I kind of not looker but rather listener and when I do something I prefer to have a radio than TV. When I was hunting for my house I among other thing was looking to have a layout of the rooms what sound of my playback was well heard in my kitchen. Since I hate stairs and I ended up with a ranch- style home that has, as I thought, a perfect kitchen arrangement. My kitchen is in little middle of the house, surrounded with rooms from all sides and wide-opened to my listening room. That was perfect.

I said “was” perfect as I a bit changed my opinion on the subject. The kitchen in my home has become a main living location as it located at the middle of everything and has very comfortable permanent fixed-in table. Most of my time I spend at home I spend in kitchen, not necessary cooking but do everything, staring from working and ending writing this post, in other words my kitchen feels more like a social place. What I discovered with time is that to run my main playback what I am busy in my social kitchen is not always a good idea. My playback is in a way demanding, it is too large to be as background and I feel that for my social kitchen I would like to have some local chamber- type, small sound.

So, what a big deal, set up any mini hi-fi at the kitchen and shut up, what to write about it? Well, I think it is time to tell about another long-standing well dream. I always was thinking to myself that what I get my larger permanent place I will build my midbass horn. Ming another wet dream was in larger place to bring back from my childhood the sound of large radios from 50s.

In beginning of my teens, when I was 11-12 years old I used my reel-to-reel mono machine and I used the old radios as active speakers. Then in the begin of 80 people begin to trash the old radios from 50s and I was pulping them from trash, removed the drivers and made from those drivers my first two stand alone loudspeakers, 6 driver per speakers. I have absolutely no idea what I was doing at that time and I “invented” my own rules. I for instance thought the change in sound when I was connecting drivers parallel vs. in series was my very personal secretive discovery…

Anyhow, I was very friendly with old radio in my past and I have an idea to put one of them in my kitchen. I love how some of the radios from 50s looks like and I love their sound. This is a pure fetish thing but I literally feel horny when I switch from FM to AM with piano button and hear the mechanical springs resonances in a wonderful wooden box. Some of those radios in fact sounded very well, at least for what they meant to do at that time.

So, I kind of slowly look through the park of German early FM radio from 50s. I want one that looks very nice, in mint cosmetic condition, mono, with all original circuit, fully aligned, that will do up to 100mHz and with multiple speakers, preferably multi-amped intently. I do not expect this radio to beat my top end tuners but it will be very different objective. What could be more wonderful then listening on those wonderful old radios some Die Fledermaus tunes while baking portabella mushrooms in garlic?

Anyhow, I would like to make this gift to myself; I do not know what more in this: nostalgia, stupidity of celebration on whatever I like. There are an army of Schaub-Lorenzes , Blaupunkts, Telefunkens, Loewe-Optas, Grundigs, Nordmendes, Sabas, Graetzs, Wegas, Siemenses and many others. There are some wonderful French and Dutch radios. I do not need to know them all but I need one, sexy looking, with good reception and kindly sounding. If somebody has any experience with old radios then tell me what model is look for.

zako wrote:

A stromberg Carlson 1936 unit with a LABRITH horn design,,,Its a full rich sounding radio and a well balanced sound..   No you cant have it,,Go find your own,,,

After much research I found the radio that I like. The decision was base mostly on the esthetic: size, color etc, sure I was conserving the circuit but only up to point.  The choose when for German Schaub & Lorenz Goldsuper W42. It is 1957 radio with FM unto 100Meg and electrostatic tweeter.

I might talk a lot about this radio, if you are interested then read yourself:

http://www.tubesound.it/Schaub_goldsuper_W42.htm

http://www.tubesound.it/Schaub_goldklang_58.htm

What it end up to be is that I have a space at my kitchen and this sexy looking old radio is a good feel in the space I designate to it. The radio is much smaller than most of the full-sixe vintage radios of the period – that was what I lookd for.
 
I got my Goldsuper today, it is in very fine condition and fully serviced. I very much like it and the mechanical fine tuning and with all those calibrator and etc works as good as it was 50 years back. Sonically it is OK, however, not as great as I accustomed to get from my other tuners via my big system. I was even partially a bit disappointed as in my memories from childhood I remember great sound from old radios. Well, the sound if fine from the Schaub but nowhere near to my usual FM. Via the main system I accustom to very different noise, dynamic and tonal balance.  The Schaub nowhere near to that level.  It is listenable however and it is locally in my kitchen, right next to the table where I cooking, that is what counts.

I would question if I get the contemporary good table radio of let say $300 level then I might have much better result but it was the call from childhood esthetic, so let do not bitch. The Schaub & Lorenz looks sexier, even if not sound better. I might change some tubes in the Schaub, or do something else but as now it does what I want – an attractively looking wooden box that plays my NPR…

zako wrote:

That radio can be modified,,, to sound better,,Putting it under the kitchin cabinet is the wrong place,,

Paul S wrote:

Romy, this is a classic case of our "memories" telling us something that our ears refute.  Here, you are working against not only the initial limitiations of the design but also the effects of age on everything that did not get replaced during the refurbishment.  It might take a while to re-condition the speakers through use, and it might take a while to learn how to listen to this thing.

Paul S wrote:

As for the more modern table radios, I wish you good luck.  The most "determined" models seem to be the Boze Waveguide and the like, and of course they are all very bad, indeed.  The rest are pretty much random assemblages, as far as I can tell.  I wound up getting a tiny Kaito 1107, and I mostly use truly crappy headphones.  I may try a friend's M-50s, now that he only uses one pair and is selling his leftovers; but I think I would go for a more modern receiver with little BBC  or Jap "monitors", or something like that, before I went for an admittedly-beautiful old console, despite the fond memories of the great old operas on shortwave.

Romy the Cat wrote:

Anyhow, I like your idea about the "memories" but not in the context how you used it.

I kind of semi-write about it in the thread about the “Remembering Sound”:

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?postID=3149

but in the even with my new old Schaub & Lorenz this subject have risen again. The subject is “how we remember sound”. it is very possible that my Schaub & Lorenz is juts shity radio or had some specific problem that nned to be addressed  making sound not as good as I remember. However, most likely the Schaub & Lorenz is fine and it is my memory that makes me to feel that 30 years a back what I heard from old table radio was more stimulating that it in fact was.

I was impressed with those old radios in my teens and I am critical about them in my 40s. Was it Sound that we are dealing with in this case or we are dealing with a mind returning back to own past and find super-positive sensation about own youth?  I sense the latter is more likely.

I feel that my mind over-values own sensations. I do not have another mind and I do not know how it works with other people. The Last year I had an interesting experience. When I was 18 years old I was in love. It was not the first woman in my life but it was the first high amplitude love, the love that I did not know how to manage at time, I am sure we all were there. Everything was over at my 19, what I went to Army for 2 year, then the lives when sot different directions… Last year she found me somehow via internet and we exchange emails and spoke. That was amassing experience for me. I expected from myself to enjoy my memories about her. I did enjoy but the amassing part was that in those memories I found pleasure about my own sensations about her and pretty much discarded her as the object of my sensations. That super egotistic memory of mine made me to think what nostalgia about anything, including Sound or first love, is not about longing for something or somebody in past but rather longing for own early life. Sure, I do not say it to her; I was so indifferent about her that I did not even felt pleasure to insult her with this revelation.

Perhaps I am egotistic not only in audio or perhaps Russians are right when the say that one can’t walk into the same river twice…

So, I do not think it is the Schaub & Lorenz problem but rather my hyper-positive memories about what I sensed in my teens… I wish the change of a capacitor or a rectifier would be able to tweak it….