German radios for U.S.A. export?

[Telecolor 3007]

What where the eralyiest German radios that you've seen made for U.S.A. export?
I had one (a "Grundig") and gave away it like a stupid because it broke... now I realize that it my had been the selenium rectifier or a capacitors and that the bad sound might had been caused by bad capacitors.
Why like a stupid. Because unlike U.S.A. we first had F.M. 88-100 M.Hz. and afater that F.M. 88-104 and only later F.M. 88-108 (former Eastern Germany a.k.a. G.D.R. switched to to 88-108 only after reunification, in the '80's they switched to 104 - the East-German had F.M. probably before the introdcution of F.M. O.I.R.T. so that's why they had F.M. C.C.I.R.). So its extremly hard to find a tube radio that all the F.M. band... the ones with 88-104 M.Hz. can be find, but some of the intresting staions (4) are after 104 M.Hz. ... between 100 and 104 are about 3. Talking about Bucharest. Back in the '90's (at least 1995) the top station on F.M. was about 102,8 M.Hz.
There are about 18 radio stations on F.M. in Bucharest... for about 2,000,000 milion people (and let's say 20,000 - 30,000 in the proximity).

[maxhifi]

Probably those "high end" table radios with tons of speakers, and piano key band selector from the 1950s. Grundig, Normende, Telefunken, Philips (not German but similar), etc. They also occasionally got rebranded with North American names. Do some eBay searches and you will get some idea what was out there. I have no personal experience but I have heard other collectors curse them for being hard to restore due to brittle plastics and difficult to access wiring.

[Sandy G]

Well, I have one, a SABA "Friedburg" that has the 88-108, from 1953... I also have a Polish Diora "Calypso" that I DON'T know the date on, but IT has the USA band as well. I have several others, a Nordemende, a couple Grundigs. They say that the vaunted German Economic miracle was primarily due to HEAVY export of Volkswagens, but all these German Table radios played THEIR part, too. And, Why Not ? They were pretty, generally EXCELLENT performers, & they must have counted on American GIs buying couple of them-Every GI stationed in Germany-, because there sure were a LOT of 'em 50 years down the road, that eventually found their way to "Antique" shops. I've picked up SEVERAL of 'em, like I said, w/a little TLC-Usually cleaning their "Piano keys"- & a recapping, & you have a VERY neat & impressive relic from a LONG time ago. The Russians did what NOBODY else ever did-They took a nation full of Germans-the GDR-And made them POOR. I think the GDR, & W.Germany were roughly equivalent-Economically, til the late Sixties, when the West pulled ahead of the GDR, & never looked back. When I was in W. Germany in '78, we didn't get anywhere close to the GDR, but the West was roughly equivalent to, at least from what I saw, they weren't much different than here in America. W. Germany, economically, at least was calling the shots in Europe. I think they STILL are. W. Germany, remember, didn't have to develop a big military-They had the Americans & NATO to take care of them. The "Economic Miracle" would have been retarded for quite awhile, if they'd had to have a big military presence. Its a rather ironic thing-W.Germany-well, ALL of it now- achieved in utter defeat from the war-They were/are MORE successful than ALL of Hitler's mad dreams.

[Ed in Tx]

I still have the Telefunken Gavotte 55 my Father bought back in the '50s. He used it in his office through the '50s-'60s for background music. My first experience with hi-fi FM sound. Was re-capped about 20 years ago and it still works today, but it needs to be gone through again, got some hum in the audio.

[Telecolor 3007]

Curiosity: why people started to buy German radios?

[Olorin67]

American radios had largely abandoned shortwave, that's one reason people bought the German sets, they were generally a higher end product. To get shortwave on an American radio, you had to get a multi band set or zenith transoceanic, and those generally did not have FM or hi fi sound. Most American radios of the period were carefully engineered to be cheap. A Few American table radios of the 5os could match the sound of the German sets, but not many and they probably cost as much, but lacked shortwave. Currency exchange rates and Germany's need to export to get American dollars probably played into it also.

[Ed in Tx]

Best as I recall.. my Dad bought the Telefunken because it had great sound and workmanship, and not much if anything USA-made to compete with the features like phono input and speaker output jacks, shortwave, a brilliant little tweeter that made the audio crystal clear on FM especially. An impressive radio in its day.

[Telecolor 3007]

Why U.S.A. quited S.W. and dind't made to much Hi.-Fi. radios?
I've seen a nice German made console for U.S.A. export. No Long Waves anyway.

[maxhifi]

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

Why U.S.A. quited S.W. and dind't made to much Hi.-Fi. radios?
I've seen a nice German made console for U.S.A. export. No Long Waves anyway.

People who wanted hifi bought a hifi component system, people who wanted shortwave got a specialized short wave radio like a hallicrafters and people who wanted neither got a TV, which is what most US companies were focusing on. No longer was the USA a place where one had to be satisfied with a single Jack of all trades radio, or the space constraints faced by Europeans.

The luxury radio really is a compromise - it's not truly hifi, like a fisher or a even a dynaco, it's not a short wave radio like a hallicrafters or a transoceanic, and it's not portable either... If I had one I doubt I would use it much for the same reasons I wouldn't drive a fiat 500, it's a compromise I don't need to make.

To be honest I am more impressed by the alchemy performed by the likes of GE, who would engineer their way out of every possible extra cent - their value engineering was unreal, I can just imagine someone rubbing his hands together every time a screw or a reaistor was eliminated from a product, but still aomehow my musaphonic table radio manages to not only work but sound good!

I read a discussion about this in a 50s issue of radio & tv news.

[Electronic M]

The US military men brought home some products NOT intended for the US too. I have a Blauplunkt radio/phono/liquor cabinet (factory liquor cabinet) console that the FM only goes to 100MHz on. PAL/CCIR TVs coming here and NTSC sets going there were not uncommon in the 60's and some techs specialized in improvised TV standards conversions in both countries.

[maxm]

I read that one reason for the high-end European table radios was that typically European homes had less space than an American home, so a high-end table radio in an European home would take the place of the console that would be in an American home.

Most of the German table radios I see in the US at estate sales are simpler smaller models than the large multi-speaker models sold in Europe that you can see on European ebay listings. Many of the residents of the Chicago area where I live were immigrants from Germany, Poland, and other European countries. I sometimes see radios they brought back from trips that weren't sold in the US.

I believe RCA sold a radio in the US that was German-made and resembled the look of a typical German radio.

[Sandy G]

Yeah, those German sets were "Pretty", typically w/a hi-gloss finish that looked a mile deep, & they were also good performers that sounded GREAT. US companies, by & large, just "Wrote Off" anything but AM & FM-Anyone who wanted to listen to anything else was likely some sort of "Weirdo", & SW became an almost completely abandoned market for US companies.

[Electronic M]

Uncle sam had a policy of disabling the SW bands of German-Americans suspected of being Nazi sympathizers....Gotta wonder if they big dealed the radio industry into down playing SW sets and limiting their sales to reduce commy influence from leaking in through the foreign airwaves.

[Olorin67]

I think cost had a lot to do with it. And after the war, people were paying less attention to foreign stuff, and busy raising kids. Once Fm came out, they dropped SW bands. And many households already had an older radio around with Sw, so it made sense to sell them something new they didn't have yet, FM.

[jr_tech]

I suspect that quality of reception was a factor also, the US being relatively isolated by two large oceans which was not conducive to the higher quality SW experience that was obtained in Europe. With the introduction of vinyl records and FM radio, the quality bar was raised toward higher fidelity.... the interest in noisy, fading SW radio faded. TV was likely another factor, diminishing the overall interest in radio as well.

jr