The look and sound of eras past

My wife Cathy brought a sizable collection of vinyl to our marriage and added to it from time to time, even though we didn't have a record player. When she saw one of these in a store, she knew what she wanted for her birthday.

Happy Birthday, Darling.

Glanced at from across the room, the Crosley Conductor could be mistaken for an original. One might not even notice that the "tuning eye" on the illuminated radio dial is really a 2-digit LED display for the CD player, which is also disguised behind a faux metal finish. Come closer, and the truth is revealed. A miniature stereo headphone jack tries to go unnoticed below the tuning knob. The Compact DISC Digital Audio logo becomes apparent and one notices that the radio is strictly AM and FM. What were once band selector buttons on the AM/FM/Shortwave original are now the controls for the CD player and radio. Raise the lid and there's the 3-speed turntable with its much too modern tubular tonearm.

The AM radio sound is a close match for a meticulously restored tabletop tube radio. The speakers are more than adequate for AM radio and satisfactory for FM stereo, falling about midway between a low-end boombox and a Bose Wave Radio. Just don't expect them to reproduce the dynamic range of your most challenging CDs.

The operation of the record player takes a little getting used to. When you set the function switch to PHONO, the turntable just sits there. You must raise the tonearm from its rest and swing it slightly to the right. Once the turntable is in motion, you set the needle in the groove and at the end of the record, the turntable will stop by itself but doesn't return the tonearm to the rest. I don't have any way to measure the tracking force but it appears to be much lighter than a typical 1960s ceramic cartridge turntable.

Outputs on the back allow you to hook the Crosley to an external amp. There's also a set of hookups for speakers but you can only play through one pair at a time. I haven't sampled the sound through bigger speakers but its output of 5 watts per channel should provide decent fidelity through, say, a pair of lower-cost Bose or Boston Acoustic speakers.

As an occasional vinyl-spinner and everyday CD player and radio for a medium size room, the Crosley Conductor does the job with a pleasing retro appeal.