I came across a monster SABA console yesterday but can't find any info on it, so not ready to make the move to buy it.
It's a beast that has sliding doors on the front and a lid on the left side of the cabinet. Behind the sliding door on the left is the classic German AM/FM/SW radio (mono I believe). Under the lid on top is a record changer and a reel to reel tape recorder, and behind the sliding door on the right is a television! The tuning knob for channel selection sticks out the right side of the cabinet.
What a combination! I can't imagine what this must have cost back in the day! Cabinet finish is in very nice shape. No cracks in the clear. I'm sure all electronics need to be restored, but doesn't smell like it's been in a basement or have any mouse nests inside of it. It must have come from a fairly well-to-do home. TV tuner has channel 1 if that helps to identify. Quite the showpiece if I can get it cheaply enough and the wife doesn't freak out at how big it is.

I think SABA was a German make, not often imported to the US, especially televisions. Pretty classy-looking cabinetry. It's possible the "channel 1" indicates it's a European-market set, since US channel 1 was deleted in early 1948, and most of the SABA products I've seen have been from the 1950s or early '60s. But they're not my area of expertise.

I would look carefully at the console to determine whether it is a non-export German set that uses European standards, rather than a made-for-export set designed to work in the USA.

<other misinformed babble deleted by the author>

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

If the set was made for the German market you should still get the TV to work. I have both Western and Eastern German televisions and they will work on our standards without a converter for the video. The audio is a something like 5 mc. and would have to be retuned at the audio takeoff. Many of the German sets would operate at 120 volts as well. There were a variety of voltages used in Europe back then and some areas worked at 120. The biggest issue would be the phonograph. They did use 50 hertz so the motors will run at the wrong speed on our 60 hertz supply.

Multi-standard VCRs can work as signal sources for foreign sets... I own one and while I don't have a PAL or SECAM TV for it to supply signals to; it was interesting feeding those signals to an late 70's knob tuned NTSC TV and watching it try to sync and try to decode the color.

For monochrome European TVs of that vintage, viewing US video should be easy. Our scan standard is 525 lines, 60 fields/sec and most of Europe is 625 lines, 50 fields/sec, easily within range of most analog tube TVs.
Tuning it is a little trickier, since RF channel assignments are mostly different than North American broadcasting. Also, as noted, sound subcarrier is 5Mhz versus our 4.5.
Technically, PAL is the European TV color system, which doesn't apply to this mono set.

Please add a picture, I have for "younger" consoles hints in english to do
the US-conversion!

Regards,
SIXMILLION DOLLARMAN

I have a SABA export chassis from 1956 on the bench right now and working well.

It's CCIR standard, which is 5.5MHz sound, not 5MHz. Not hard to modify for EIA if you need to do it.

SABA used to export TV chassis less CRTs and cabinets for integration into high-end products in various countries. My guess is yours might be one of these.

A collegue picks up a 21" combo unit this week. I've already looked at the circuit for him. It's very advanced for a 90 degree chassis, stabilised scan, 4 stages of VIF etc.

I have circuits of the models that were sold in Australia. Yours might be similar so I might be able to help. Put up some good pics of the internals.

I know, I have one of these early 1956 SABA-Elecrosound/Sidney consoles with the ´55 chassis.
Because of austrailan laws a power transformer is added.
The rest is CCIR constructed.

Sets for the US asking other alignments and frequencies for tape recorder, record player,
radio (motorized) and the TV set.
For these sets a special manual is available.

Regards,
SIXMILLION DOLLARMAN



But there is no other

I have a Saba Electrosound sitting in the garage in sydney
Its a massive unit , 3 in 1 tv stereo and record player.
It really is a huge unit and its finished was rosewood in color.

Pete