Early stereo FM - thoughts?
 

The thread in the Early Color Television forum on the best early color sets (I don't recall the title of the thread at the moment) got me to thinking. What were the best early stereo FM radios? I'm speaking here of receivers that were set up for the then-new multiplex system, not the clunky old AM/FM stereo system that used an AM and an FM station to broadcast both channels of a stereo program. These multiplex-ready receivers would have been on the market beginning in 1961, the year the FCC authorized stereo multiplex in this country. I know Zenith introduced its MJ1035 AM/multiplex FM receiver that year, but were there any other stereo radios that were as good as or better than it was? For that matter, how good were the first stereo FM broadcasts, and what city was the first to have a station broadcasting under the then-new multiplex system? I seem to remember reading somewhere that GE's WGFM in Schenectady, New York and Zenith's WEFM in Chicago were among the first true stereo multiplex FM stations, if not the first such stations in the United States.

As a point of interest, I think (but I am by no means certain) that the first FM station in Cleveland, Ohio to broadcast in multiplexed stereo was WDGO-FM (now WCLV). Since the station went on the air in 1962, I wouldn't be surprised if it was one of the first stereo stations in this part of the Midwest. Were there any other stereo FM stations on the air or under construction in Ohio (anywhere in the state) at the same time WCLV began its operations?

Well, what's important to you, going early, or going built-in multiplex? I have a Harman Kardon FM-100 that is a copper-faced beauty, and it was introduced in 1956. It does not have a built-in multiplex decoding circuit, but they were anticipating it...there are two RCA output jacks, one for mono connection to a pre-amplifier's "Tuner" input, and one that bypasses the de-emphasis circuits for connection to an external demultiplexer. I have a Fisher MPX-100 (from about 1960) that does admirable duty in that regard.

As for stereo stations, here in the SF Bay Area, KPEN is pretty-well known for breaking ground in stereo broadcasting, under the stewardship of local-legend Jim Gabbert. They turned on the first stereo transmission west of the Mississippi in July 1961. You can hear some vintage air-checks at:

http://www.bayarearadio.org/audio/kp...959-1960.shtml

--Bob

I'm looking for information on stations that were transmitting multiplexed FM after 1961; which stations were the first, or at least one of the first in a given area to transmit in stereo. I think the phrase "multiplex ready" in my post is why you asked what was (more) important to me (early FM or early multiplex stereo broadcasts), although your mention of the external multiplex adapters fits into this discussion just as well; after all, there had to be a way to retrofit older monophonic tuners for the new stereo broadcasts when the latter started shortly after the new standards were approved.

I was not aware that KPEN-FM was the first commercial FM station west of the Mississippi River to transmit in full stereo, but living in the northeastern corner of Ohio, which is the easternmost state of the Midwest, I haven't heard any FM stations further west of here than Detroit, Michigan and Toledo, Ohio, as well as the local stations from Cleveland and a lakefront city called Ashtabula (I live roughly midway between these cities, so can hear local FM from both areas using a simple wire antenna, even on my 1961 Zenith MJ1035 which was one of Zenith's first table radios equipped for then-new stereo multiplexed FM, although the multiplex decoder used in this radio was rather crude by today's standards and really does not work well further out than about 15 miles from the stations). I can also hear stereo stations from a smaller city about 60 miles south of here called Akron; a suburb of that city has a rather powerful country-western station on 94.9 MHz that also comes in very well on every one of my FM radios, and I also hear an NPR station near Akron via a translator station on 89.1 MHz.

Hi,

The best FM Stereo tuners by far were HH Scott tuners followed by McIntosh tuners and Fisher tuners. HH Scott also manufactured FM Stereo Multiplex generation equipment (one of my family's stations still uses it to this day in main service).

I remember WEZK 97.5 in Knoxville being in stereo at least in the late '60s...Back then, they were an "easy-listening" station that my parents listened to all the time...

