Curtis-Mathes Stereo

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Function key

Notice the different settings, including "Tape".

The FM selection does not work my dad thinks it's a tube. The phonograph and AM work fine, I forgot how good the sound was. It looks like the top of the knob is "crinckly" or worn away, but that is just the picture. The knobs are all perfect. The flashes on these digital cameras really can play tricks on what things look like.
 
Here is the needle brush

That flips up when the arm is getting ready to come over. Tone arm is dusty but perfect. The tab on the side of the tone arm pushes down and flips around to the other side, that is the LPs/78 needle flip over tab.
 
Music Center

It's a real beauty Kevin. One of my Aunts has a fancy CM
close in stature to your folks. Her's may be a few years newer
but it is a large console too. Nothing more satisfying than listening to some vinyl on a fine high end set like yours!!!!
 
The record changer is obviously made by VM (Voice Of Music), but I've never seen the automatic brush feature before. If you ever need an idler wheel or anything for it, go to www.thevoiceofmusic.com
VM changers are famous for being durable and reliable.

If FM was rarely used, it can cause one of the tubes to go bad (I forgot which one). The amp should be gone through, the electrolytic capacitors changed, etc., so you don't cook the power transformer.

Nice set!!

Ken D.
 
Thanks for the tip Ken

I just looked on their website. Amazing. It looks close to the model VM1234, but a bit different.

The only think that ever went wrong with the turntable is it ran just a little too fast. I do not remember if my parents got that fixed or not.
 
Curtis Mathes

I'd heard that the guts of Curtis Mathes products were from different manufacturers, (RCA, Magnavox, etc) and that they were really just the cabinet makers. Any truth to this?
 
Oh the music..

Elvis, Sinatra, Etta James, The Detergents... WHAT? Hey, who put that rock'n'roll sh** on my music system. Go play your hippie music on your GE Wildcat, and be glad it plays in stereo! Now, where was I? Patsy Cline, Perry Como, Bing Crosby, The Beatles... THE BEATLES!?!? Alright, sonny, that's enough screaming kids and loud screeching guitars. Go play that crap in your room, and at low volume while I crank up some Julie Andrews.

And a beautiful stereo I might add :-)

"The hills are alive with the Voice Of Music"
 
Roto interesting link

I saw that website a few weeks ago.

I was wondering how much of the TVs they have are made in America of American parts. If they are, they would be, I believe, the only ones.

The Kmart connection is interesting. I first thought, KMART! but then, the big stereo stores are virtually gone. This distribution method does give more bang for the buck....
 
K Mart & Curtis Mathes

Yeah, but this was in 2000, before K Mart went through all its shenanigans. What's the status now?
 
Curtis Mathes Stereo Rocks!

Kevin!

Sorry to be so late to post on this thread! What a beautiful stereo! I remember those Curtis Mathes systems. Their controls were always gold. It really made them stand out! Both Curtis Mathes and Marantz were very popular when I was a wild and crazy gal in college! Boy, howdy, if I could find one here in the land of rust........can you say "Jimi Hendrix"?

Congrats on such a beautiful stereo!

Venus
 
Thanks Venus

Yeah I grew up with it, as my parents had it before I was born. My mom was not the Jimi Hendrix type, wrong generation. It was Jerry Vale, Englebert Humperdink, The Lennon Sisters (yech, Lemon Tree I remember), my dad liked to play old operas, movie soundtracks like Paint Your Wagon, Oliver!, 2001, Boston Pops, etc. Of course Christmas albums by Nat King Cole, Percy Faith, Burl Ives just sounded great on it. It was my sister with her Panasonic all in one (I still have it too!) that started bringing Deep Purple, Iron Butterfly, etc. into the house.

When I still lived at home in 1980 I used to play Rolling Stones and Zeppelin albums on it and it still sounded great at that time. It's funny, you don't appreciate some things you grew up with, as they were always there.
 
Kevin-WOW!! that CM is one really fine looking Hi-Fi Wish I could hear it!!Looks like their TOL unit.the grill cloth is just like what was on my Mom Maganavox. It is very acoustically transparent.Even found some of the same and used it on some speakers I built.i can agree on one of the posts-the electrlytics should be checked or even replaced-not only can they blow out the transformer-but can also take out recifiers or rectifier tubes.You will know it when the caps let go!!If the equipment is frequently used or left on-that is not as much of a problem.Caps don't like being turned on-off frequently-the charging of them when they are "empty" is the hardest part.
 
