Other Weird Stereos- Hutch Models

[danemodsandy]

Ritzy & Tony:

Are like toma-to and tomah-to - the mean pretty much the same thing.

"Ritzy" comes from the Ritz hotels founded by Swiss hotelier Cesar Ritz, whose establishments founded modern ideas of luxury in hotels. The name eventually came to mean almost anything that was a cut above, or something its owner wanted you to think was a cut above. I doubt M. Ritz would have approved much of a certain cracker, for instance. And in case you're wondering, yes, today's Ritz and Ritz-Carlton hotels are corporate descendants of M. Ritz's empire.

"Tony" derives from "tone" or the French ton, meaning the quality or character of something, usually a party or other gathering, i.e., "The tone of the Duchess's ball was enormously elegant." This has also come to mean, basically, anything swankier than usual, not that you could find any genuine swank in today's world with an electron microscope.

Yes, I'm a curmudgeon. As you can see from the story I posted, my father raised me to be one.

 

[112561]

General Electric and Magnavox

offerred end table stereos. Magnavox's last one was 1970. You could use the main unit with its own speakers for passable stereo sound, or add two other speakers for another room or get the matching end table with record storage. I found the contemporary main unit a few years ago, even earlier I found both units, but couldn't get both at that time. Still kicking myself.

 

[tolivac]

My Dad built a
homemade" hutch cabinet for his Hi-fi system circa late fifties-early 60's-Music Master TT,Radio Shack Tonearm, Shure mag cartridge(don't remember the model)Dynaco St70 Pwr Amp,Dynaco PAS3 preamp.Stephens 15" coax speakers in homemade bass- reflex cabinets-built to plans provided with the "raw" speakers-a lot of homemade speaker cabs in those days-sounded really nice.system got lost in the Rapid City flood of '72-only the power amp was found-I did restore it to working condition-it looked like hell-but worked.One of my bothers used it for awhile.

 

[petek]

Nice those end table units.  I've only seen one in real life 2-3 years ago at the Goodwill but I can't remember the maker, more than likely it was GE than Magnavox which weren't common at all here if they were the only two makers. I'm pretty sure it was more octoganal shaped but again my memory of it isn't there other than I saw it and I'm totally wrong. 

 

Dads first hi-fi in the 50's was mostly Heathkit he built into a discarded 50's tv cabinet. I've gotta have a picture of it somewhere in the background of an old livingroom family pic so I can scan it. 

 

[112561]

GE and Magnavox were about the only two I've seen, there may have been other manufacturers. The octagonal drum style is Magnavox, and Motorola had that wild six or eight sided coffee table.

 

[firedome]

The RCA Danish model

above pictured by Retopia is the one for sale I saw on CL, I called them about a month ago and they still had it, it was at an antique dealer.

The restored one that disappointed was probably not restored properly, if done well, including all new caps and replacing drifted carbon resistors, new stylus, FM alignment, it should have sounded pretty good. No Fisher, but I'm pretty picky, having been a writer and editor of Vacuum Tube Valley magazine when it, and the Publisher, were still alive. http://www.vacuumtube.com

 

[estatesale_gary]

GE Stereo Hutch

The GE Stereo Hutch shown in the drawing above is currently on craigslist in Minneapolis for $100.

http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/hnp/atq/3236278762.html

 

[firedome]

That GE for $100 is a bargain...

wonder if its a tube unit, that makes a big difference!

 

[112561]

Yes, the Danish GE hutch is a tube unit. I don't think they made hutches by the time they went solid state. I could be wrong though.

 

[whirlcool]

Judging from the size and weight of the tonearm on that GE hutch, I'd say it's from 1958-9 or so. I know around 1963 or so GE stereo's had pretty decent tone arms in them.

 

[112561]

The tonearm is not as heavy as it appears. The next tonearm was the wrist action arm, with the floating pickup. I still regret getting rid of mine.

