[radiorich]

Hello Peter,
I am glad you got the radios and I too have that same zenith in my collection !
I am also waiting for the weather to warm up so that I can do some cabinet work too.

Sincerely Richard

[RadioSvit]

Hi Richard. Yes, we are waiting for warm weather. I have more than a dozen hulls waiting to be painted.

[MrFixr55]

Hi Peter,

Always praying for peace. Is the VEF156 Stereo or does it have only a mono amp with the 4 speakers? (I assume that the grilles on each side are speakers. Tabletop stereo tube radios with side-facing speakers from USA manufacturers were very rare. In the US, stereo radios were either separate components, electronics and one speaker in one cabinet, and speaker only in another cabinet or console cabinets, mostly with front-facing speakers. "Stereo" was mostly experimental in the mid-late 1950s in USA with the only stereo program sources being either stereo records or reel to reel tapes. Broadcasts were limited to "AM and FM Stereo, where one channel (the prominent one) was sent via FM and the other channel was sent via AM. these broadcasts occurred only during certain times of the day because the FCC required a radio station to broadcast the entire program, not parts. (FCC is the abbreviation for the Federal Communications Commission, the USA regulatory agency that regulates and sets standards for electronic communication.) This issue was resolved when the FM Multiplex system was introduced in the US in 1961. I have several "AM / FM" Stereo receivers that allow AM and FM to be tuned separately and assigned to one each of the speakers. However, this system is long obsolete. I have one receiver, a Fisher 800B that has AM / FM Stereo and FM MPX (multiplex) Stereo. I found this receiver on the curb on a trash day and rescued it. These are quire collectible now and is an excellent performing "HiFi" receiver., one of the last before Fisher converted to transistors. Avery Fisher sold his companyin the early 1970s, it was eventually bought by Sanyo and is a shadow of its former self.

[RadioSvit]

Hello John. I have never met VEF156 and have not even heard of the existence of such a model. Perhaps you are mistaken with the model index. But there was a VEF Lux (RK-156) model from 1956. If you are asking about this radio, then it usually had a monophonic push-pull amplifier and 4 speakers connected in a 3D scheme. That is, two front broadband plus two side ones for reproducing mid and high frequencies, connected via a capacitor. I had such a radio and it had excellent sound. But it was monophonic. The first stereophonic radios appeared in the USSR only in 1962, but these were also small-scale batches without stereo detectors, that is, only the amplifier and speakers were stereophonic, but not the FM radio receiver. Fully stereophonic radios appeared only in 1965-67. These were Rigonda Stereo and Symphony Stereo. By the way, the principle of operation of Soviet stereo detectors was very different from European ones, and therefore such radios were not suitable for receiving stereo programs in Europe and the USA. For Europe and the USA, radio receivers adapted to the Western standard were manufactured with a different frequency range (88-108 MHz) and a Western stereo signal demodulation system, for example, Rigonda Bolshoi.

[MrFixr55]

Hi Peter,

Sorry about the model number mix-up, my dyslexia kicked in. I was describing a model that you had pictured with equal sized oval speakers in the front and speaker grilles on each side. The only radio of this style that I have is a Telefunken Allegro 5083W, ca 1960. It receives Broadcast Band (MW) AM, FM, and 2 SW bands covering 2.15 - 22 MHz. Advertised as "Stereo", but the radio section is Mono, not even AM A - FM B. Unequal amplifiers, one is part of an ECC83 (12AX7 and EL84 (6BQ5. The "other" amp is an ECL82 (6BM8 triode- Beam Power tube, whose output is not the same as the ECC83 / EL84 amp. An external speaker for the "other" Channel. This radio relies on a stereo phono or stereo tape deck as well as a second speaker for Stereo sound. It seemed rather common for the early days of stereo to have unequal amplifiers and speakers, even in some US sets. However, my Pilot 602, Sears Silvertone 1025, Arvin 35R58 and Fisher 800 all have equal amps. The Pilot and Fisher require external speakers for both channels. The Silvertone has a built in speaker for one channel and an equal external speaker for the other channel. the Arvin has equal built in speakers. The AM and FM tuners on the Silvertone, Pilot and Fisher can be tuned independently with the FM on the left channel and AM on the right channel, but does not have a Multiplex FM Stereo decoder. The Fisher does have a Multiplex FM Stereo decoder. The Arvin has a Multiplex FM Stereo decoder but does not have separate tuners. AM - FM Stereo was experimental until the mid 1960s then banned, as Multiplex became the US standard in the early 1960s.