Premiere Design

Wrensilva Loft Record Console

Bob Ankosko  |  Jun 30, 2017

Stereo consoles were all the rage in the ’60s. Every major TV company sold them—some with an integrated 25-inch screen, some without. Many were imposing pieces of furniture placed front and center in living rooms across America. I have vivid memories of paying $3 or $4 for my first album at the long-gone Jersey-based chain store Two Guys and promptly replacing the Engelbert Humperdinck LP on the platter of our Zenith console with Abbey Road. I spent countless hours lying in front of the stereo obsessing over the lyrics, McCartney’s sumptuous bass line, Ringo’s precise drumming, and Harrison’s awesome guitar sounds on “Come Together.” I imagined being in the studio with my heroes. The bass was palpable, and John Lennon was in my living room.

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I don’t know what sort of encounters husband-and-wife team Scott and Debra Salyer have had with vintage audio, but they’ve come up with their own magnificent interpretations of the classic all-in-one stereo, the latest of which is the Wrensilva Loft—a compact record console offering “all the power and connectivity of our classic full-size consoles.”

Nestled in a Scandinavian-influenced cabinet handcrafted from solid walnut with white acrylic highlights is a “fully decoupled” belt-driven turntable fitted with an Orbit Arm 2 (OA2) gimbal-based tonearm and Ortofon 2M Red moving-magnet cartridge, a Sonos-compatible solid-state preamp featuring RCA and minijack analog inputs and solid-aluminum control knobs, and a 300-watt IcePower Class D amplifier. The 28 x 33 x 18-inch cabinet rests on a steel stand that has a shelf with removable dividers for up to 120 records.

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Built to order with an eight- to ten-week lead time, the Loft is available with ($4,498) or without ($2,999) a pair of two-way speakers, each housing a 6.5-inch Nomex cone woofer and 1-inch textile-dome tweeter in a bass-reflex enclosure. The speakers are available in walnut with a white or black baffle and include welded-steel stands.

Be sure to visit the Wrensilva website. You may find the M1 or Standard One more to your liking. I’m partial to the latter. It’s practically a dead ringer for Dad’s beloved Zenith.

COMMENTS
John_Werner's picture
Submitted by John_Werner on July 2, 2017 - 9:03pm

Hey Ken, right on bro. I remember console stereos. My dad was too conservative to spring for the whole enchilada with 25" color TV so I continued to believe the world inside our house, at least through the airwaves, was meant to bel black and white as seen on a Motorola 25" set. Getting back to that console though. I was about in the sixth grade and magically a console stereo by the almighty Penncrest (J.C. Penny) company appeared. It was beautiful and somehow it sounded just as sumptuous with strong bass that to a kid meant everything. It even had a reel to reel tape deck as that was my dad's deFacto medium outside of vinyl. My dad was almost 46 when I was born in '59 and he was an acolyte of The Big Band Era. He had reams of big band tapes and LPs He loved to play them on his "statement" Penncrest rig. It really doesn't matter that the electronics in this setup were pretty pedestrian even as the cabinet work was impressive. It was what the end user got out of the experience. My dad loved listing to Jan Garber and Louis Armstrong on his system. I loved listening to The Beatles, The Stones, The Temptations, The Supremes, and endless 45's on this system. It's why I love music today (actually the music itself is, but you have to have a carrier). I think about console stereos not with a nudge and a wink, but with great love and respect.

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