A great compact high fidelity set-up would have been the KLH model eight paired with the KLH model thirteen stereophonic adapter. Sort of an odd couple though - the Model Eight was tubed, the Model Thirteen was transistorized. Each would have had it's own acoustic suspension speaker. Only about 1,500 model Thirteens were produced so they are hard to find.

What KLH pulled of with the Eight is nothing short of amazing - smaller then a shoe box and having only 7 tubes - it's a fully transormered set, RF amplifier, 3 IF stages, push-pull audio output with 14 db negative feedback. Harmonic distortion is less then .3 %. In the February, 1961 issue of High Fidelity Magazine, they remarked, "In A-B tests against an elaborate system of known high quality, we found the differences to be slight, on voices the KLH occasionally sounded better."

A sleeper in early FM stereo radios is the Motorola B100W of 1962 - 9 tubes, point to point to point hand wired, twin 6 inch detachable speakers for stereo seperation. I've sen these sell for $5.00 on ebay! They have very nice sound quality.

I have a B100 that I picked up on craigs list and its a really nicely made set. As mentioned they often don't go for too much on Ebay. Actually I could have saved some money if I had gotten mine that way. Just don't expect big bass sound. The sound is very unique I think and I have really enjoyed listening to Jazz on it. I would not even try to compare it to one of the receivers mentioned but if you are looking for a stereo table radio this is a fine radio.

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j6...rolaB100WA.jpg

Jeff, Try a speaker upgrade on the B100, like a smaller 2 way with an 8" woofer...it really improved the sound on mine. Motorola sold these with speakers that were too small in order to have compact packaging and to keep the price at $129. They're a classic from the short lived tube stereo era.

I forgot to give credit to the Zenith MJ1035, though I don't yet own one, everything I've heard about it has been positive... having a pair of 8 inch speakers, plus two tweeters, its sound would have been about as good as it got in 1961 for a tabletop set.

I used to have a Motorola table model tube stereo. It had two speakers that folded out and a center channel. The AM dial and the FM dial were side by side and it would receive FM stereo. There was a ceramic phono input as well as external speaker jacks. I think it used 6BM8's for the output tubes. It seemed to work pretty well.

Did you just upgrade the speakers in the original cases or are you connecting others via the RCA jack?

I actually had thought of trying some others but wasn't sure about the impedence.

I think one other thing that gave the early stereo FM table radios an edge in performance as far as sound quality was concerned was that a lot of them were in real wood cabinets, which were very large and heavy. The shape of the cabinet has a lot to do with sound quality as well. The MJ1035 has a mellow sound to it that is probably due, at least in part, to the shape and size of its cabinet; the chassis takes up almost all of the bottom part of it, but the rest is wide open so this set has sound quality today's bookshelf systems would be hard-pressed to match (although some of them come pretty darn close; my Aiwa bookshelf system has specially-designed 3-way speakers that sound really good, especially when reproducing instrumental music, IMHO).

The old console stereo systems/three-way entertainment centers by Zenith and others had excellent sound as well, again because of the huge cabinets in which they were housed and because of the huge main speakers most of them had. Before the Aiwa system I had a Zenith four-mode integrated stereo system with Allegro 100 floor-standing tuned-port speakers in real wood cabinets; that system sounded wonderful, the fact that it had been manufactured in Korea notwithstanding. My present system sounds great to my ears, but I have a feeling it could have had a rough time matching the sound quality of the Zenith's two-way tuned-port speakers if I were to A-B it against the Zenith system today. The Zenith was only 5 watts per channel, while my Aiwa system has four 50-watt amps--two stereo channels and two amplifiers for surround; the heck of it is, however, I've had this system eight years and never once even tried the surround feature. My best bet, should I ever get a yen to try my system in surround mode, would probably be to look around on eBay; I often see odd speakers and such there almost every time I look. Most of the time the speakers are attached to main units I wouldn't be interested in, but who knows? As I said, someday I just might come across a pair of Aiwa surround speakers (just the speakers) at a reasonable price on eBay; when/if I do, I just might get them and see what my system is made of, even as old and out-of-date as it is.

