Remember record player credenzas" In today?s wireless age, most want their sound system to be out of sight and out of mind. ?If interior designers had their way,? says Scott Orth, director of electroacoustics at Sound United, owner of the Polk Audio and Definitive Technology speaker brands ?there would be no speakers at all.? Orth adds that ?the trend amongst average consumers has been go smaller for the last thirty years.?
But there was a time when speakers were as essential a piece of furniture as the sofa: The peak of home hi-fi offered handcrafted teak consoles and towering pairs of floor speakers. Today, small, easily hidden speaker systems are the mainstays of home listening. But how did we get from full cabinetry to speakers not much bigger than a tin can" The birth of hi-fi and the all-in-one console
Hi-fi, or hi-fidelity?audio jargon for recordings and sound reproduction equipment capable of reproducing stereo or full-frequency recordings?began around 1948, when a slew of new technologies came on the market: reel-to-reel tape recording, the 33 ? RPM long play (LP) record, and FM radio (a huge improvement on existing AM standards).

Via Vintage Ad Browser
An ad for a Westinghouse hi-fi console from 1948 highlights the set?s ?honest engineering, the highest quality performance, and finest cabinetry.?

Consumer electronics technology had to evolve to keep up with the times, so manufacturers began designing cleaner-sounding am...