Foreign tube radios/HiFis

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That Saba looks a lot like the Grundig my maternal grandparents had. I wonder if there is a connection between those two.

Saba AFAIK didn't sell radios in the Netherlands. I got to know the brand when they started selling Color TV's in the late seventies. We had a Saba color TV, I think we got it in 1979. I think we had it for 8 years. My older brother had a Saba too. There were a lot of problems with it, it was replaced after 4 years by a Philips.

Nordmende was a bit more expensive than Grundig I think. Blaupunkt was very popular, just like Grundig. Loewe Opta was also a bit ore expensive IIRC. We didn't know anyone who had a Philips radio I think. Only later Philips got more popular, especially their early stereo radios.
 
cabinet finish

most of my european radios have a normal varnish job on the wooden cabinets,but the
'58 lowe opta has a very thick and pretty gloss coat over the wood-it has a few
cracks in the glosscoat though.
 
Euro Radio Cabinet Finishes

A lot of the radios from Europe at the time had those finishes that looked like liquid glass was poured on it. A deep, deep clear finish which showed off the wonderful graining of the wood. Just beautiful to look at. For me, that's one of the attractions of the radio itself. But a lt of time people placed their radio's on tables in direct sunlight and the finishes faded away, or even worse started to crack.

There are companies out there(you can find them on the internet) that will refinish these cabinets, for a price.

Saba & Telefunken were the two top line radios from 1950-1965 or so. They competed with each other so it's little wonder that their radios looked somewhat alike. They were going after the same customer. Saba made an automatic signal seeking radio (like you see in some car radios) during this era and if you find one of those with the seeking still working are worth a LOT of money!
 
That volume control shoudn't be too hard a fix. But they should reflect that problem in the price.

Louis, that Saba Friburg dates back to around 1954-55 or so. Quite a nice radio!
The Meersburg is probably from around 1960 or so. That's when the lighter finishes on the radios became more fashionable.

A question for everyone one about recapping one of these radios. Basically the question is should you recap it or leave alone until the unit develops hum or similar? I know a lot of people recap the radios because the old paper & wax caps dry out and can fail, putting too much stress on the transformer.

What are your ideas about this?
 
Louis:

I like both those radios! I have never seen them before. That Minerva is really cute. From 1952 or so?
And that Braun SK2, it's so simple it's beautiful. It could fit in anywhere you choose to put it. And restored too? Wow!

Over here in the US we really think of Braun for appliances, usually in the kitchen. But only when I went to Germany did I see their stereo equipment and radios. Same with Blaupunkt, mostly in auto audio here, everything else there.
 
the frenchie works!

Got the french "ducretet thomson"working-had a broken connection in the line plug!
Dial string is too loose and won't grip the knob pulley,so i had to reach in and
directly turn the tuning pulleys to tune in stations.Though 60hz hum wasn't bad,
with the bottom grill off the radio,i felt the two main filter capacitors under
the chassis;one of them was heating up fast-indicating it's very "leaky" and needs
needs replaced before i run this radio any more...If i don't have any suitable caps
in my parts stash that are in good shape,I'll get new sprague"atom"US made caps or
philips caps.The orignal capacitors,2x 32uf/350v,are axial lead and will be a
breeze to replace.
BTW,does anyone know what"cadre"means in french?-that knob turns a big cylindrical
wire-wound drum inside the radio.
 
"cadre"

you were right,whirlcool-it does mean"frame"in english,makes sense too as the drum
with the coil wound on it could be considered a frame.(googled "cadre" for the
translation)
Forgot to mention i found 5736 to 5748 date codes on parts in the french radio-
5748=48th week of 1957,so i'll say it's a 1958.
your two german radios you posted the pics of are in beautiful condition indeed!
looks like the "eye"tube of the saba is still nice and bright too!
 
isolation transformer

wasn't too concerned with this radio,but on a live chassis AC/DC set i would use
one if i was poking around inside!-i've got a couple isolation transformers i use
with my ocilloscopes.I have seen heavy duty isolation transformers made by taking
two identical microwave oven transformers,cutting the pole piece weld loose,
removing the secondary coil from one and replacing that with the primary from the
other and welding pole piece back on.
 
Louis:

Thank you for that list of popular German radios. I am always looking to expand my collection. But for now, the wife said enough is enough. I'm going to have a custom cabinet built into the den to house my radio collection and also store my many records and stuff.But before I can do that there are many other projects to be done, such as install the new interior in the VW Bug, clean out the garage that has been overun by junk, repair the back fence.... etc.

I have been looking up and reading about all those different radios. It seems that Braun was the most innovative (at least with looks). The Braun SK2 schematic looks pretty simple, one could probably build a clone!

I had never heard of a Lowe Opta, but those are some beautiful radios!
 
