WOW!! some really neat console hi-fi pictures-love that pink silvertone.Some other thoughts I had about Hi-fi in general over my weekend-One of the big boosts to modern Hi-fi console and componet-was the invention of the beam power tube by RCA in the WW2 period.That device alone made for more compact and efficent Hi-Fi amps for consoles,radios,Tv's and of course hi-Fi component amps-these tubes are still used and available today-Guitarists love them-the tube family of 6V6,6L6,6CA7-EL-34,6550,7027,8417.Lots of these bottles found there way into Hi-fi's of all sorets-yes they still needed an output transformer-that is a necissity for any tube amp feeding a speaker.remember high tube plate load impedance of several thousand ohms has to be stepped down to 4-16ohms for a speaker.The beam power tube has high gain per stage so less stages are needed-with 6CA7,6550's you could build a 50-60W amp with only 3 amplification stages for the 60W out. with an all triode amp would be many-and yes some "audiophiles" use all triode amps today-they are big,inefficent and expensive.and also the invention fo the minature tube during the same era also made for more compact in less expensive equipment.Another boom that came during the WW2 era was the Perminent Magnet speaker-no energy draining electro-magnet coils that had to be energized separately.Movie houses LOVED that.You had to have a separate DC supply to energize the magnets.This helped for home Hi-FI as well-both consoles and components-it even made the "bookshelf" hi-fi speaker system possible.