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Olson RA-581 Tube Receiver

countryslim

countryslim

re-incarnated junk dude
I just bought an Olson RA-581 Tube Receiver on Ebay.. Has anyone heard of these before? Olson of the USA supposedly had a Japanese company make these for sale in the US before they made their own Solid State Receivers. Olson also made Speakers for Jukebox's and still make electronic's.

This is my first Tube system so far, and I have lots of old Solid State Gear, Sherwoods, Scott, Pioneer's, Nikko's, Yamaha's, Lafayette, Kenwood, Allied, LXI's, GE and Channel
Master.. etc.
 

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Olson had catalogs that I used to look at and read descriptions scrupulously while fantasizing about having the gear.
 
Tinkerbelle said:
I had an Olson RA-809 receiver. It was a nice unit and sounded good with 6GW8/ECL86 output tubes. Pics are here:
http://www.acousticpsychos.com/coppermine/displayimage.php?album=6&pos=108
http://www.acousticpsychos.com/coppermine/displayimage.php?album=6&pos=106
Click to expand...

NiCE!! Yours was a much Higher end unit than mine. Any idea of the year made? I'm looking for any info I can find on these. I've found info on the Solid State gear they made on the Olson Electronics website, but no tube info.

My Cuz in off into Tube gear and has a Vari-ac and tube tester to help me with this and he was asking what power tubes the Olson used. He has a complete 1956 Fisher Pre-amp, two Fisher amps, five electrovoice Cabs, Three blonde, two Dark walnut, Jensen Drivers all 1956, plus a McIntosh amp, Scott tube amp, and a Channel master tube amp plus a large collection of spare tubes. He also collects Vintage Guitar gear

He has been on my case about my solid State collection and no tube stuff..

Thanks for the info..
 
Olson was a catalog based radio supply outfit like Allied Radio, Lafayette and Burstein-Applebee. Like the others, they offered rebadged imported audio gear.
 
Celt said:
Olson was a catalog based radio supply outfit like Allied Radio, Lafayette and Burstein-Applebee. Like the others, they offered rebadged imported audio gear.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the help... I have an Allied 390 Solid State that was supposed to be made by Pioneer and I have two SS Sears LXI series that were supposed to be made by Fisher. I also have a Lafayette LR-500T, but I assumed Lafayette made it. The manual is dated 1967. I'm thinking tube stuff was phased out in 1964-65? I have a Scottkit LK-60 SS amp and manual dated 1965.

Olson as a Company dates to 1961, so I figure the Receiver to be 1962-64? Anyway, as long as it uses Popular Vac tubes and caps, I can keep it going.
 
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