Beautiful set. Back in it's heyday, Curtis-Mathes was one of the few console stereos that had good frequency response, especially in the treble range. Most other types, (Zenith, RCA, General Electric, etc.) Had overly boomy bass, or none at all and treble so dull you couldn't hear delicate percussion instruments. Magnavox also had good sound until they switched from tubes to solid-state electronics.
 
I can go along with Rinso-on the console Hi-Fi's the tube ampted ones were best-I can Remember the Magnavox "concert Grand" unit my Mom had-the sound of it blew the SS units away.And I find mostly SS units in the swap shops or discard piles-bet folks hang onto the tube ones because of their better sound quality.Esp early Germanium transistors were especially terrible in sound quality-and to think some early SS recording consoles were loaded with those horrible Germanium things!!also in later console Hi-fis the builders were putting in cheaper quality speakers.
 
You are correct, Mr. Tolivac! Germanium transistors were the culprits of poor frequency response and mediocre power output of the early SS units. All harsh mid-range response. But companies migrated to solid state electronics because because they were so much cheaper to build. The power supply units alone are far simpler on SS units than tube types. When silicon solid state appeared on the scene, things improved markedly. But, even today there are tube purists who claim that tube type amps still have a much warmer and smoother sound.
 
rinso-Another culprit in SS electronics that gives BAD sound quality-electrolytic coupling capacitors between stages-the low impedances of the SS circuits required the high value capacitors-so whats cheap and compact-electrolytics.They can smear the HF sounds because they start acting like an inductance to the HF instead of a cap.In some broadcast audio processors I have fixed because of bad sound-replaced ALL of those electrolytics-makes a difference.I too love tube amps-but the prices of them and the prices of vintage tube gear is going thru the roof-it used to be if you were on a BUDGET-you had to buy used tube gear-was worth it though.I have owned,repaired, and used many types of tube electronics-eico,Mcintosh,Marantz(those two about the best-dynaco,Scott-those are excellent!!I have some McIntosh amp that need recapping-used to get them easily-now almost impossible.They just sit in the closet.My future dream was to fix them and use them in my Home Theater!!To sum up there are good sounding amp circuits for SS or tube-it depends on the quality of the circuit design and the quality of the components used in it.Fortunately I now use a SS receiver (Onkyo) that has excellent circuit design and components-the sound quality is excellent and not real expensive. Modern higher priced receivers and amps are a bargain.
 
Tube electronics

In the recording and music industries tube processors are making a comeback.Same with tube musical instrument amps-The Fenders,Marshals,Peavys,etc are coming back.Folks are demanding them.
Some recording equipment manufacturers even make tube record amps for digital recorders to "soften" their harsh sound.and one studio I talked to-the owner-says he booked more record time on his tube studios with vintage Ampex 300,350 recorders.He commented the Sony Digital DASH recording were gathering dust and wanted to try to sell them to me.Gave him the number of a company that may be interested-don't know how it worked out.Some record companies-BTG,Mercury are dusting off and cleaning up their vintage tube studio electronics and actually USING them-some reissues of recordings use this equipment-the same they actually cut the recordings from!!
 
Wow! Interesting info, Tolivac. And to think I threw away my 1964 HH Scott pre-amp and amp. Haven't owned anything since that I think comes close to its total performance. High value electrolytics do start to introduce inductance in stages. I'm guessing it's because in their construction, there are many layers of foil between the electrolyte. I'd also like to add that my my in-laws had a Magnavox tube type stereo that was one of the best I've ever heard. It was all built into a 6 ft cabinet. The combination of the amp and its side-firing bass speakers, two front firing mid range, and four treble speakers gave this machine an outstanding sound. When one listened to it, the music sounded like it was coming from the whole wall. You could pick out distinct instruments spatially, but it did not have the "sound in the box" that even many high quality speakers give. The dispertion was excellent. The next year after this was built, Magnavox started using SS electronics, which necessitated the use of efficient exponential horns to recover the loss of high frequency response of the amp. It helped, but still couldn't recapture the sound of the earlier models.
 
Interesting information

I had no idea that tube-powered ANYTHING had any superiority over solid state stuff. Can one still get tubes, beyond old ones on EBAY? I remember up to even about 15 years ago our Thrifty Drugs had a "tube tester" there!

Unfortunately, while I am extremely good at cars, mechanical things, restoring toys, etc, I never did take a course in electronics, as I should have. I am pretty blind in this area--wiring up my sons' space ship was/is pushing my capabilities to the limit.

Drmitch, is that item you linked to supposed to be bolted into your CAR somewhere????

Is anyone buidling a big, tubed hi-fi set, or are these tube-based items limited to special components?

How wierd is that, seeing anything new that has a tube in it. Can someone explain how tube technology actually surpasses solid state stuff? Fascinating.
 

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