FOR AN ONKYO T450 USER MANUAL CLICK HERE
Nowhere on the internet have I seen a review of this tuner, so here is mine. I'm on my second 450.
INTERIOR
What's inside this tuner? Not much. There's a power supply, LCD display and a motherboard, and not a very large motherboard either. The tuner is not heavy.
EXTERIOR
On the outside front panel there is plenty to look at. From left to
right you will find:
a) Power switch
b) Display button (press this to see any radiotext being transmitted).
c) Character button (I have no idea).
d) A group of four buttons. The two top buttons are for RDS. The left
shows PS code, PTY and AF;
the right is a scan button for RDS. The bottom two are FM and AM
selection.
e) LCD Display with six class buttons beneath marked A through F.
f) Keypad with numbers one through zero. A direct/del button. A memory,
mute/stereo and wide/
narrow bandwidth button.
g)Two button to the right of that which are auto tuning and preset
tuning.
h)At the far right, a tuning dial.
The tuner automatically shows the RDS(PS Code) of any
station using RDS. Also the RDS indicator turns on. Some stations trip
the RDS almost instantly; some take a huge signal to indicate RDS.
For those of us who have had our fill of punching up/down buttons when
tuning stations, the tuning dial is the biggest convenience of this
tuner. You can still enter the frequency manually by punching in the
digits on the keypad and pressing the Direct button (for example, for
107.9 press 1-0-7-9 Direct). The tuner changes to 107.9 instantly.
Since I bought this tuner without a manual I went months before I
figured out how to add presets.
Look at the six class buttons under the display. You can program all
your presets (30 of them) under one class or you can split them up into
classes. If you wanted to program all the country stations in your area
under one class, you could do it. You could put all your favorite rock
stations under another. Just remember that whatever you put in each
class has to total 30 stations. In my case, I program all my good dx
channels in one class and most of my local stations under another. I
don't use the rest since the total of these two classes totals 30. If
you try to program more the tuner tells you that the memory is full.
Now, if I punch the preset tuning button, I can tune the presets in
whatever class I have selected with the tuning dial. This is cool.
Definitely. I can just tune my DXable channels or I can just tune my
locals and disregard everything else.
The million dollar question is this. How do you add presets? Here's how:
1. pick a class (A through F). Press the button.
2. Select the frequency you want to add. You can use the tuning dial to
do it.
3. Select a preset number (why not start with one).
4. Press the memory button.
5. Press the Class button again.
Now repeat this sequence as many times as you need to do it. If you
don't like what you added for preset number 6 you must delete it first
then enter in a new preset number
6. Pressing the Memory/Delete and Mute buttons together will clear the TOTAL memory. Don't do it
unless you intend to clear everything!
When you tune the T450, the tuner automatically selects monaural or
stereo, wide or narrow bandwidth. Sometimes it makes mistakes (not
often). In these situations you can manually override bandwidth and
mono/stereo with the buttons provided. The radio will mute a weak
stereo signal sometimes, forcing you to press the mono button to hear
the station. No big thing.
This radio has no signal meter/indicator. Don't look for one. It's not
there. Pretend it's a car radio. The tuning dial makes up for it. Did I
say I love the tuning dial?
SENSITIVITY AND SELECTIVITY
Sensitivity is excellent and selectivity is fair in stock
condition. The unit has two 150khz filters in the narrowband position
and two wide filters but it's not good enough for anyone who really
needs the selectivity. Swapping 110khz filters for the 150s does not
help. What helps GREATLY is pulling one of the two wideband
filters and replacing them with either a 150 or a 110. I put
a 150khz filter in mine. It surpasses my Carver TX-11 for selectivity
and sounds a whole lot better also. It sounds great! Not muddy at
all but crystal clear.
Update March 2012
I am now on my second T450 RDS. I recently swapped out the
second wideband stock filter and installed a 110khz Murata filter.
Selectivity is almost at a par now with my XDR-F1HD tuner. RDS still
works. Still sounds great in wide mode.
Changing the filters on this tuner is easy. Board access and filter
access is easy. There's no excuse here for not doing it. Take off the
top cover. Remove four screws that hold the plugs in the back of the
tuner. Remove the board. Unsolder the stock filter (one or both of the
filters marked 110khz) and solder in a narrow filter in that spot. The
two filters marked 110khz have already been changed.
Four filters shown above. The crossed filters are the wide filters. View from the top. Mostly empty.
©2013 M. Bugaj no reprinting without permission