Scored a Norelco-Philips Shortwave set

[zenith2134]

Hey antique radio section, How is everyone tonight?

I posted here maybe twice ever because i collect HiFi stereo gear primarily, but look forward to broadening my horizons and getting into classic radio sets.

Anyway, I got this radio in a local thrift store for 40 dollars, which might be too much (?) but It works great and is in immaculate shape. It receives SW1, 2 , and am/fm. Has inputs for recorder/gram ? The front states it is "Bi-Ampli" which i suppose means bi amped and has tone controls arranged in a push button fashion, for reverb, modeste, fidelita, . I guess it is italian ? Help me I am clueless here. the chassis is nice, uses 6bq5 tubes . Nice config there. heres the pictures, I'm eager to know about this radio please share if you know! thanks and happy holidays! oh , and some badge is missing on the bottom, note the glue residue.

[radioactive]

hi zenith,

nice looking table top you gott there. looks very similar to the old telefunkens from the same era.as for broadening you area of interest watch out as it turns into another addiction. my dad was the one who collected the table radios in my house that lead to me collecting the old shortwave 'boatanchors' and then ultimatley the tube hi fi gear.its a viscous circle that i find myself trapped in as now the hi fi gear is taking the backseat and im back into the shortwave receivers.anyways how does it sound.?with the 6bq5 and the 2 speakers on the front i bet not bad.happy listennig and welcome to another hobby.

chris

[zenith2134]

Oh yes it is another audio addiction. Glad though, because I can do my part in finding and restoring more old stuff! Oh no I need more space though. Anyway It does sound great no hum whatsoever, supposedly the guy had it checked out , i believe it actually. I love the tube crunchiness, when driven into clipping (slightly) . i would guess it puts out 20-30 watts total, I'll take a second look at the tube compliment tomorrow. i need sleep badly now, however.

[Sandy G]

Mmmmmmmm....Purty !! Me like....I think you got yrself a keeper, there pal !

[Jeffhs]

Happy holidays to you and yours.


The missing badge on your radio is probably, even likely, just a manufacturer's emblem, in your case Philips (several decades before they bought out Magnavox ).

I had a Grundig model 2168 AM/FM/SW receiver about 30 years ago; got it from an old friend. The radio needed a lot of restoration (the glass dial scale was missing, the EM84 tuning eye was flopping around loose in the cabinet, the dial drive itself was missing...), but once I got the set to the point where it at least worked half decently, it worked very well. It had only one speaker when I got it (I think originally it must have had three, because of the two speaker grilles on either end of the cabinet--stereo, maybe?), but it still sounded great. I used it with an old Webcor reel-to-reel tape recorder (fed the output of the recorder through the radio's audio stages using the 5-pin DIN connector on the rear of the chassis) and had a fairly good (IMHO) mono audio system.

Had to get rid of the radio, unfortunately, when the FM gave up the ghost some time in the early '80s; oh well. That Grundig served me well the short time I had it. I had gotten a "real" stereo system by then, a Zenith four-mode (AM/FM/8-track/cassette) integrated system, 5 watts per channel with tuned-port Allegro 100 speakers, which sounded even better than the Grundig probably ever did.

I can't say I miss the Grundig anymore, but I do think the Zenith 4-mode system I gave up when I moved here (left it at my former home as I was starting absolutely fresh, new furniture and all, when I moved to my present digs seven years ago, a small apartment in a small village in northeast Ohio) sounded even better than my current Aiwa 200-total-watt AM/FM/CD/cassette system, which has three-way speakers with powered subwoofers and surround sound, not to mention an 8-band equalizer with five presets and five user-selectable modes. Add to that the fact that my present system has two aux inputs (both of which are in use here--one is for Internet radio, the other connects to the audio outputs of my digital cable box), whereas the Zenith only had one, and...well, I guess my present Aiwa system is somewhat better than the Zenith after all. My only regret about the Aiwa system is that I cannot use just any kind of external speakers with it; the reason is that its own speakers are of 6-ohm impedance, which I consider very unusual, even for a Japanese-made system. There is (or was, the last time I looked) a warning on Aiwa's website, in the user FAQ section, against using anything other than genuine Aiwa speakers with these systems; serious damage to the amplifiers or other parts of the system could result. I wonder about that, since higher impedance speakers (i.e. 8 ohms in place of six) wouldn't necessarily damage the amplifier stages. It is only when one goes in the other direction, i.e. using six-ohm impedance or less speakers with an amplifier designed for 8-ohm loads, that the amp stages could be at risk of serious damage or even destruction. Also, operating an amplifier at full volume for any extended length of time can and often does cause the amplifier to put out somewhat more power than that for which it was designed; this will, of course, destroy the speakers in short order if they are not rated for very high power. Cerwin-Vega speakers were notorious for being extremely sensitive to over-power damage, which is why these speakers were never recommended for hard rock or any other type of music with sustained high levels of sound.

I looked at the pic of your Philips radio and saw the tone control arrangement. The markings above the buttons are definitely Italian, although since the radio covers the U. S. 88-108 MHz FM broadcast band, I'd be inclined to think it was an export model. The two Civil Defense icons on the AM portion of the tuning dial also indicate that this receiver was meant primarily for export to the U. S., as this country was the only country in the world (that I am aware of, anyhow) that used the Conelrad emergency broadcast system.