Gentle reader,
Once again, thanks for taking the time to read my blog and the photos that go with it. I really appreciate your kind words. Glad to know that you're out there and that you enjoy my efforts.
Recently, I decided to simplify my life. Again. I know, I've done it before and told/showed you all about it. I think that I just keep it complicated but in different ways. My long suffering wife would agree.
Firstly, and yes, that IS a word, I came across another vintage-looking electronic component. You may recall the "floor radio" in a recent post. I'm still enjoying that and in fact thinking of selling the rest of the radio collection. Well, all but the Halicrafters. Below is the "Antique" CD player/radio. It's an Emerson. There are many companies that have produced modern versions of the classic radios that yesterday's generations enjoyed and relied upon for their news and entertainment. Yes, children, there was a time when NOTHING had a screen. That is except for windows. That's house windows. You know, the kind you look out of. No TV, no smart anything, no tablets, no phones that weren't attached to a wall with wires. No air conditioning, well, I could go on and on. Below, pretty isn't it?
Above, you think I was making up "Antique Compact Disc Player"? You lift the tab and place the disc on the spindle. Lower the arm and it spins it up to read the disc. Then press play. Works well and sounds surprisingly good.
Above and below you can see the speaker grille cloth behind the fancy woodwork. A pair of 4" drivers lurk behind. I never tried to hear if it is truly stereo, but it probably is. With the speakers angled 45 degrees, one could obtain a fairly nice sound stage.
The one problem is that it doesn't have the usual wire that sticks out of a hole in the back that functions as a FM antenna. So, after much searching and testing, I found the right terminal to attach a wire for this black antenna. It was one of a pair on an amplified Radio Shack TV antenna. More on that later. As you can see, it rotates and of course extends to standard length. It greatly improves reception and sensitivity. Sounds better as well.
So, what about this "Executive" stereo? Exactly one week after finding this Emerson (25% off Wednesday at the Salvation Army store) I found what I feel is the ideal replacement for the stack of Onkyo equipment I had here in the "office" next to me. They have traveled across the USA to their new owner in Arizona. He's quite happy with them.
Below is the Panasonic SA-PM19. It is not listed in my 2002 Orion's Blue Book of Audio equipment, so it is newer than that. The little TV is not part of it.
Below as you can see, the speaker wires are long enough to separate them by at least eight feet. I don't have the desire to do so as you will find out below.
Above is a non-flash photo of the units. Inside the front panel at the bottom is five CD trays. It has an AM/FM stereo radio tuner with 15 station memory. Also, on top is a button and a panel that pops open when the button is pressed. Inside is a cassette player. When I think about it, this is the modern version of the plastic fold-up record player I had when I was 17, forty-one years ago. There were cassettes then, but they were for voice recording at that time. 8-track tapes ruled then. Sheesh do I feel old, now! Anyway, I thought that little fold-up record player, all-plastic, too, sounded just fine. That is until I visited my new friend, Phillip's house and heard a real stereo.........
Above and below is the little 7" digital TV that also was a thrift store find. It's digital so it picks up all the TV stations. Well, with a roof antenna it does. Nice picture too. It was in the original box in new condition. Who donates new stuff?
Above, the AM antenna that came with the Panasonic serves dual-duty by propping the TV up a little more. I could tune just 2 AM stations, both Spanish language.
Above, note the eight speaker terminals with the unusual blue and white colors. Turns out, this kit has two amplifiers, one for bass and lower frequencies and one for mid-to-high frequencies. This is called "Bi-wire" by the Audiophile crowd. The Polk Audio Monitor 30 speakers I just got are made for bi-wiring have been others that I have owned and enjoyed.
Above, you can see the custom shortened wires and the splitter that sends the signals from the FM antenna I put up on the roof. The TV gets great reception from it. FM used to be located between channels 6 and 7 in the analog TV days.
Above you can see the bass reflex port on the rear of each speaker. When they do that (speaker makers) they often align it with the rear of the tweeter, for some reason.
Above, you can see the foam surround "mid-bass" driver and cone tweeter. Don't poo-poo cone tweeters. They work very well. In fact, that's all that BOSE uses. The BOSE 301 speakers in here use two cone tweeters and they sound amazing.
Looking back through older posts, I found the one constant as far as the listening room speakers are those 301s. I moved them in here to make room for the older Polks and now the new Polks that replaced them. I blogged about the ingenious way I mounted them on the walls in here. Also in here are the solid oak speakers that I bought and improved. They are subject of another older post. ANYWAY, since I sold the Onkyos, I had no way to drive them. Thanks to the vast amount of wiring I had in the attic that originally was used to "pipe" music in here from the stereo that was once located in the living room, clear at the other end of the house.
Note the twisted blue/silver wires in the photos below. In case you're wondering, the pretty girl on the left is my older daughter at 13, the gorgeous brunette on the right is my wife at 29. She's still gorgeous, twenty years later.
Above is the terminal that was once behind me and above my left shoulder. What was in this spot once was my first attempt at sending sound in here. THAT was when the stereo was once in the dining room. And my wife thinks I keep changing things!
Above, with STAR WARS out of the way, you can see the speaker switch and attendant wiring. It may look confusing, but a pair of wires comes down and in and one pair goes up to the BOSE 301s and unseen is the two that go down to the oak speakers.
Thanks to the modern DYNACO Stereo 200 power amplifier in the den/listening room which has two pairs of speaker terminals, I can have two, four and even six speakers all playing at once. Cool, huh?
If you look at older blogs, the most popular of which can be seen above/right, you will see the other speakers and amps and such of which I wrote today.
Thanks for looking,
Scott