Keep your eyes open on eBay and CL for a Zenith MJ1035. These radios aren't as popular (yet, anyway) as the C845s and Zenith's other wood-cabinet high-fidelity sets, but they do show up from time to time. When you do finally get one (and if you do, be sure it has the matching extension speaker; on many MJ1035s up for auction on eBay the extension speaker is missing), I can say you will not be disappointed in the sound. These old sets are built like tanks and sound many times better than today's small portables available at dirt-cheap prices at Wal-Mart and elsewhere. The Zeniths in particular had an edge over other manufacturers' sets of the early '60s because they were built on solid metal chassis with point-to-point wiring, rather than on printed-circuit boards, although Zenith finally broke with tradition in 1980 when they introduced the model R-70 AM/FM nine-transistor portable (unless some of their earlier transistor sets like the Royal 275, 300, 400, et al., all of which predated the R-70 by 20 years or more, also were built on PC boards; I think, if I remember correctly, the Royal 500, which was probably Zenith's best small transistor portable of the late '50s [I had one for several years and enjoyed it a lot], also was built on a PCB but with socketed transistors). The R-70 was built almost entirely on a PCB, although the construction seems every bit as solid as if the set had a metal chassis. The R-70, like the Royal series of Zenith TransOceanics, doesn't eat up batteries by the dozens, either. My R-70 is only on its second set of batteries since I got it (it was an eBay score a couple years ago) and still sounds excellent; my Royal 1000 was also won in an eBay auction perhaps three years ago and is only on its second set of batteries as well. It would probably still be on the first set I put in it after I got it, except for a short in the AC adapter jack that drained the batteries in no time flat (I'm amazed the battery box did not melt in the process as well--that's how hot those CZ [carbon-zinc] D-cells got; I hate to think how hot things might have become in that battery box had I had alkaline D-cells in there when that adapter jack shorted :eek:).

With my B100 Motorola, I simply found a stray set of complete speakers from the 60's that have a similar look & size to the Motorola, sparkle gold grill cloth with aluminum trim with an RCA hook up, 8 ohm. If you change speakers, keep the Motorola's for the sake of originality if you ever sell he B100.

A trend I've noticed in recent years is that people are gutting the early 60's consoles and selling all the parts, chassis, speaker drivers. I guess folks can't handle a 6 foot long, 200 lb. unit so they're making their own tube audio systems...a good idea if you're skilled at cabinet making.

Back to Zenith.....Interest is on the 8 tube sets is on the rise, but still a great deal consdering what you get. The one that seems to be climbing price the fastest is the C845 & H845. For years I'd hear people say..."thats an ugly set" or "cheap looking front panel". Wow, that hurts this Zenith collector, last night I went and took a good look at my H845's front panel.....it's really of unique style and construction with the recessed center circle for the main speaker, plus the verticle bar theme across the whole front, then topped of with the chrome circle trim piece. It really would have been a more complicated grill to design and manufacture then most radio face panels. We've already mentioned what Zenith put into these 845 chassis...all good! I'm starting to see these sell for $45 and up on Ebay, for a long time they were selling for a song.

There IS an MJ1035 on You-Know-Where right now w/a BIN of $199.95...Seems a bit high, but the radio looks pretty good, & the guy says it works...Hmmmmm...(grin)-Can't Spring For It.

[QUOTE=anden;1845723]A trend I've noticed in recent years is that people are gutting the early 60's consoles and selling all the parts, chassis, speaker drivers. I guess folks can't handle a 6 foot long, 200 lb. unit so they're making their own tube audio systems...a good idea if you're skilled at cabinet making.QUOTE]

I see this alot on that dang high priced auction site otherwise known as ebay. The Magnavox amps seem to be the most popular. I saw a nice Magnavox tube console sit at a local thrift store for $50 for months, until the store went belly up. Had they listed the amp, speakers, and turntable in seperate epay auctions, there's no telling what it all would have sold for. I really hate having to destroy a nice console stereo in order to get any $ out of it; but, I'd be lucky to get $20 for the whole complete unit around here. If it doesn't play a CD and if it's not black or gray plastic, most people are not interested.

