And while we're ruminating about history…
Before the stack of silver boxes. Before the separate preamp and power amp, the racks of glowing tubes, the towering planar speakers and coils of cable. There was the console.
If you grew up in the ’50s or ’60s, or even into the ’70s, you remember them. Big wooden furniture pieces—beautifully veneered, sometimes with sliding doors—that doubled as the centerpiece of the living room. Radio on one side, turntable under a lid, maybe even a built-in record storage bin. Magnavox, RCA, Zenith. Some even came with their own branding for "Stereo" sound, as if that term alone could conjure magic.
And maybe, for many families, it did.
It’s easy now, from our audiophile perspective, to scoff at those old machines. One box, two tiny full-range drivers, and maybe 15 watts per channel if you were lucky. Poor channel separation, mushy bass, rolled-off highs. If you wanted imaging, you’d have to imagine it.
But here's what strikes me when I think back to those days: people still listened.
People gathered around a console, put on a record, and paid attention. Not just to the music, but to the experience. There was a kind of ceremony to it. Pull the LP from its sleeve, brush it off, drop the needle. The soft thump of the amp turning on. The warmth of tubes (or early transistors) heating the air inside that cabinet. The scent of wood polish and dust on felt.
And the music played.
Was it audiophile? Not by today’s standards. But that’s not the point. These consoles were often the gateway. For some of us, hearing a great piece of music—Miles Davis, Glenn Miller, Judy Garland, The Beatles—through that furniture was the beginning. It stirred something. A desire to get closer to the source. To understand why the cymbals sounded smeared, or why the piano felt small and boxed-in. Not to criticize, but to chase what we somehow knew was missing.
You could argue that these consoles birthed the audiophile. Because they planted the seed of what was possible. It was certainly true in my case as I drooled over my father's console setup.
They gave us a taste of music as a presence in the home. They proved that technology and aesthetics could live together in the same piece of furniture. And they created the first generation of home listeners who didn’t just accept background music—they sat and listened, even if it wasn’t perfect.
Would I go back? No. Not for the sound. But I miss the unity of it. The way the console didn’t try to disappear. It was proudly part of the room. It wasn’t hidden in a rack or tucked in a listening dungeon. It was family-room music—central, shared.
In a way, that’s what we try to reclaim with every system we build today. Not just better sound, but that same connection. That moment where someone sits down, in front of a pair of speakers, and simply listens.
It started with a console. Maybe not high fidelity. But it was real. It was music. And for many of us, that’s where the journey began.
