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Saw this console in trash - should I have taken it?

bluehills5

bluehills5

Active Member
I saw this console in a trash pile near me house yesterday (brooklyn). I think it was a Magnavox but since I've not mush experience with consoles and have no room in my apartment, I let it pass.
Was I passing up something?
 

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I truly don't want to pick on anyone's passion, but my goal is to make the system I am using produce full range musical sound. I know that it is fun to fix up a piece from the past, even to hear the old mellow sound of a limited speaker system. The time spent on excellent old high quality gear can produce some real surprises. There are many fine pieces out there that people have forgotten the value of. They can be had for a few dollars and cleaned up and actually have something worth while. If your space is limited you did well passing this up in my opinion.
 
It looks like a Magnavox Astro-Sonic. I have a very similar one that I inherited when my wife's aunt passed away.Its nice but nothing special.I use it in the garage. It's in great shape. You did the right thing they do take up space.
 
At least check in back, for amp type. Some of those old consoles, have some really sweet sounding tube amps. Especially Magnavox. They're well worth the time and effort to at least pull the amps and restore them. If that interests you...?
 
As a beotian mechanic who doesn't have any LP, i should have picked it for saving the motor and the plate for, maybe, building a rotative stand for my fairies ... :dunno:
 
[QUOTE="Kevin D, post: 9309871, member: 167816]It looks like a Magnavox Astro-Sonic. I have a very similar one that I inherited when my wife's aunt passed away.Its nice but nothing special.I use it in the garage. It's in great shape. You did the right thing they do take up space.[/QUOTE]
I agree. I passed on one that looked just like it. early astrosonic.
 
I believe all the Astro-Sonics were solid state late 60's. The ones just before that i think were tubes.
 
Looks exactly like the one I salvaged the amp from this summer. The power amp is an 8802 powered by a pair of 6V6s for each.channel. After some rebuilding and moda, its now in my main system. I think it sounds pretty flippin' good. If have pulled the power amp. But that's just me.
 
This is a late 1960's-1971 era Magnavox Astro-Sonic, Collaro made Automatic 400 changer. First Astro-Sonics were released in 1963.
 
It's solid state and nothing special, its is a Magnavox though. That's a very late sixties/early seventies turntable. Well into the solid state era.
 
That turntable looks to be newer and possibly inficates solid state which have little value.
I'd have looked at the back to see how ventilated it was. Lots of holes usually indicates tubes. If that was the case. I woukd have removed it to verify and either taken the whole works or worst case pulled the tubes.
It was going to a landfill, so no harm saving anything you could.

But if the back was mainly solid, I would have left it too.
 
Some people like those things, but the problem is you can't really sell them on eBay. If you repair the stuff maybe make it a garage project and then try to resell it on Craigslist, but I have doubts about that.

Tell you what impressed me about SOME of those old Maggies was the speakers. I had a set of woofers and horns from a TV stereo combo and they rocked once applied with a differnet crossover, EQ and a real amp. In fact, a set of those, with modified crossovers, runing off an RS amp of probably less than 50 WPC brought the cops to my place form a different city ! Extremely efficient. Efficient to the point where you got room to EQ, and they need surprisingly little of it.

When you see those, look at the speakers. there are two type os horns they used, one has a metal back, usually green. Then there is a type that is larger and has a styrofoam back. the styro ones are inferior to the metal backed, smaller ones. Also, if you get one with the 15" woofers, the ones without the external pole holder or whatever you call it are the superior. Imean they are still alnico but they to not have the formed metal around them. Like a sealed alnico. those woofers are quit good. If you stick them in a proper cabinet with a proper crossover (which the Maggies did not have because they took care of it with EQ in the amp) I do believe you will have some close to a set of Klipsch. EXTREMELY efficient and sound good.

I lived in Rocky River and a pair of them brought the cops across the river from Lakewood...
 
Mine has 12" woofers and it does have horns even an Aux input so its fun using I-pod in the garage.
 
I moght have robbed the drivers if the were ALNICO, but I certainly wouldn't have brought the whole thing home.
 
I bought this one last summer for a hundred bucks. It's an early astro-sonic, like around 1965 or 1966. Solid State with 12 inch woofers that aim out the sides and horn tweeters that shoot out and up at an angle in the front. Everything worked perfectly on it, but I did find, after a little while, the sound was just not for me. Warm tones for sure, but it ONLY sounded good with earlier music....like Perry Como, Guy Lombardo, etc....sold it for $150.00 in the fall, and that was top dollar. I'm glad I didn't get one like the one you saw and dumped all sorts of time and money into it only to discover that the sound was not to my tastes. I'll stick with my Marantz 2235b and optimus 1B's if I want that warm sound, and that combo does it so much better, and does it with all music.
 

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Actually, I forgot to mention, if you see the ones with the speakers encased in whit styrofoam boxes, those are good ones. Kinda hard to use them the way they are but in a regular cabinet might be alright.

The problem is the woofers do not have any mounting holes, the rim fits tightly into a recess in the container. (can't really cal it a cabinet)
 
Those old consoles often have speakers that work well in an open baffle application.
 
Looks just like the Magnavox my dad had when I was a kid. I was never too impressed with it. I would have passed it up too.
 
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