That BIN is more than a little high; it is much too high, IMHO. After all, $199.95 was the exact selling price of a brand new MJ1035 in 1962. That radio is unlikely to be worth anywhere near that much today. I personally wouldn't have paid anywhere that much for a radio that is over 40 years old, especially considering the mediocre performance (by today's standards) of the MJ1035's multiplex decoder. The decoder in mine doesn't do badly in my area (35 miles southwest of the Cleveland stations) with just a wire antenna, but as a rule the MPX decoder in this radio will not work very well if you are more than 15 miles away from the transmitters (as stated by one person on the AntiqueRadios.com discussion forum). This is because the MPX circuitry in the MJ1035 was one of Zenith's first attempts at putting stereo FM in a table radio; later models improved on the design, and by about the '70s the bugs had been eliminated, for the most part.

Too bad this all came to a screeching halt several years later (in the early eighties) when Zenith went out of the radio business for good, and the Japanese, Korean, etc.-built stereo radios, CD players and such we are seeing today on store shelves (at dirt-cheap prices) are now sporting FM tuners that are little better than 2-transistor AM sets (and have little more reception range), having multiplex decoders on single chips (my 1980-vintage Zenith H480 FM stereo clock radio has its MPX decoder on one chip, so this one-chip trend has been going on for over 25 years) and the radios themselves being assembled in a slap-dash manner on assembly lines. All the more reason for us AKers to keep our old vintage/antique radios working as long as possible, as we will never see that level of quality in radios (or anything else, for that matter) again--no thanks to outsourcing.

BTW, one other bid I saw on eBay some time ago (the last time I looked, the item was still there) was for a tube-type audio mixer that was supposedly used by four popes. (The description next to the picture of this mixer states "Tube type audio mixer used by FOUR POPES!", for crying out loud!) The opening bid was $50,000. With an opening bid that high, I'm not surprised the item has been sitting on eBay for months with no bids. I see this with certain types of antique radios as well; 60-year-old-plus Zeniths with opening bids in the hundreds of dollars, for example. I can see how a Zenith radio such as their Walton model (the set that appeared in the TV series The Waltons) would have an opening bid as high as $1,000 or more, but not most of the company's earlier tombstone sets. The 1930s Zenith consoles, not to mention the 1920s model IX, X and other three-dial Zeniths (not to mention the very rare Chicago Radio Labs/Zenith model 4R which shows up on eBay once in a blue moon, if you're lucky), are more likely to command higher bids; I've seen Zenith shutterdial consoles with opening bids as high as $100 or more and the model IX/X, et al. starting even higher, but I think the opening bid on these sets depends on the condition of the cabinet and the chassis, not necessarily in that order. (The model IX and X, etc. from the 1920s, due to their rarity, should sell, IMO, for at least $400 if in good condition.) Someone who has either had the chassis restored or has done it him/herself (ditto for the cabinet) is not likely to want to give his/her services away by putting a low opening bid on the radio, unless the hope is that the set will eventually sell for $1,000 or more once the auction ends.

With the audio mixer I mentioned above, however, I'm not so sure. It depends on whether or not it works and its condition, IMHO; I don't think it's worth $50,000 simply because it was used by four popes. I think the seller is just trying his or her best to get as much money as possible from the auction without knowing much, if anything, about appraisal of old radios. It is unlikely the sellers have even had these sets (televisions from the late '40s as well as radios) appraised to determine just how much they would be worth as antiques; many people just want them out of their houses/basements/garages as soon as possible, for as much money as they can get.