 

[twintubdexter]

A friend of mine has a similar upright General Electric console but in Early American. It's tube, not solid state, and the record changer looks like this. No ultra-light 2 gram tone arm, but stylish.

 

[classiccaprice]

Here's the JVC end table set I have. This picture was taken the day before I bought it. Sadly the thrift store seperated the set and got rid of the small matching record storage case (I wish I had it). It currently isn't working, I plan to restore it, but all the insides are labeled in japanese... so it's difficult...

 

[tolivac]

Guess another person likes the TUBED Hi-fis over the SS ones as well.Early SS to put it bluntly--sounded crappy.That GE portable stereo record player-we used one of those to "test"a Gates BC 1G AM transmitter--worked as a good impromptu audio source.Played lots of records thru the transmitter-one of the speaker line outs drove the transmitter's audio input nicely thru a unbalanced to balanced line transformer.The other speaker for a monitor-and a GE "Superradio" to listen to the transmitter.the transmitter--has a built in test load in the top of its cabinet.was a transmitter me and another guy were going to put in a station as there spare.Its another thing I like TUBED AM transmitters with high level plate,ampliphase or Doherty system over SS ones.The tubed ones can be fixed FASTER-no modules to contend with.

 

[drewz]

Will,

 

Love the Japan Victor Company set you have, you might want to search SAM's Photofact Sheets, since RCA was still connected with them when your set was produced there maybe some cross reference materials around.  At one point there was alot of JVC and Delmonico (spelled correct???) products sold in the US. Although I don't know that either RCA or JVC shared design or equipment.

 

[firedome]

That JVC console set

is pretty rare, I've never seen another in almost 50 years in the audio hobby and as an audio writer/editor ... I believe JVC made some stuff under RCA license early on, they stated as a subsidiary of Victor Talking Machine Co. (later RCA) in the 20s to make records, and one of their engineers was the first to project an image on a cathode ray tube (TV), before the now generally accepted TV Pioneer, Philo T. Farnsworth did it (his great grand-daughter dated my son in VT!). That console is a real find, quite unusual, as are any Japanese consoles, they generally stayed out of the "big" console market, love to see picks of the controls and "innards", as well as a tube diagram, of that one!

 

[classiccaprice]

From my research the earliest U.S. sold JVCs were somewhere

... and of course mine was built about 10 years before that. I thought my JVC Nivico was really rare, I didn't realize how much so until now. I tried looking up Sam's photofact when I got it, but the model isn't there. The controls on it are in English, but the insides are in Japanese. I don't believe it was orignally sold in the U.S., there is an old shipping company label on the back, but no information about where it came from. This area has been a big military area for decades, so I assume some serviceman bought it overseas somewhere, brought it here when they retired, and probably passed on.

The unit itself is in storage at the moment, but next time I dig it out I'll make a post on here about it. Each of the "speaker's" lids lift up and interestinly enough has a lock on it, which sticks out of the lid (kind of annoying if you plan to set anything on it). The one that says "Perfect Stereo" has the AM/FM tuner and turntable, while the other has a reel to reel. The storage cabinet opened from the front and had 3 or 4 spaces for records on the bottom and reels on the top. I was so pissed that the store seperated the set and sold the storage case and I made it clear to them I was and they reduced the price significantly. I'm still not happy about it, but it has been 2 years. I got to the point, that I even made a posting offering $$ or trade at the thrift store, but no one ever bit. :/ I kind of miss the days when everyone read the paper and I could have put a "want ad" in there... oh well...

 

[classiccaprice]

Any ideas what english speaking countries JVC would have exported to in ~1960?

 

[petek]

JVC was sold in Canada probably around the same time as the US..  Perhaps some of the "wording" on the controls or dial or something might be a clue if it was for the UK or Australia etc.. Actually I don't think the UK used the terms AM or  FM  did they. 

 

[firedome]

I'd be willing to bet