Retro Sound Question
 

Having heard some good reviews on the Retro Sound radio for my 66 LeMans I'm getting ready to pull the trigger. My question is to get the metal or plastic knobs and if I should I get an overlay for the faceplate.

I got the metal knobs for mine the are very nice i ordered the face overlay but they did not send it to me which after seeing the display i am glad they did not it seems like it would be harder to read with the overlay

When I buy them I just get what ever looks OEM for the particular car I'm buying for.

So when choosing an overlay, it would either say Pontiac or Chevrolet or??? I generally don't pick the custom overlays that say something other than what OEM would.

It's all personal preference, but the biggest reason I do these radios is OEM fitment and appearance. Otherwise I'd shop at Best Buy or Radio Shack.

Do what you like, You'll enjoy it. :beerchug:

Thanks, I was wondering about that overlay.

I ordered one for my Cutlass and generally like it, but there is room for improvement. Start up takes long enough to be noticeable, and switching from band to band (FM1 to FM2 to FM3 to AM1 to AM2) takes a couple seconds each time. I'd like the option to program out the bands I don't want to use (FM3 and AM 1 and 2). The knobs are a decent match for the wiper and other knobs in the Olds dash, and the overlay that says Oldsmobile with the AM numbers on it looks decent when the radio is off. It can make the LCD hard to read in the daytime with the radio on, but not so bad at night.

I took these pics tonight in a dark garage, so they're a little grainy. If you look closely, you'll see I had to make a filler plate around the radio face because the factory dash opening is a little bigger than the radio face.

The knobs are not intuitive; if I don't drive the car for awhile, I have to look up which one switches inputs, or how to adjust balance or bass and treble.

It sounds great, has decent power, and the bluetooth connects reliably. I was considering a second one for my Trans Am, but I sold it first. :)

One thing I do, and I'm not sure your Oldsmobile would have had it or not, but I paint the center of those knobs black when the application warrants it, just to give it a little more of the factory look.

On our 69 camaro for example, the center smooth portion of those knobs are supposed to be black, but they don't come that way. A little time masking and a couple shots of paint fixed that and it only takes a few minutes.

Can the knobs from the original AM radio be reused on the Retrosound?

Good question. I hope that someone comes up with an answer.

"Pull the trigger"
The times I see on these are 6 months plus out...
I have been finding out that pulling the trigger doesn't move the 500 cargo ships into South East Asia, nor the cargo containers already here.
Have patience..

Whenever you see 6 months lead time, look at ebay vendors. A lot have this stuff in stock and havent moved it yet because people only look for old stuff. When AMES told me 9 months lead time for my interior I got on Ebay and bought EVERY piece. Sure it probably wasnt as cheap but I have interior pieces to go in while people are still waiting. If you can find someone to put modern guts in your radio thats the best thing. I went with Turnswitch.com to convert my factory radio to bluetooth. It is a totally modern radio except its factory to the car not some generic piece. Turnswitch doesnt operate anymore because the old man that did it died but if you call them its my understanding they are referring people to others that do.

I had the AM radio in my 63 modified by garytayman.com to Am/FM with Bluetooth and amp pre-outs. Turn around was about a week and a half, came back polished up and looking great and sounds even better than I expected.

That's sad news. I included his obituary below. I have a spare radio for my car and always intended on having him do the conversion on it, guess I waited too long.

Thompson, Gregory

Age 71 of White Bear Lake

Died suddenly surrounded by his wife and children on October 23, 2021.

Greg is preceded in death by his father, Thomas A. Thompson; mother, Jean LaVonne Thompson; mother-in-law (Doris), and father-in-law (Orville).

He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Becky Thompson; children; Tom (Tiffany), Ted (Janice), Theresa (Brian); and 9 grandchildren, Maren, Gaven, Caden, Allyson, Brayden, Brianna, Emmett, Norah, and Lucas.

Greg was born and raised in Minneapolis and graduated from Brown Institute. He started his career at Shaak Electronics then moved onto Dayton Hudson Corp and Target for 20+ years. Then he purchased S&M Electro-Tech where he enjoyed talking about radios, vintage cars, and speakers with all of his customers. Outside the working world, Greg was an active volunteer in Boy Scouts and church committees. He enjoyed spending time at the cabin, fishing, hunting and woodworking. He also enjoyed spending time with his grandchildren doing these activities. Greg had a love of old music, antique cars, food, and activities with family and friends.

A visitation will be held Monday, November 1st from 5pm – 8pm at Bradshaw Funeral Home (4600 Greenhaven Drive, White Bear Lake, MN 55127). A service will be held on Tuesday, Nov 2nd at Christ the King Lutheran Church (1660 Birch Lake Avenue, White Bear Lake) at 2pm with a visitation one hour prior to the service. In lieu of flowers, memorials can be sent to either: Christ the King Lutheran Church in WBL (address above) or Antique Auto Club of America, 112 NE 5th St., Melrose, MN 56352.

I looked into this and it seems possible for the one I have but you will need 2 of the tone control inner knobs as the inner knob on the tuning side won't work.

A bunch of off topic, argumentative and political posts have been removed. You guys know that stuff belongs in the Clubhouse.

Wow, that Greg Thompson sounded like a very nice fella. He pursued some things i shoulda but didn't.

Thank You Stuart.

Looking to install a more modern radio at some point.

Tom V.

Update on Turnswitch. I had my 72 radio in queue do be converted by Greg when I got the call from his relatives that he had passed. Instead of sending the radio back to me, they asked if it'd be okay if they sent the radio down the road from them to Muscle Car Radio who had agreed to take over the conversions that Greg still had waiting. I said sure and the correspondence with Muscle Car Radio was awesome and I got my radio a few weeks later. They use the same Aurora conversion kit that Greg did. A bonus was that Muscle Car Radio was about $50 cheaper. Got it installed and I'm very happy. I can play Pandora through my phone via bluetooth on my stock appearing radio. Here's their website https://www.mcrconversions.com/

Turnswitch (now run by Gregs son and son-in-law) is still selling the speakers that Greg also did. I bought one of their 4x10 special rectangular dual HP speakers for the factory front speaker location.

That was nice of his family to take care of your radio like that. I did a little looking and it there are several companies doing the conversion, but knowing you had a positive experience with Muscle Car Radio is a good sign.

And they are in Minnesota too! Just out of Minneapolis if I recall