In ancient Greece Odeon was a mostly round theatre for song and music performances. In 1903 the International Talking Machine
Company was founded by two Germans to produce records with the Odeon building as a symbol.
The Swede Carl
Lindström in 1896 started a factory in Berlin and was very successful in selling simple low cost phonographs. In the beginning
of the 1900s he produced gramophones and records named Parlophon. In 1911 he bought some minor German factories, for
example Beka and Odeon. In 1931 Odeon became a part of the Electric and Musical Industries Ltd EMI which was formed by
Columbia and HMV. Odeon was a wellknown brand in Sweden with many popular artists like Ernst Rolf, Zarah Leander and
Sven-Olov Sandberg.
My gramophone is named Odeon Paracelsus, he was an important physician, philosopher, theologist and mystisician who died
in Salzburg 1541. My wife´s parents bought this gramophone in Jönköping some time in the 1930s and played records when
having parties for relatives and friends. It was a high quality machine and is still working very well.
Record Changer AGA PW6SC, around 1956
My wife bought this record changer when she was young to play her EP records. It was installed in her parents radio gramophone
instead of the 78 rev/min standard player. When the set later was sold we kept the record changer and mounted it in a new box
with a small amplifier so that our children could use it to play their records.
The changer was built for AGA by Electroacoustic GmbH (Elac) in Kiel, Germany. It has three speeds, 33, 45 and 78 rev/min.,
takes records up to 31 cm and has automatic shutoff. The pickup is of the crystal type 30 - 14000 Hz and it has switchable
sapphire needles marked N for normal and M for micro. The record changer is still working well.
The record changer from AGA is still in a good state.
The record player is a His Master´s Voice with arm and pickup from Bang & Olufsen. It was sold in Scandinavia by
Skandinavisk Radio & Television A/S in Copenhagen.
The turntable is relatively heavy and the arm is air dampened
with variable needle preasure from about 1 to 3 grams.
The pickup is dynamical and of high quality. It is fixed to the
arm with a 5-pin connector and to change needle between normal and micro it is easiast to change the entire head. The needle
part can also be changed by losening a screw.
I bought this record player to my HiFi around 1960. It is still in very
good condition.
In 1922 the brothers Oscar and John Stern started in Stockholm the company AB Stern & Stern to be agents for american car
parts. From 1924 they also sold radio parts and kits, and in 1926 they produced their first crystal receiver called "Hjärter ess"
(Ace of hearts). In 1927 they started to make valve receivers under the name Conserton, the first one being a 2-valve receiver.
From 1936 Stern & Stern was part of the Philips corporation.
My portable radio was bought by my wifes parents.
I cannot find any model number on it, it is transistorised but has no FM band, only long, medium and short wave. My guess is
that it was built at the Philips factory NEFA in Norrköping in the end of the 1950s.
Remark January 1st 2007: The name of the radio is Lido MD6631T. According to a broschure from 1960 the cost was SEK 268:-
+ VAT with batteries. The text says "Elegant portable radio in beautiful design and tasteful color scheme. 130 mm loudspeaker,
7 transistors. Four 1,5 volt batteries". Thanks to Jan, samlaren.org.
The portable radio is very elegant in plastic and wood
Model 6 is one of Tandbergs top models, it was manufactured 1960 - 1966. It has high performance record and playback amplifiers
with cathode follower output for use with a separate output amplifier and speaker system.
The tape recorder can record and play in full stereo with four track technique, which means two tracks on one half of the tape
and two tracks on the other half after turning the tape. It has three speeds, 7 1/2 "/sec, 3 3/4 "/sec och 1 7/8 "/sek.
The upper picture above shows the recorder ready for stereo playback (playback 1 and 2 pressed).
The lower picture above shows the chassis with the mains transformer upper left, the synchronous motor in the center with the
oscillator board beneath it. The record and playback amplifiers are hidden in the screening shield to the right.
As can be seen in the picture of the tape transport, to the right, there are three heads, erase, record and playback head. Because
there are separate record and playback amplifiers it is possible to listen to the recording after the record head to check the quality
and also to make some trick recordings, for example sound-on-sound and echo.
Technical data:
Bandwidth
7 1/2 "/s 30 - 20000 Hz +-3dB
3 3/4 "/s 30 - 14000 Hz
1 7/8 "/s 50 - 7000 Hz
Distorsion 3% max (at 400 Hz with full volume)
Wow better than 0,15%, 0,2% or 0,3% at the different tape speeds
Noise level better than 55 dB at full volume
Erase- and premagnitizing frequency 78 kHz
Valves 3 each ECC82, 6 each ECC83, 2 each EAM86 + 2 selenium rectifiers
Dimensions and weight
Width 39 x depth 30 x height 17 cm
Weight 10,5 kg
Accessories
For use with the tape recorder I have a dynamic AKG microphone and some quality tapes, mainly Scotch NP 1200, EP 1800
and LP 2400 feet.
I bought the recorder around 1962 and the recordings span more than 10 years with world history,
for example the first space travels, my childrens first words and of course some good jazz music!
The instruction manual (in Norwegian) that came with the recorder, and a schematic diagram with alignment instructions on the
back side, printed in october 1960.
This 20+20 watt HiFi stereo amplifier with integrated circuits was constructed in the beginning of the 1970´s from a description
in Practical Wireless. I also installed an FM tuner from Larsholt with the amplifier. The combination is still working quite well!
The amplifier uses 3 IC´s and 5 transistors per channel, with the following data:
- Output power 20+20 watt in 8 ohm intermittent sinewave, 16+16 watt continously
- Distorstion 0.09 % at 1 kHz 20 watt Frequency response -1 dB 7 Hz to 22 kHz (16+16 watt in 8 ohm)
- Rumble filter 12 dB per oktave damping below 50 Hz, scratch filter the same damping over 5 kHz
- Input/output for gramophone and tape recorder
The FM tuner is a Larsholt 7251 with voltage controlled tuning over
the frequency range 88 to 108 MHz.
The power supply is my own design with four regulating transistors giving plus
and minus 25 and 15 volts.
This little TV was bought in 1978 and has been used a lot, for example on the kitchen table when our grandchildren had supper
looking at the childrens programme. The TV was made in the former Soviet Union (USSR) and was sold by Åhrmans Service
AB in Gothenburg. The set is made for 12 V battery power but an adapter for 220 V was delivered with it. Power consumption
6 W at 12 V and 10 W at 220 V.
On the wiring diagram I got for the set it is named ELEKTRONIKA VL-100. It has a
total of 30 transistors on three PC boards. The wiring diagram has text in Russian, English and German and it is dated May
1977.
The TV is built for the analogue ground transmissions and covers VHF band 2 - 11 and UHF band 21 - 68, it still works but
can´t be used with the digital transmissions we now have in our part of Sweden.
The set measures 180 x 175 x 228 mm and the weight is only 2,8 kg.
In ancient Greece Odeon was a mostly round theatre for song and music performances. In 1903 the International Talking Machine
Company was founded by two Germans to produce records with the Odeon building as a symbol.
As can be seen in the picture of the tape transport, to the right, there are three heads, erase, record and playback head. Because
there are separate record and playback amplifiers it is possible to listen to the recording after the record head to check the quality
and also to make some trick recordings, for example sound-on-sound and echo.
This little TV was bought in 1978 and has been used a lot, for example on the kitchen table when our grandchildren had supper
looking at the childrens programme. The TV was made in the former Soviet Union (USSR) and was sold by Åhrmans Service
AB in Gothenburg. The set is made for 12 V battery power but an adapter for 220 V was delivered with it. Power consumption
6 W at 12 V and 10 W at 220 V.