation is the tube-laden Marantz 10B FM Tuner, and that's not open to discussion.

Although there were a couple of attempts in the 1980s at making modern valve equivalents of this desirable collector's item (most notably from Klimo and the late, lamented New York Audio Labs), the real successor came earlier in the form of a solid-state device. The Sequerra Model 1 of the mid-1970s, designed by Dick Sequerra (who assisted the great Sid Smith with the 10B), was to the tuners of its day what the Goldmund Reference is to turntables: pure, unadulterated, cost-no-object overkill. Naturally, this tuner was an American product, because only the Americans have airwaves which can justify FM as a primary source.

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Before Trevor Butler stabs me with his green biro, let me clarify that statement. Even though we in the UK enjoy some of the finest sounding broadcasts available anywhere, the most consistent, easily-accessible transmissions are only of interest to classical or 'spoken word' listeners, or less than 10 percent of the CD/LP-buying public. They can therefore ignore the last sentence in the above paragraph because they're ideal customers for the Sequerra. All that's left for other radio users are the other Beebs, a couple of halfway decent stations in the major cities and a load of diabolical local stations.

The USA, on the other hand, has an FM waveband crammed to the edges with stereo transmissions to satisfy fans of every genre. Because of this congestion plus sound quality which can do with whatever help is available, American radio users of the high-end, fat-wallet persuasion can justify the purchase of overkill tuners.

Anyway, the Sequerra soon entered the annals of hi-fi as the best-ever post-Marantz 10B tuner, but the company itself went through a shaky period. (Would you want to run a business based on an FM tuner which costs as much as a VW?) In 1984, the Davidson-Roth Corporation acquired the rights to the Sequerra, which they re-introduced as the Day-Sequerra FM Broadcast Monitor, the new tuner being an extensively updated version. On
looks alone, the Sequerra stops audiophiles dead in their tracks, as does the price tag. #13,000 for a tuner? I can hear 'Fed Up In Neasden' already penning his paean to the Quad FM3...

Enter the Day Sequerra FM Studio Tuner, the 'budget' version of the living legend. Still absurdly priced at #3,950, the baby is a much newer design which one or two colleagues have suggested sounds even better than the Broadcast Monitor. The Studio, styled like the Broadcast, features two vertical arrays of six buttons per side, a rotary tuning dial, large red digits and the 4.5in instrument-grade oscilloscope...just like the Marantz 10B. (Note to Fed Up In Neasden: I'm told that this particular 'scope on its own would cost roughly a third of the price of the tuner.) While the less-expensive model loses the spectrum analysis facility on the 'scope, it does replace other functions with more sensible commands. Gone are the earlier unit's Dolby facility (heh, heh, heh...), panel dimmer and three buttons' worth of muting options.

The 12 controls for the new model include four buttons to operate the oscilloscope, absolute polarity inversion, contour defeat, narrow, normal and wide IF bandwidth selection, 'mono forcing' (a mono button to us OFTs), muting defeat and power on/off.

At the back are an IEC mains input, a US-style (screw-threaded) 75 ohm aerial input and four pairs of phono sockets. Two pairs are for signal out, either normal or inverted, while the other
pairs -- also normal and inverted -- allow you to feed the oscilloscope for assessing other line-level components, accessed by pressing the button on the front panel marked 'External Vector Display'. The normal and inverted signal-out sockets also allow you to install the Sequerra in balanced mode with suitable preamps.

The massive owner's manual contains an in-depth technical description, running to six single-spaced pages, so all I'll include here are the salient points. A sophisticated analogue tuning system was employed in preference to digital tuning because the company finds the trade-offs unacceptable, arguing that digital synthesis tuning is, among other things, noisier and less accurate. The company suggests that digital tuning has resolution of 12.5kHz with an actual 'set-on accuracy' of greater than 8kHz; the Day Sequerra is tested for set-on accuracy of better than 100Hz. (Does this mean that we're going to hear a chorus of 'I told you so' from all of those other makers who eschewed digital tuning and pre-sets on the grounds of sound quality?)

With sound quality as much a priority as the sophistication of the tuning circuitry, the company went for true dual-mono audio amplification designed by Dan D'Agostino of Krell, each channel using entirely discrete devices and offering the aforementioned balanced operation. The success of balanced operation in high-end audio applications is pretty much a fait accompli for pre-amps and power amps; Sequerra's FM Studio is, as far as I can tell, the first balanced tuner to appear. The Studio also features six separately regulated power supplies via a custom-made 250VA toroidal transformer. Military spec parts are used throughout, including 1% Dale metal film resistors, and Roederstein and Mial capacitors.

The FM Studio Tuner, when connected to live mains, rests in a stand-by mode, with half-illumination of the 'scope's matrix to indicate this status. Because the tuner takes at least 30 minutes to deliver optimum performance when switched on from cold, this pre-warming stage is a boon; full performance is then available within a minute. Pressing the ON button illuminates the digital counter, the twelve legends next to each button and the oscilloscope. Despite the abscence of presets, the Sequerra is a doddle to tune. The large rotary control has a nicely weighted feel, the digits are large and clear, and the oscilloscope's tuning matrix is foolproof.

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