1956 Grundig Majestic 3095 ML/USA Tube Radio

bside123 · « **on:** 7 Sep 2010, 06:11 pm »

Greetings! Well, I had the great pleasure, over the weekend, when my wife presented me with a birthday present that she had picked up at a flea market - 1956 Grundig Majestic 3095 ML/USA Tube Radio. This thing is a real beauty. The cosmetic condition is pert near perfect. I popped off the back and besides the dust, the radio is full of vintage Telefunken tubes and one Valvo.

I turned the radio on last night, and after the tubes warmed up, the music that poured out of the solid wood cabinet sounded like honey. I'm old enough to remember that sound. I like it; the radio sounds great! There are two short-wave bands, one FM band and one band called "BC" which I don't know what that is. The receiver section will accommodate both a tape in/out as well as there is an input for the use of additional sources. There is also a line out. The drivers are in perfect condition, and the cabinet has an interesting design.

The top of the cabinet is enclosed with speaker slots on both the right and left sides of the panels. There is both a bass and treble tone control on the front, large push button selector switches and oversized tuning and volume knobs. All of the knobs and switch buttons are 50s bakelite.

I will be interested to clean up this old radio, test the tubes, secure or update the wiring, maybe even replace some caps. Anybody out there know about or have experience with these radios. Comments or suggestions would be very much appreciated. Thanks!

dflee · « **Reply #1 on:** 7 Sep 2010, 06:24 pm »

Neat radio. The BC probably has to do with short wave (not real sure). You can find an owners manual and maintenance manual with schematics at grundig antique radio forum site.

Don

baldrick · « **Reply #2 on:** 7 Sep 2010, 07:04 pm »

I have restored radios of similar vintage, and I am particularly fond of early Telefunken models, although this Grundig is a fine example.
Be careful when rooting through the chassis. Things are fairly delicate. I have even destroyed transformers inadvertently with a slip of a screwdriver.
Apart from the obvious tube testing and capacitor replacement / upgrade, leave the circuit well enough alone.
The only thing that I usually upgrade is the power cord connector as the ones from the fifties leave a lot to be desired in terms of safety. I usually try to replace it with a modern polarized connector of similar size.
You also have a crystal pickup connector and a tape input that you might want to convert into something cool like an iPod dock.

Mark Korda · « **Reply #3 on:** 7 Sep 2010, 09:13 pm »

Hi Beside,that is a real beauty!I have one that I found on a rainy day about 10 years ago on a road trip that led me to a little town,Milo Maine.It remided me of Mayberry(Andy,Opie,ect).Mine is a Telefunkin Concereto that looks almost simular,but had two more speakers,2 on the side,making 4.It has Bakelite controls too,4 tones called solo,bass,jazz,an orgestra.It uses a magic (eye tube) like the Dyna FM-3.When I first fired it up I warmed it up slowly on a variovac and experianced the same kind of tonality you did.I let it sit as a decoration though I don't know why.I fired it up a few weeks ago without the variac to bring the caps up.Baldrick was right on!I had a grounded plug outlet supposedly,and the power cord was not.It fit into those 2 little holes like in the center back of your unit.The FM came on,but the connection did not look snug.As my shakey hand went to plug it in better it fell out and a big flash went off as well as all the power to my tiny apt.I was lucky I didn't get zapped.I hope I didn't destroy the whole radio,but it went back to the decoration state for now.If any one can explain what happened with what I said,I would love to know.Listen to Baldrick and Good Luck!....Mark Korda (mark.korda@myfairpoint.net)

SteveFord · « **Reply #4 on:** 7 Sep 2010, 11:20 pm »

Does that ever bring back memories - my grandfather had either the same model or one very similar to that one.
Shame, my mom and uncle probably pitched it into a dumpster.
Thanks for posting the pictures and I hope it provides years of enjoyment.