Isolation transformers-you can get them at most electronic parts and test equipment suppliers.Or they are available from places like Graingers and such.For the Graingers ones-you will have to add your own cord and outlet.And the Graingers ones you may be able to configure the transmformer to 240V to run 240V small appliances-control transformers.
 
capacitors fixed but...

found a matched pair of capacitors pretty close to original values to replace
original filter capacitors in the french set;'94 dated german "rifa"40uf/450v VS
original 32uf/350v.caps look authentic and working good,but the cap that replaced
the one that was heating up is also heating up!! despite having 100v higher volt
rating(i measured 330v on it)-must be pretty heavy ripple getting to it,rectifier
tube tested perfect and has no blue nitrogen haze to indicate it's gassy...
The other cap stayed cool,185v on it,but i don't know where it sits in the circuit
-no diagram.
Radio played great though and with it's single(pretty close to a 6x9,but metric)
speaker and apparently pretty strong amp,sounds great and can get plenty loud
for an oldie(sounds like about 4-5 real watts)
 
I always try to stay within 20% of the original caps spec. You are 2 uf off from that. Maybe try checking the values of the resistors in the circuit to make sure they haven't drifted off of spec too far?
 
resistors

i haven't checked any,but carbon resistors are known to creep up in ohms when they
get to be several decades old-if i notice one that i can get loose without causing
damage,i'll check that one and see how bad the value creep is....All the smaller
parts in this radio are tied to little terminal strips with their leads curled
around-would be a major pain to change them and likely to cause damage to
irreplaceble parts.
 
Deoxit/Tuner Control Cleaner

Thanks for the a advice about the products, guys.

However, I took the back off the Emud today and I can't really see the volume control. It seems to be blocked by the chassis. Is this unusual?
 
cleaning volume control

if there is no removable bottom panel/grill,you will have to (very carefully)take
things loose and slide the chassis out...On the french radio i have been working
on,there is a panel on the bottom that removes and greatly eased the capacitor
repair and the voltage checks.I'll still have to pull the chassis for the dial
string repair though....
When you get access to the volume control,should be a gap near where the wires
connect where you can shoot in the cleaner.
 
These radios slide out of their cases quite easily. Usually after you remove the back there may be 4 screws at the bottom holding the chassis in the case. But I would defintely look and see if there is an access panel on the bottom first.

The hard part is that the wires that go from the chassis to the speaker are hardwired and soldered. So you may have to clip the speaker wires and wire nut them together when you are done. Or you could just unsolder them and resolder them later.

That's what I do. On my workbench I have a small 8ohm speaker I connect for testing purposes. I just screw on some temp alligator clips to the wires and then clip them on the speaker.

Another thing about these imported European radios I have found. Space is very tight inside these things and sometimes you may have to remove a few caps to get to the ones you really want to change. I have found that a dental pick and some solder wick makes removal of these easier. Thank goodness that modern day caps are smaller than they were back then when the radios were first built. [this post was last edited: 11/25/2011-21:36]
 
cool,that eases the cleaning job!
Seems pulling and testing the rectifier tube in the ducretet-thomson cured the
capacitor heating phenomenon...Ever since i did that the heating stopped-looked
under the rectifier tube socket and nothing funny was seen.With the new capacitors
in place,there is no hum audible when playing-there was just a little with the old
original caps.
Now that this radio is up and running good,time to get the'66 yugoslavian"EI"on
the bench for it's fix.
 
How many caps did you have to replace in all?

Well, another project satisfactorily finished.

I've been monitoring the prices on Ebay for these old radios, they seem to have taken a real spike in the last week-ten days or so. Some of the prices are astronomical! I guess the owners have fallen prey to the "if it's old, it must be a gold mine" type of thing.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Loewe-Opta-...pt=Vintage_Electronics_R2&hash=item35b43524ea
 
capacitors

it was just the two filter capacitors-they probably would have continued to work
ok,but with the one heating up,i thought it was very "leaky"(might have been,had
some dried electrolite"ooze"and corrosion around the rubber plug too)the other caps
in the radio are buried in pretty good,and since radio plays great i'll leave those
alone for now..One radio i have that i suspect needs a more extensive recap and
possibly some"drifted"carbon resistors changed is my '37 zenith-no hum,so filter
capacitor seems still good,but sound is weak and distorted-at first i thought the
cause was mechanical problems with the speaker,but that played good when plugged
into a similar mid-30s radio...
I haven't looked at prices for vintage radios lately,but though brightly colored
mid-50s plastic 5 tube am radios have seemed to sell for pretty high prices locally
for a couple decades,big cabinet radios and HiFis usually languish for weeks in
local shops and sell for $5-20! They are just too big and dated for most people i
guess...
 

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