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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.
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