I know she's no antique, but...

[gadget73]

I love those old consoles. Something fantastic about a piece of furniture that is a wall of sound. I really wish my old Magnavox console components were still in the console just so I'd have that vintage look instead of the 'assorted parts on the workbench' look.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by gadget73

I love those old consoles. Something fantastic about a piece of furniture that is a wall of sound. I really wish my old Magnavox console components were still in the console just so I'd have that vintage look instead of the 'assorted parts on the workbench' look.

I'd look at it this way. With the Fisher components in that cabinet you'll probably have a lot less trouble with them, if they are solid state; further, newer components work better in many cases than the older stuff ever did. Who (other than yourself, of course) will really know what the components look like if the cabinet is closed? The beauty of a big console such as yours lies mostly in the cabinet, as that is what most folks see anyhow when they look in your living room (or wherever you have the console set up). You may care about the quality of the sound or the looks of the control panels (in fact, from the tone of your post it seems to me that both matter to you very much), but most of your visitors will be far more impressed, IMHO, with the appearance of the cabinet. BTW, that cabinet looks very good for being maybe four decades or so old. Most people treat these consoles as if they were pieces of very fine furniture, which is in fact what they are. (I have two Zenith table radios in fine wood cabinets and would not part with them, as much for their cabinets as for their excellent sound, in reverse order of course.) You have a console you can and should be very proud of. As I have said many times before in this forum, they don't make them like that anymore.

Did you save the original Magnavox speakers? If so, you will have at least some of the old console left. Many folks do just what you did with older TV/stereo/radio consoles, especially when the TV goes bad; they just pull out the old worn-out television and put in a newer solid-state set. I had relatives (great-aunts/uncles) who did just that when their old entertainment centers developed TV problems. Worked out just fine. One such console was an early-sixties RCA 3-way unit (AM/FM/FM stereo, phono and TV, RCA's "Brindisi" model for 1962); the TV chassis went bad and was eventually replaced with a newer Emerson color set. The other console was a '60s RCA (model and vintage unknown) that also developed very serious TV chassis trouble, so out the old chassis went and in went a new (at the time, some time in the '70s) Zenith 21" (IIRC) color TV. Both conversions, as I said, worked out very well.