What is it about old radios?

[Marantz7t15]

Modern radios, with their IC chips and digital displays, are certainly and absolutely better than the older units. But what is it about the old radios that make them "seem" better. Something Very satisfying about snapping on that power switch with that solid "Chinck" sound. The dial casting a subtle amber hew. The tubes, after taking several moments to warm up, lighting up the wall behind the set, with a dim halo. Is it the anticipation? The glow of the tubes and that unmistakable electronic type smell that can only come from the dust covered chassis of tube gear? It really is a neat sensation!

[mr_fixer]

Are they really? I had a semi modern Icom IC-R71a shortwave receiver, with all the bells, whistles, digital tuning and presets memories. I absolutely hated the sound and it wasn't that sensitive either.
i consistently get better reception and sound quality with old analogue receivers most of which are 40 to 60 years old. Logan

[Geoff Bourquin]

Part of it IS the smell. You tube guys know it. Hot dust, carbon resistors, wax capacitors, paint fumes, varnish on transformer windings, slightly scorched bakelite, that 25 watt resistor in the B+ line that's been pouring out 30 watts for the last 60 years.

While the sound may not be accurate, it is pleasing. A lot of them give off an aura of quality. They have mass, which suggests quality. Much of the construction was done by hand by someone who cared. They come from a time when there was still magic in radio, and, for me at least, a little of that magic still happens when I fire up my old Hallicrafters or Hammarlund. Not so much with my solid state stuff.

There is also the memory of when I was a kid hunched over an old Western Auto console trying to pick up stations from somewhere I never heard of.

[radiotvnut]

I like the older tube and early transistor stuff because of it's usually nice build quality and very good to excellent performance. I will say that for AM use, most any '60's 5 tube radio will blow the doors off of the average consumer radio made today. Back in the tube era, most radios were made in the USA with pride. Now, it's "build it as cheap and as crappy as possible so we can make more money off of the initial sale and again when the customer comes back to buy a new piece of crap to replace the 1 year old piece of crap that just died". Even as far back as the early '70's, consumer radios had taken a giant nose dive. I've got an early '70's Korean Zenith AM/FM clock radio that is no where near as good as my late Uncle's '68'ish Zenith USA built radio. Also, the older equipment was made to be serviced. Most modern consumer electronics are built to be thrown away when they fail. I see this more and more with newer TVs, stereos, etc. In fact, the more I see of this new crap; the more respect I have for the old tube stuff.

[AnalogDigit]

Now, manufacturers do not give a damn about how AM sounded (or even FM). But the old tube radios were meant to sound good even with AM. They just have that warm sound that is great. A lot of them had great tuners to do some long distance DX'ing with them.

[Fisherdude]

Love all your comments!

Plus, the connection to the past. I remember my Grandma's clock radio on top of her refrigerator, which brings back a lot of memories of piles of cookies and glasses of cold milk!

My Grandpa's workshop, with an old radio covered with sawdust and little speckles of white paint. I swear, every single tool that man owned was covered with little speckles of white paint! I should know, I still have them.

[similost]

I've got a 40 year tuner that is my daily driver. It pulls in a LOT more stations than my two modern tuners.. With that said, I am going to say the statement about the newer tuners being better is going to be false..

[ablethevoice]

I can't put it into words either but I'm with everyone else who feels that a 60 year old whatever brand of receiver has a certain something which has been engineered out of modern rigs. I've used or owned several flashy digital rigs which just don't sound or perform anywhere near the level of even the most basic 5-tube tabletop radio built for a casual user ca 1935-55. I'll grant that a newer digital rig has a definite edge where stability is concerned and it is kinda nice to be able to hit 9.655mHz exactly either with the tuning knob or keypad, but for sensitivity and overall sound quality my heart is with hollow-state rigs. The smell... the weight... the presence...the authority of an old tube rig is undeniable.

[jeyurkon]

I don't have a fireplace, but the warm glow from my HQ-160 is a nice substitute.

John

[Twenty20Man]

newer stuff...push buttons..menu's..so impersonal.. feels cheap. give me a metal switch...a freaking knob..substantial...wood not pseudo wood. things are what we perceive.

[Telecolor 3007]

You can feel an old radio! The new ones are a just some boxes...
Well, not to forget about the light given by the lights bulb from the dial... it's a God given wonder. Not to forget about the magic eye (tuning eye), another splendor!

