'56 Magnavox

[DavGoodlin]

As long as we are doing a bump, I MUST comment that Magnavox tried to make something for everyone's budget and did some things extremely well from the very beginning such as speakers and cabinets. A record machine with a low-power tube or SS amp in a cheap cabinet was in the back of their brochures for years. Yet even a mini-console still had a decent Collaro or Micromatic changer. You have to give them props for that!

But of course, Mag's flagship pieces like the Concert Grand, Imperial and Astrosonic 100 made the front pages of their 1947 thru 1971 catalogs and sales brochures.
Magnavox outlasted many manufacturers of record machines that built world-class consoles like Fisher, Motorola, Admiral, Sylvania and others who chose to exit by the 1970s.

If the declining quality of their offerings made Magnavox a mediocre brand, it only became SO later such as the decline of Zenith and RCA in the middle 70s when consoles became obsolete and cassette tapes bested records before CD's turned it all upside down.

These same manufacturers migrated from better quality V-M, RCA and Collaro changers to BSR changers and another one I forget, which like them or not, was the token changer offered in component combos and consoles then. I also had to fix those too.