Well I like the Manhattan XT-F receiver I own. Tuner appears to be very sensitive. At least in comparison to my aged Echostar ADP3000 and the Pace DS810XE I owned for a few months (extremely annoying user-interface / software and buggy)
With clear skys I get lots of horizontal and vertical transponders off Nilesat 7W with my Televes 1mtr dish and Televes 0.5dB LNB. MBC Action is one of the weakest signals I can receive, quality is just getting 46% or slightly over which gives perfect picture. Image brakes up into blocks at 45% or less so that is very boarderline reception. So just as well MBC channels are also on BADR 26E which is a much stronger signal and appears to be rainproof.
As a very rough guide to tuner quality I would look at if the manufacture claims it can only recieve 2000-45000 symbol rates that is not a good sign. It should be able to receive 1000-45000 symbol rates, which means it is able to get narrow bandwidth signals.
The other thing that made me choose the Manhattan was the relatively fast all symbol rates blindscan. But it is in 8MHz steps, you can opt for slower blindscans 2000-4000 symbol rates, or <2000 symbol rates, these are at 4MHz steps, and can spot the odd channel the faster blindscan misses. Ideally I would like the option of 1 or 2MHz steps, which it does not have.
Of course the Manhattan XT-F is no use if you are intrested in high definition or pay tv, or watching but not paying for pay tv.
As important, if not more important than reciever tuner sensitivity in my opinion is dish alignment, dish size and Lnb/feedhorn - Dish matching.
Dish wise I also have a Orbital 1mrt dish that is noticeably inferior to my Televes 1mtr. Lnb wise I have a Inverto Black Premimum 0.2dB, Golden Interstar 0.2dB, Blue un3011 ds1 0.7dB, and a MicroElectronics Technology Inc AP8-T2 golden 0.6dB LNB. On my Televes dish they all under perform the Televes 0.5dB LNB, with the AP8-T2 coming a close second, the rest lagging noticeably behind.
I take marketing of super sensitive tuners, exceptional gain dishes and exceptional lnbs with a pinch of salt. I was suprised to find out the Triax TD110 is not a 1.1mtr dish but a 1mtr dish and not a very big 1mtr dish, slightly smaller than my Televes 1mtr but larger than my Orbital 1mtr, and the Invertro Black Ultra 0.2dB typ LNB is actually 0.7dB max, but does claim an exceptionally low phase noise.
Since people have recommended the Inverto Black Ultra, does anyone know if it has the same feedhorn diameter as the Inverto Black Premium about 46mm. My other LNBs have feedhorns of around 55mm. My understanding is the smaller the feedhorn the wider the illumantion - more of the dish, the lnb looks at. But they are all suppose to be f/d 0.6 LNBs so why the difference. Since the focal distance of the dish should determine the lnb placement not the size of the LNBs feedhorn, which should match the dishes f/d ratio.
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