Edward R. Murrow Didn't Have an iPod

I collect old radios. Tube jobs. Real antiques. Got fifteen of them now. About a third have been restored. Several others sort of play. I still want more. I love them. Why? I get asked that all of the time. Why do people collect anything? It just strikes something in you. You see it, and it touches a chord inside of you. You're simpatico with it. You must have it near you. But with the radios, it goes even beyond that.

First of all, ya got the dials. You can't beat the dials. Look, your iPod might hold a hundred gigabytes of data, it might contain your entire record library, and it might play it back with precise digital reproduction, but none of that matters. Your iPod doesn't have the dial. I mean, look at that picture! It's exquisite. It's a freaking work of art. There's nothing in our early 21st century, post-modern world that can even begin to match the beauty of that dial. You turn on the radio, there's a slight hum, and the dial lights up, and there's the world at your command, just waiting for you to tune it in. Modern digital dials can't hold a candle to this beauty. For one thing, the digital dial shows you only the station you happen to be on right now, while the analog dial shows you all of the stations that you could be on. And sitting in a darkened room, late at night, listening to some broadcast from Argentina, the dial glows softly, a warm beacon through the dark hours of a sleepless night.

So, okay, maybe you're not into lighted dials. There's still the case. Modern radios have the most boring cases ever imagined. They've gone beyond spartan and landed firmly in the camp of butt ugly. Back in the day, though, they really designed radio cases. Take this example from 1938. This is pure art deco design at its best. The dark Bakelite case with the wrap-around louvers, the half-circle dial with its deco style numbers and fat pointer, the brass nameplate behind the dual control knobs. It just doesn't get any better than this. This radio comes straight out of the jazz age, that glorious period when all pop music was jazz, and everything from houses to swizzle sticks was designed to mimic the smooth, carving lines of jazz, the music that shaped our nation.

And let me tell you about the sound. Oh my gosh. Nothing compares to the sound you get out of these old tube radios. It's true. The sound is simply...warmer. That's the only word for it. As if the heat from the glowing tubes was transferred into the music itself. I have a 1955 Bluapunkt Sultan - German built for American consumers. First of all, it pulls in stations that none of my newer radios can get. Secondly, the sound beats my new stereo hands down. It's rich. It's warm. It's full. It's what all radios should sound like, and what very few do.

And then there's the history. Radios aren't just part of history - radios made history. Think about it. A radio built and sold in 1938. What sounds came through those speakers. Franklin D. Roosevelt's second inaugural address, the Spanish Civil War, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt's declaration of war, Murrow's broadcasts during the London blitz, Churchill's famous speeches and Roosevelt's fireside chats, VE day, VJ day, and on and on. Some of the greatest moments of the twentieth century passed through the tubes and speakers of these old radios. I wonder at times, as I listen to them now, what wife or father sat up late at night listening to news of the war where their loved one was fighting on the other side of the world.

We, in this country, are far too ready to throw out the old and chase after the new, as though being new makes something better than what we had before. In some cases, it is, but in others, I wonder if the trade-offs were worth it. Surely cars are safer now than they have ever been, and more reliable and more fuel efficient, but nothing - NOTHING - on the road today can match the styling of the 1948 Buick Roadmaster. So we gained safety and reliability at the expense of beauty and style. Goes for the radios too. Now I can store my entire music library on my iPod, but I'm stuck with something that looks like a flattened pack of cigarettes. It's more convenient, to be sure, but it ain't very stylish.