Oldest piece of gear you own

Radio Engineering Laboratories (REL) Precedent FM Tuner, from 1954. (No relation to the British subwoofer manufacturer REL).

Designed by former associates of Edwin Armstrong (inventor of both FM and the superheterodyne principle upon which nearly all tuners and radios are based).

Mono in itself, but it provides a multiplex output signal that is decoded into stereo by an external multiplex adapter (I use an H. H. Scott LM35).

Mine is the equal of two Marantz 10B's I have owned in terms of weak signal reception, and tops both of them in sound quality.

Considered to be a classic, and deservedly so.

Regards,
-- Al

Nietzschelover Congragulations, you win!

Well, maybe not :-)

In my antique radio collection I have a working AM radio setup consisting of a Westinghouse RC regenerative tuner/detector/amplifier, a Western Electric 7A amplifier, and a Western Electric 518W speaker. All from 1922.

And if tubes count, I have two NOS/NIB Western Electric VT-1's, from 1918!

:-)

Best,
-- Al

The Air King's can be very nice performers, Mapman, if well restored and/or in good condition, although most of them are not worth a great deal. There are a few very rare plastic (not wood) Air King models, though, that are considered to be important and influential works of industrial design and industrial art. Those particular models, depending on their color and condition, can be worth many thousands or even tens of thousands. Most notably two models from the early 1930's, the 52 and 66, and to a much lesser extent the model 770 from a few years later, and the A-600 from the 1940s.

You can find many pics of those models via a Google images search. I've never seen any of them in person, though, in about 20 years of collecting :-)

Best,
-- Al

Why is it that it seems many older tube radios outperform most transistor models since in regards to ability to pick up remote stations clearly?

No question about it. The golden age of radio was arguably the 1930s, when a good performing and good looking radio had a place of honor in the living room, providing the family with music and other forms of entertainment, as well as news. And stations in those days were fewer and farther between than today, and used transmitters that were in most cases much lower powered than those used today.

So there was much more of an incentive in those days for manufacturers to produce well made, good looking, good performing, and good sounding AM radios than there is today. I have more than a few 1930s sets in my collection that put to shame any solid state AM radio I've ever encountered.

As in audio, what counts most is usually how well the selected design approach is implemented, and not which design approach is chosen.

Best,
-- Al