Something different, console stereos. Many of us grew up with them. I was remembering when we had a 2nd-hand Zenith late 60's console stereo, in the mid-80's, given to us, but I don't remember from whom. One channel was burned-out. I rebuilt the amplifier, being those 3-legged transistor NPN / PNP pairs that are 1/2-sized of TO-220's. (Can't remember the TO-#, but you remember those.) It worked fine for a couple weeks, then blew-out again. I should have gone back further in the power supply, but re-CAP'ping wasn't the popular thing back then, like it's pretty much the mandatory thing to do to restore electronic gear today. Anyway, my good friend, The Damage, his Mom wanted to off her Admiral 1970's console, but I just wanted the guts of it, the tuner and 8-Track Player. They let me do that and I was able to Frankenstein that Zenith console with the Admiral electronic guts. (The Zenith guts actually had a tuner with better spec's, but...) My Dad put that in his bedroom and used that for years. Most likely, he sold it with the house. I helped JG Tiger move-out is Grandma's 1960's Fisher console stereo. Nicely kept unit, that stayed in our basement for a while. I cleaned it up and restored the turntable in it. Sounded nice and had a decent tuner as well. JG Tiger's bro has it now, blues artist, The Ugly Doug-ling.
Anyway... Restored, some of these 1960's console stereos are now going for like $8,000.00! (Geez...................) So, what did you have, and do you still have it? The closest thing that I have for a console stereo today is that BOSE Acoustic Wave Music System.
https://www.theturntablestore.com/products/bose-acoustic-wave-music-system-cd-3000-am-fm-w-pd-2-pedestal-and-remote?srsltid=AfmBOoo89Ul96TYTxA-zT8wyp4qX99lNAjC0FSDtdSw9Mv-uPPmKCp4GI bought that for over $1,300.00, with audio switching pedestal in 1991. I had that 230W Pioneer stereo receiver, but could not use even 10W of it, without the neighbors coming to my door bitching about bass coming from my APT walls. (I was in the APT complex then.) So, I gave the Pioneer to my parents, and bought the BOSE System as a perfect APT stereo unit. (BTW, I have that Pioneer receiver again, but the tuner took a lightning hit, but BFD, since it's the amp and switching I want for functions on it.) Back to the BOSE, I did the Bruce Elving FM narrow MOD on it, and that worked great for that incredibly FM crowded Horseheads / Elmira, NY area. FM bottomed to 88.1FM, and AM topped at 1610AM. Both bands sounded great, and AM was a very pleasant wide-band sound. (WOW!!!) I listened to a lot of college stations on that. I still have it. Now granted, console stereo weren't always the best in mind for DX champions, and I don't know of any that had SW Bands in them. (Maybe Grundig???) Many did have a LINE IN, or AUX IN, to add audio from a SW Tuner, another tape deck, TV audio, whatever. Hopefully, your old stereo consoles are something nice today, than spider havens. (Uh-huh...)
Topic: 1960's & 70's Console Stereos. Remember them? (Read 1675 times)
