orange loudspeakers ?
 

Hello there,
I was given a 1960's Orion valve radio last week at work and was told I could have it or bin it. It is a top of the range set with VHF LW MW and 3 SW bands and 12 piano keys. On looking at the speakers the cardboard cones are orange rather than grey/black colour which I have never seen before ???
There are also 2 electrostatic speakers and a tweeter. The wavechange arrangements are odd with moving coil packs and sliding contacts everywhere (where all the faults lay ;D)
Certainly an odd set.
Christopher Capener

Re: orange loudspeakers ?
 

I had a Grundig with a set of speakers like this once - but not orange!

Could you post a picture of the cabinet for us?

Where's it made, by the way? Eastern Europe?? Orion is a name that's around today, but they're a big Japanese concern, so presumably not the same company.

Thanks,
Nick

Re: orange loudspeakers ?
 

Hello there,
Here is a picture of the completed reciever. It is a very big light coloured wooden cabinet with a very high gloss finish. It is made by Orion and is model AR62. It looks like being in eastern europe and the valves are made by Valvo. It uses the common AM/VHF valve lineup with an ECC85, ECH81, EBF89, ECC83, EL84 and a EZ80 rectifier plus a EM80 magic eye.
The set works very well after all of the switch contacts are cleaned and the usual capacitors replaced (and a nearly dead magic eye ;D) The sound output is very loud with such a big loudspeaker, tweeter and 2 electrostatic speakers. It just picks up classic FM as it goes up to 100MHz

Very pleased with this set, The cabinet was in excellent condition without any bumps or scratches at all. It was well looked after. Better than in the bin which is where it would have ended up if I was not interested in it. (got a few funny looks carrying it through work ;D)
Christopher Capener

Re: orange loudspeakers ?
 

Christopher,

Just found out that Orion was a Hungarian brand name, so we were right!

Still not sure about the orange speaker, but I do remember reading somewhere recently (perhaps on these forums) about some European sets of the same vintage as yours that had green speakers, which are now being pulled out of these poor radios and sold separately on eBay!:(

Re: orange loudspeakers ?
 

Jon Evans has a page about his Orion AR612 here http://www.thevalvepage.com/radios/o...2/orion612.htm

It looks to be a very similar set in a different cabinet. I prefer the rectangular style of your AR62.

If you want a copy of the (basic) service data for the AR612, drop me a PM with your email address.

Re: orange loudspeakers ?
 

Hello there,
It is very similar to the one that John Evans has, in fact the chassis and dial glass are identical. If you look closly you can see that the loudspeaker cones are orange as well. This also has a massive cabinet the width being around 27" wide (approx 686 mm) I have got it going after replacing most of the usual suspect capacitors but the sliding wave change contacts are not very good and they crackle a lot even after cleaning them all and retensioning the contacts.
Due to the massive size of this radio I am thinking of taking it to the next Radiophile event at Shifnal and putting it on the bring and (hopefully someone ;D) buys stand for a few pounds.
Christopher Capener

Re: orange loudspeakers ?
 

Orange? Is that thesame company that makes orange guitar amps?

Re: orange loudspeakers ?
 

That was my first thought when I read the subject too! ;)

Re: orange loudspeakers ?
 

That'd be SABA. They had one or two manufacturers' loudspeakers after the war (including their own), but unfortunately the "audiophools" have somehow latched on to the sound quality of the loudspeakers (which IIRC were made by DEW) which had green cones. As a result, these losers go around building single EL84 Class-A amps and make loudspeakers out of "pulls" from SABA table sets in a vain pursuit of ultimate fidelity (yeah, right). These loudspeakers (and remember, a top-flight SABA could have anything up to six speakers in the cabinet) command quite high prices now; just as many British-made sets get vandalised for their PX4, or PP3/250s or ACO44s to keep demented "audiophools" content, so now there is a separate faction doing the same to mid 50s onwards SABAs.

Needless to say, as a collector of sets that hail from Chiswick and Villingen, I am NOT happy >:(

Re: orange loudspeakers ?
 

No doubt the APs have also convinced themselves that the coloured cones sound (insert Jilly Goolden simile of your choice here) as opposed to plain dirty grey ones :(

Re: orange loudspeakers ?
 

I am curentely working on a civic AR612 radiogram, looking at the pictures of the orion AR62 and AR612 the chasis are identical to the one in the civic. it also has the same orange speakers.
does anyone know if orion and civic are one and the same company?