GaryMN wrote:

My Yamaha CR-420 has nice sound, but when you press in the FM/FM STEREO button, it entirely cuts off several stations.

You can be listening to the station and it sounds fine, even showing pretty good signal strength, but push in the FM STEREO button and it's like the power went off. They do not just come in a little fuzzy or without lighting the stereo indicator. They are cut off completely. Dead. Like there is no signal there at all. Push the FM STEREO button again, and they are back.

These are stations about 40-80 miles away that come in on my other receivers, although sometimes they might cut out and in or come in a little fuzzy or the stereobeacon will blink and you can hear the channels lose fidelity. That doesn't bother me. But this 100% dead feature does not seem necessary.

Can I do anything to widen the signals it will not filter out? Or do something so that they come in, even if not highest quality?

I have tried moving the antenna around.

I think this is just a characteristic of this unit.

Any help greatly appreciated. Gary

The button switches between the stereo and mono modes.

It takes about 100 times as much signal strength from the antenna for the stereo decoder to give noise-free stereo reception.

For weaker signals you must use the mono mode.

Putting an antenna on the roof or in an attic can dramatically improve signal strength for the weaker stations.

In my case, my signals are all so weak that I went to internet radio.

My GraceDigital Solo Internet Radio Tuner, which cost me $90, gives me over 10,000 worldwide stations with ease. I am so happy I went to it. It can be connected directly to the internet or links wirelessly to your home wi-fi router. Its output plugs into any analog input on an amplifier or receiver.

I get classical from Boston and Minnesota and New York, 1950s oldies from Atlanta and Beijing (!), and almost any kind of music you can imagine that is broadcast anywhere, including your local stations if you want. Quality is only dependent on the bitrate of the originating station, but most are very good.

Just a few years ago I wouldn't have ever recommended internet radio for quality reasons. However, especially pop stations, are using such highly compressed digital sources that you are left with the worst attributes of BOTH analog FM and compressed digital. Thank you iHeart and Clearchannel. At this point, Satellite radio - which is terrible, is being given a run for it's money for shitty sound quality. Might as well take the analog nasties out and work as best as you can with the digital nasties only.