[Jayce]

I used to have three of these that I rescued from the pile at my late friend's place, but I sold off the one with the questionable power transformer, possibly dead AM section, missing tubes and missing knobs a few years back. Kind wish I had kept it for the cabinet though! Oh well, I needed the $20 at the time and the guy didn't care about its issues.
Anyways, tonight I dug out my remaining two units and the one set of original, matching Silvertone speakers to try out this evening. Believe it or not, I arrived at my late friend's house just in time that day to save the speakers from going onto the burn pile, which was already lit! So, the one unit in the better cabinet works, but I think it has some bad IF cans in the AM section. The one in the beat up cabinet (speakers are also a bit beat up!) works fine all the way around. I'm thinking of taking the two and making one good unit to play with and keeping the other guts and knobs for parts. What is sad is all of these units were in good shape along with the speakers when I first met my buddy in 1998. He did recap the amps on at least these two, but as time went by he decided any radio made after 1942 was junk and he didn't treat these very well in his final years. All of them were missing the tubes when his dad gave them to me and I got lucky that a mutual friend of ours wanted a radio I had bought from my late friend a few days before he passed away. He traded me enough 12AX7 and 6BQ5 tubes for all three units, which gives me some spares. Actually, four of the 6BQ5 tubes are the actual Silvertone tubes from one of the tuners. My late friend had sold them to the other guy!
I'll try to get some pictures soon. I must admit, these are pretty healthy sounding stereos. Both speaker enclosures have three speakers each in them, so it equals stereo console in that manner. (Actually is as wide as my Silvertone console stereo with the speakers set up to either side!)

Edit: The speakers are model number 7438.

[Jayce]

As promised, I finally got a couple pictures here. After confirming the one unit has bad IFs in the AM stage and a broken amplifier plug wire, I finally combined what I had into one good unit. It plays quite well now, though I would say it's only 95% there. For one thing, I need to redo or have one of the muliplex boxes redone. Turns out these have two little electrolytics in them that go bad and they are buried behind everything else! Of course..   Actually, I could probably get to one of them if I had a true soldering pencil, but I lack one of those right now. So, redo one of the boxes, get some new #49 and #51 type bulbs and I should be in business. The amp and tuner out of the beat up cabinet look really clean and good. I think I saw a few new parts on the tuner and it definitely appears my late friend recapped the amp on this one. Put in a more matched set of tubes into the amp (though one 12AX7 is a bit weaker than the other, I couldn't find a matched pair.) and I think I can label it as stable for now. I just wish I had something to test the phono input with! Cost on this project so far, zero dollars! I was given the stereos by my friend's dad and most of the tubes were also given to me. Really, the only think I have money in are the 12AX7's and the 6BQ5's and all those were from a trade with spares left over.

   

The FM multiplex box.

   

[35Z5]

Kewl!! Those do have same chassis the consoles of day used.

I have one of those packed away. When I got it the MPX unit was out of socket & bouncing around inside. Luckily no damage. I swear I'll not unpack it, then buy another half dozen like I did on the little GE radios.

[Jayce]

Yeah, you don't really want to collect too many of these! Though, like I said, I had three of these to begin with. Sold the worst off put the other two together into this cabinet to make a working unit with spare parts left over. Really, the only issue now besides the MPX box is it gets into moods where the FM gets weak. It doesn't cut out, just gets weak until I flick the band switch back and forth. Not sure if its a true issue or if the contacts in the band switch aren't happy. The switch is semi-sealed, so hard to get any cleaner into the contacts! If it is an issue, I only have to take the 'head unit' in to be worked on instead of speakers and all. The shop I know keeps two sets of large speakers on hand just for working on units like this. Basically, any decent set of 8 ohm speakers will work.(Actually, getting the MPX boxes repaired will probably help in any case).

[Jayce]

Hmm, might have figured out my FM issue. I disconnected the internal antenna, which basically just the power cord, and hooked up the cheap little dipole antenna I've been using on the Zenith console. Well, the FM now seems to stay at full power and I lost the hum I was getting. I wonder if a capacitor or resistor in series with the internal antenna setup is getting bad? Either that or it doesn't like the better cord I put on it. (Original was toast!). With the dipole, you are connecting straight to the FM tuner.

[35Z5]

Yeah, you don't really want to collect too many of these!

LOL space was reasonI put it away.. Was around time I finished my TV tube radio(that became my daily), so it's been wrapped in a blanket and stuffed in a box for years.

Your fade issue may be as simple as a weak tuner tube.

[Jayce]

Already checked that tube. Swapped it out with the new tube that was in the other tuner actually, but both tubes test great yet. A weak tube shouldn't snap back just by flicking the band switch back and forth I would think. It also had a definite hum before I unhooked the ac antenna and put the dipole on and that seems to be working well. No hum and no fade now.
What's ironic is a year back I had planned on getting one of these units going as best as I could, then sell the whole lot for something like $75 to $100 with the way people were going for these type amps and speakers. They were basically just in my way. Now, I kind wish I had gotten this unit going earlier and avoided buying those two stereo consoles!