20Feb Rebuilding an old 1940’s radio with modern parts
I’ve been thinking about getting a classy looking stereo in the studio for awhile now. I put the word out to a few of my friends to keep their eyes open for something that could be retro fit with new speakers. After a few weeks Steve from beerorkid.com came through with this old, slightly abused radio and was kind enough to hold on to it until I had time to make the 600 mile round trip to pick it up.
The inside of the radio is pretty much empty so it should be easy to make room for new components. I plan to save all of the front control knobs, so I needed a power amp that only has a few switches that could easily be adapted to the original controls. It also needed to be powerful enough to drive a set of 8 inch speakers and some wireless feature like bluetooth would be a plus.
After a bit of research I came across this stereo 100 watt (@ 6 ohms) power amp with built in bluetooth. It only has two switches (on/off and bluetooth/line in) and a volume knob which means it should work well with the original radio controls. The main board is also easy to get to so wiring to the new power amp should be easy enough.
For speakers I’ve decided to go with a set of 8 inch bookshelf speakers from monoprice. Most reviewers say that the sound quality to price ratio make these a decent option. They aren’t audiophile quality, but neither is the bluetooth i’ll be using to link this to my phone and computer.
I’m currently waiting on the parts to show up, then I’ll just need to find some time to actually install the speakers and get things mounted. I’ll post some more as the project progresses.
February 20th, 2013 at 2:52 pm
You might find that the original tube amp sounds better than the new one – if it’s still working, try it out. They have a great warm and rich sound. Also, 10 watts tube is equal to a LOT of transistor watts…
February 20th, 2013 at 4:36 pm
Two of the tubes are burned out (one triac, and another), the others passed the tube checker. I might rescue the transformer and use it for a diy tube kit for the radio down the road. The speaker is an old moving Iron core type so i’m not sure how well the original amp would handle a modern speaker. For now I think the little transistor amp will be fine.
February 20th, 2013 at 5:43 pm
Cool – what’s that thing on the bottom left of the internal shot? Looks like a speaker, but… not.
February 20th, 2013 at 8:42 pm
It’s an old AM antenna, they used to use that trick to make the antenna longer with out stretching it outside the case.
February 23rd, 2013 at 5:59 pm
Let’s see how many awesome, geeky balls you can keep up in the air at once. Every time I check this site out there is some new, crazy project you started!
February 23rd, 2013 at 6:38 pm
Let’s hope I can finish them all.
December 28th, 2013 at 8:56 pm
I have tried to run the stereo through high level input in moden amp it humed really bad be careful
January 8th, 2018 at 9:49 pm
Did you ever finish this project? I just got an old Philco floor model and am considering going this route. Curious to hear how yours turned out.
January 10th, 2018 at 10:29 am
I did, however, I ended up with a different power amp. That one died in the first 6 months.