Vintage Voltage: A Photo Feature

Vintage Voltage: A Photo Feature

Written by Bill Leebens

Researching and writing theoretical and historical pieces is a lot of work, and can get a little dry. As a change of pace, I present pics from Vintage Voltage, a local meet held Sunday, March 18,  which included the annual show of the Colorado Radio Collectors Club, and then branched off into guitars, hi-fi, records, test gear, and more. I’ve skipped the record vendors, as they basically all looked alike; I also skipped the guitars for the most part, as to my uneducated eye, it looked like pretty mundane stuff—apologies if it wasn’t, but how many Strats can you look at without lapsing into geeky fervor over minutiae?

My apologies for some of the pics: apparently I still had some shaky hands left over from my recent marathon cold. And now….

View from above---this section was the show of the Colorado Radio Collectors Club.
Plastic clock radios don't do anything for me, but I guess some folks like them.
The second room contained vintage hi-fi, records, guitars, and whatever.
That dark thing under the cassettes is an Apple Hi-Fi. Oddly rare.
Ho-hum, old McIntosh gear was everywhere. ;->

I'm a sucker for big German tabletop radios like this Grundig.

The label says "Vietnam era field switchboard, complete." Huh.

Carver Amazing Loudspeakers behind some homebuilt line arrays. Seller wanted to explain to me what a line array was. I said, "Thanks. I'm familiar with the concept."
Hi, there! There were quite a few women in attendance---most looked rather bored.
Yep, more Mac gear, a bunch of Chinese tube amps, and a nice Tandberg receiver--the only piece I coveted at the show.
Longtime area dealer Gold Sound was there in force.
There was a fair amount of Crown at the show, including this pair from Gold Sound.
I lied. I coveted this Nak 550 portable, also. For no rational reason.

A pretty Thorens TD-150 in front of a B&O-esque desktop system.

I should've looked at the Ampex speakers beneath the Mitsubishi vertical turntable. They usually had good JBL drivers.
"That's not a tube. THIS is a tube."
A variety of test gear.
A pretty TEAC r-to-r in back of a recent Numark table.
A rare M&K sub w/ intact driver next to a rare Phase Linear 400 that hadn't burst into flames. ;->

Spica TC-50s and a big Yamaha receiver.

Daulquist DQ-10s in the rarely-seen white grillecloth. Meh.
Huh: a rare Phase Linear 700 that hadn't burst into flames!

Radios from the '20s to the '50s.

Testing a Crown amp. Hmmm---filter caps bad, maybe?

The once-ubiquitous Zenith 500 portable, with all original packaging. Wow.

A little bit of everything.
They don't make test gear like that any more. Look at the oak case!
This 1930 Emerson had beautiful casework.
Old TVs! And they worked! Not sure what the signal feed was.

Don't ask me. Not sure what this thing was.
What do you call a little cathedral? A parish church?
A trio of console radios...
...and this rather mundane-looking one is an EH Scott. Too bad we can't see the chromed chassis.
Documentation on the Scott. Check out the chassis pics on the left.
A pretty deco-ish Zenith chairside radio. Note the top controls.

This little "Reynrad" was made in Colorado, back at the dawn of time.
A battery-powered Atwater-Kent with accessory speaker.
A Zenith Transoceanic in truly spectacular condition.
Finally, an early Atwater-Kent.
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