You might remember Michael Saunby, he was the guy that had the interesting clock that we were trying to determine heritage for. The clock was almost featured on Antiques Roadshow but unfortunately was left on the cutting room floor. Michael works with lots of antique electronics and this 1930 vintage amplifier and speaker is a great example of what can be done with a mix of old and new.
"The original amplifier was typical for a 1930s broadcast receiver, a single ended pentode with tone correction. The valve chosen was a high slope pentode type AC/SP3; as used by the BBC in pre-amplifiers from late 1930s through to the 1950s."
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I love looking at old tube-type electronics. It’s nice seeing how the people who built these took the time and effort to make even the insides look nice, especially seeing that these items were actually user-serviceable.
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That’s pretty sweet looking, I love seeing how something so small these days was so big back then, makes you appreciate technology a lot more.
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I can’t say that looking at older electronics necessarily makes me appreciate today’s technology any more. In my opinion there’s a lot of today’s technology that is actually a step or two back. Much of today’s stuff is built to be used and disposed of – even multi-hundred dollar items like cell phones and MP3 players. Swapping out a AAA battery every now and then makes more sense than tossing a $200 player because the built-in lithium battery is worn out. And does a multi-gigabyte word processing sweet really do that much more for the average person than WordStar on a floppy did? Just because it’s new, doesn’t always mean it’s better. When your SMT technology amplifier of today craps out – and it will – forget about fixing it. In the “olden days” I can remember taking a handful of tubes to the drugstore tester to replace the bad one and fixing my TV for a couple of bucks.