Ancient valve radio
It's an old bakelite Philips valve radio (LW & MW only) which I picked up at a car boot sale 17 years ago for a fiver. It takes a good ten minutes to warm up, gradually changing in tone from very thin and quiet to louder, bassier and richer in harmonics.

It has RCA plugs on the back for amplifying external sound sources, so I used it as a guitar amp for a while with a hacked lead and an effects box. Wasn't powerful enough to make decent feedback but the clean sounds were really nice, with just a hint of lovely warm overdrive if you pushed it enough.

I've even listened to the actual radio on it - during the Euro 2004 our Sky conked out during France v England. My huge fancy FM tuner wasn't wired up to the building aerial as we'd just moved in, so out came the Philips and Five Live. Tuning drifted around badly but got to hear the game.

In that time not a single valve has burned out and it still works despite crossing the Atlantic twice in a ship. I have since taken it apart to clean it, which was when I looked at the wiring properly for the first time. Safety standards were different back then, because there's no earthing at all and the metal parts of the case are live *all the time*. I put a multimeter on it to check, and sure enough the chassis is at a nice 240VAC. I try not to think about the hours I spent with my guitar plugged into it.

I still stupidly do listen to in occasionally, but as soon as we have kids I will disable it. I like to think of it as like a family Rottweiler: loyal and docile and friendly, but poke a finger in the wrong hole and it's game over.
( Scrumper, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 18:22, 2 replies)

Rotty Reference gets you a click
Isolation transformer will get you safety
(Sir Tainley Barking Ezekiel 23:20, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 18:50, closed)

If I owned this
I'd make a little radio transmitter so I could still use it when everything goes 0101010001010
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Thu 4 Nov 2010, 20:03, closed)