Olympic Dual Channel...

Long story short, im renting this house, was told to do what I want with the funiture. Now I got this huge antique Olympic Dual Hi-Fi Stereo / AM/FM•FM Stereoplex / Phonograph thing. Can Anyone tell me anything about this? Is it worth keeping? Value? Age? Anyone interested? It's in pretty damn fine condition! Perfect Even! Value? Age? It has two manuals, warranty cards, even its inspection tag.

DUAL CHANNEL
OLYMPIC MODEL
1935

[RetroHacker]

Neat find! Haven't seen anything like that personally, but if it's Hi-Fi Stereo, and receives FM stereoplex, then it's gotta be after 1961. (IIRC, could be wrong) If it also receives AM-FM stereo through two tuners, it would probably have been an early stereo receiver. Before FM stereo multiplex, there was AM-FM stereo, a technology that (sorta) worked by using AM for one channel, and FM for the other, and required either two radios or a radio with two _independant_ tuners. Problem with this is that AM has a poorer frequency response, so the stereo effect wasn't very good. FM stereo multiplex solved this problem.

Is it solid state or tube? The tube consoles are much more interesting (to me anyway, likely others) than the solid state ones. Magnavox churned out TONS of solid state stereo consoles in the mid-late sixties, and you can't even give them away. Especially if they're the models with the speakers on the side. But I digress. Anyway, if I remember correctly, Olympic went out of business in the early 70's, so what you have _could_ be pretty recent.

Stuff like this is generally worth hanging on to if you enjoy using it. If it's solid state, it probably works just fine. I'd be hesitant to plug it in if it's a tube set, you should check the power supply filters and power it with a variac/dim bulb tester to make sure there's no nasty shorts first. If it's solid state, and works, it should also sound pretty good. Probably needs a little TLC and contact cleaner, but it should sound good. Tube sets, when in proper working order, IMHO sound better than solid state. Especially the earlier solid state. But, which sounds better is kind of a 'holy war' that's been going on since transistors were invented.

As far as value goes, it's hard to say, without knowing much about it, but probably not a hell of a lot. Console stereos are large and bulky, and still pretty common. I've personally never seen an Olympic console though. The common, cheapie stuff, like the low end Magnavox or Zenith etc. is worth next to nothing in terms of money - but the important thing with all these old electronics is if you enjoy them. There are lots of people out there that do, and collect said electronics. I just drove 340 miles to pick up a couple old black and white console televisions, which I'll probably be hard pressed to give away if I wanted to get rid of them - but I love working on them, and really enjoy collecting them, and rebuilding them to working condition.

Anyway, I've rambled too long - can you post pictures? We'd love to see it...

-Ian

[Tom Bavis]

I found it listed in the Sams Photofact index - #649, which is 1963.