Sherwood S-3000 IV
A wideband multiplex section, a phase-locked oscillator, and a $160 price tag that put serious FM-stereo reception within reach of the dedicated listener.
Overview
The S-3000 IV was Sherwood's FM-stereo tuner built around the company's established S-3000 III mono tuner, with a new wideband multiplex circuit grafted on to pull stereo out of the air. The design brief was straightforward: take a tuner that already worked, and add the decoding needed for the multiplex broadcasts that were, by the early 1960s, an established reality rather than an experiment. Sherwood's own catalog copy from the period describes the multiplex section as including a phase-locked synchronous oscillator and an extremely sharp filter network to strip the 19,000 cps pilot and the 67,000 cps commercial channel transmission — the two signals that had to be removed cleanly if the stereo subcarrier was going to be recovered without dragging noise along with it.
The IF amplifier, limiters, and discriminator were all held to controlled frequency and phase response, which is the unglamorous engineering that determines whether a tuner sounds clean or merely loud. Sherwood rated FM sensitivity at 1.8 µV by IHFM standards. That figure matters more than it looks: The S-3000 IV sits comfortably in that logic — sensitive enough to justify a real antenna, not so exotic that it demanded one.
Pricing landed at $160, which placed it squarely in what the period press considered the sensible zone for a serious listener. A contemporary buyer's guide grouped the S-3000 IV alongside the Harman-Kardon T-300X at $149.50, the Scott 350 at $199.50, and the Fisher FM-100-B at $229.50, and concluded that the $150-to-$200 band offered solid satisfaction for the great majority of serious listeners — with "ultimate" tuners running up toward $420 for those who wanted the last word in selectivity. The S-3000 IV was not chasing that ceiling. It was the pragmatic choice.
The tuner's physical presence was modest: 14 inches wide, 4 inches tall, and 10½ inches deep, sized to sit in a component stack rather than dominate a shelf. Sherwood also offered the S3MX, a self-powered FM-stereo adapter, at $69.50 for owners of earlier mono tuners who wanted to add multiplex reception without replacing the whole unit — a useful reminder that in this era the multiplex decoder was still treated as a discrete subsystem rather than an assumed feature.
Reception reports from the period were largely favorable, with some quibbles. HiFI-Stereo (January 1963, p.50) measured internal hum at an unusually low −65 dB at the detector output and −51.5 dB at the audio outputs after the signal had passed through the stereo circuits — figures that speak to careful grounding and shielding in a tube-era tuner. The same test noted an output of 0.9 volts, enough to drive any amplifier of the day without strain. The reviewers' complaint was cosmetic rather than electrical: the tuning eye carried a diffusing screen that masked much of its operation, and they would have preferred to use it without the diffuser. It is the kind of flaw that owners learn to live with — you tune by the meter and the ear, and the eye becomes a secondary confirmation.
The separation control drew a more substantive note. HiFI-Stereo (January 1963, p.50) found it could be adjusted reasonably well on stereo broadcasts when the transmission supported it, which is the honest verdict on any consumer separation trim of the period: it works, within the limits of what the broadcaster is sending. Nothing about the S-3000 IV suggests it was chasing laboratory-grade separation numbers. It was chasing reliable, quiet, low-distortion stereo reception in the home, and by the standards of its moment it appears to have delivered that.
Sherwood's own advertising placed the S-3000 IV at the center of a complete component system — paired in one period installation with the S5500II stereo amplifier and a pair of Ravinia SR3 speaker systems, with a Garrard Type A turntable and Shure M7D cartridge feeding it. That is the context in which most of these tuners lived: not as standalone curiosities but as the front end of a system built around Sherwood's own components. Collectors chasing a period-correct Sherwood stack will find the S-3000 IV slots naturally between the S-5000 II amplifier and the Ravinia speakers, and the tuner's compact 14-inch width means it stacks without overhang.
What the S-3000 IV represents, more than anything, is a specific moment in FM history — the point at which stereo multiplexing moved from an engineering curiosity to a feature that manufacturers expected buyers to want. The tuner's lineage from the S-3000 III is stated plainly in Sherwood's own literature, and the wideband multiplex section is the whole reason the IV exists as a distinct model. It is not a tuner that flatters a bad signal, and it is not a tuner that punishes a good one.
eBay Listings
As an eBay Partner, we earn from qualifying purchases. This helps support our independent vintage technology research.