[steerpike2]

You also have to remember what those wooden table radios cost, in terms of how many months typical wages. Modern radios are cheap, and the quality reflects the price.

[Jeffhs]

I have three wood-cabinet Zenith radios I would not give up for anything. As others here have said, today's solid-state transistor sets cannot hold a candle to the older radios, the latter being made, in most cases, with all-metal chassis and well-designed circuitry. The sound of these older sets is better than the new one-chip radios as well. My Zenith C845 (the radio shown in my avatar looks almost like it) has two speakers, an 8" for low- and midrange and a 5" for highs; the radio also has tone and loudness compensation, a true tone control that alters the response curve of the entire audio stage, not just cuts down the highs as do the tone controls in today's cheap portables (those that even have tone controls at all), and the cabinet is made of solid wood (my other two Zeniths, K731 and MJ1035, have solid-wood cabinets as well).

I like the sound and the looks of the cabinets of all three of my Zeniths, although at the moment the MJ1035 has an issue with the volume control (resulting in very low, almost inaudible sound, but the radio works very well otherwise, bringing in loads of stations just using a hank of wire on the FM antenna terminal). These radios were built for long-distance reception and excellent sound quality today's cheap plastic portables cannot hope to match. The C-845 works very well and also sounds 1000 times better than any of today's cheap sets, which is why I intend to keep all three sets as long as they work as well as they do. I also have a Zenith H511 table set (the "racetrack" model, so named for the shape of the cabinet) that was made in 1951, and still works quite well; no hum, good sound and quality construction, qualities for which Zenith radios (and later, televisions) were known for decades.

These radios, not to mention my Royal 1000 eight-band portable and R-70 AM/FM set (the latter very likely having been one of the last quality Zenith portables--it's built like a tank, even though the entire radio is on a PC board) are keepers as far as I am concerned. I don't know what got me so interested in collecting these, but I'm glad I did start a collection seven years ago. These radios represent a level of quality (of build and sound) we will never see again, in this age of outsourcing, offshoring and manufacturers of almost everything these days being much more concerned with their bottom line than with the quality of their products.

[toxcrusadr]

My wife "got it" the first time she turned on my first tabletop restoration. The switch went CLUNK and she said "WOW! It's real!"

Here's part of a sheet I wrote to accompany a gallery display of antique radios I did for a community radio station's 30th anniversary:

The Lure of Antique Radios

These machines are the remnants of a society that valued things. Things that could last, that were repairable, with owners who treasured them. They weren’t made, or bought, to throw out in a few years or when they broke.

The lure of glowing vacuum tubes brings back memories of our youth, our parents, our grandparents. Radio design in the Golden Age (1920-1950) reflected industrial design and technology of the time. These radios were designed by the same engineers who made the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, the automobile, the great trains and airplanes. Their designs combine form, function and beauty, and the result is a timeless allure.

Vacuum tube radios often perform better than modern equivalents. Radio stations were fewer and farther away in those days, and receivers were more sensitive. Worldwide broadcasts on shortwave frequencies were very popular listening in the 1930s as the US came out of the isolationist 20s and began to pay attention to the brewing conflicts in Europe and Asia. Even a simple 5-tube radio can pick up the high-powered clear-channel AM stations in Chicago, Dallas, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Detroit or Denver on a clear night.

Wood cabinets – walnut, mahogany, and others - were dominant through the 20s and 30s. Plastics such as Bakelite, beetle plastic, plaskon, and the beautiful translucent Catalin began to take over around WWII, especially for table sets. These plastics are all but extinct today.

The radio was the center of the household. These were the days before television, and most news and entertainment came into the household via the radio. Radios were furniture, an essential piece of the living room, kitchen, den.

Who owned these radios? What did they listen to? The Roaring 20s, the Great Depression, WWII, the Cold War. The Jazz Era, the big bands, rhythm & blues, the beginnings of Rock ‘n Roll. If only they could talk…

[gadget73]

Tube equipment is more "alive" than solid state. It has to warm up, it drifts and floats a little bit, and occasionally requires a little work under the hood to keep it going. They tend to not be dead on precise like a digital display, so there is a bit of user interaction required to get the intended results. I think thats part of the allure, the need to actually operate the radio. I get some of that out of analog tuned solid state units, but a tube set just has a certain something to it.