Help me date/identify this console

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by blue_lateral

What you describe sounds kind of like late 40's. I take it it's a boxy thing? On a Philco of that vintage If you can get the model number, the first 2 digits are the model year. For example 39-116 (going on in another thread right now) is a 1939 model. I dont know why a Victor turntable, but a lot of old radio-phono combos got their 78-only changers replaced when LPs came along.

John

Another surefire way to tell whether an AM/FM set is from the early or late 1940s is to look at the FM tuning dial. If it runs 88-108 MHz, the set is postwar vintage. If the FM band runs 42-49 MHz, the radio was made before WWII. Some early postwar Zenith AM/FM radios had both the 42-49 and the 88-108 FM bands, when stations were just beginning to switch from the old to the new frequency range. (Point of interest: The first FM radio station licensed to Cleveland, Ohio was WBOE-FM, operated by the city's board of education; the station operated, I think, on 43 MHz before switching to 90.3 when the new band was commissioned.) The old FM band is all but useless today, although one can still hear baby monitors and such (not to mention old cordless phones, the ones that operate on the old 46-49 MHz range before they all went to 900 MHz and higher) around 46 MHz.

Your comment about many old 78-rpm changers being replaced with 4-speed units in old radio-phono combos when LP records came into vogue got me to thinking. How many people ditched their 4-speed turntables when CD players were introduced? Most bookshelf stereo systems, my Aiwa CX-NA888 (made in 1999) among them, do not even have a turntable as standard equipment, although these turntables are (or were) available as options. However, the only turntable which will work with these systems is the original Aiwa turntable, which has a preamplifier stage. Try to use a standard turntable (no preamp) with this system and all you'll likely get is very weak or no sound.

Speaking of replacing 78-rpm changers with newer 4-speed units: If your treasured old radio-phono combo system has a preamplifier ahead of the output stage (these were very common in old Philco rp's that had the Beam-O-Light changer, for example; the output of the cartridge in these changers was quite low compared to modern ones), be sure to remove the preamp tubes, or otherwise disable the preamplifier stage(s), when you install the modern changer. This is to prevent the output stage from being overdriven by the high output of the modern cartridge (most antique r/p's had phonographs with very low output cartridges, hence the need for a preamp).

The Victor TT in that Philco you mention may have been a 4-speed LP changer, being used to replace the console's old 78-rpm turntable. Once LPs burst on the scene the 78's days (for the records themselves and single-speed turntables/changers) were numbered; eventually, the 78s...well, they didn't actually die (they show up on ebay every now and again), but, as the saying goes about old soldiers, they just faded away.