There is an abundance of beautiful old Mid Century Modern console radios that deserve a new life.  They are often quite well made but have out dated, poor quality audio performance if they even work at all.  Some are also quite a fire hazard!.  Many folks have these old radios that have been in the family for a generation or two and would really like them to become the center piece of their homes again.  These can be retrofitted with safe electronics, cutting edge speakers and modern audio integration technologies like Bluetooth or Chromecast streaming.

Here are some examples of what can be done.  

Console Radio Retrofit

The owner of this beautiful 1961 Symphonic console radio wanted to bring new life to it.  As it was demoed to me, smoke poured out of the original tube amplifier and we quickly shut it down.  This was such a nice piece as it had hinged speakers that tucked away to make a very compact piece of furniture and it had a great configuration as the center contained a large 8x12 subwoofer and the sides used 6" drivers with tweeters.  Very nice for 1961.   I was able to salvage the ceramic console turntable as it was in good shape and just needed a cleaning and some new rubber.  The owner didn't use vinyl that much and was more interested in having the old one working that retrofitting a new one.  I created a custom phone preamp for it, installed a 2.1 amplifier with Bluetooth and even installed a Chromecast.  I was able to keep the original control panel and knobs!  Now this is an updated piece of high end audio gear!.

Table Radio

The owner of this interesting little thing found it in an antique store.  No one really knows what it used to be.  They wanted it to be a table radio.  I took this and installed some full range high quality speakers on the curved sides behind the slats. In the center is a 2.1 amplifier stack and I even got a down firing micro subwoofer in there.  Bluetooth and aux inputs as well.  Now it creates an amazingly spacious sound and the bass from it is quite nice.

1940 Meets DSP

This is a very nice 1940 Philco Slant Back table radio.  The tube amp was shot and I custom installed a 6.5" Kevlar driver with twin (stereo) silk dome tweeters.    I also integrated a great class D amplifier with build in DSP (Digital Signal Processing).  Using the DSP functions i was able to retain the Volume, Bass and Treble knobs and wire them into the DSP processor so they still are fully functional knobs.  The last knob i used for turning the LED backlight on and off.  This case, along with the high quality drivers and DSP capabilities allow for an amazing sounding radio with full tone control, loudness functions and custom equalization to really bring out Bass that constantly surprised folks as they hear it.  A great project and great example of what can be done...oh..it also has Bluetooth and Google integration!

These are just some examples of what can be done.  All fully customized based on project goals, console construction and personal preferences.