Remember when stereos used to be furniture? I do. My grandmother had one of these in her house. To this day I regret not having a place big enough to store it when she passed. It looked good and had a wonderful rich sound. I really only ever saw her use it during the holidays to play her collection of holiday music while we were all there.
Oddly enough, it was over by the phone just like this image. Back then people had one phone and it was usually in or near the kitchen.
For some reason, even though the stereo was near the kitchen she always used a small transistor radio in the kitchen while she was cooking. A few times when we visited I remember she turned on the stereo to get the weather or something from the local radio station, so I know the radio part worked.
There was something about the massive cabinet which gave both music and voice such a full sound. I imagine hers probably had quite a few tubes which would have been difficult to replace, but it is a memory which sticks with me. It appears the hipster crowd has become enamored with these old stereos as well. Updating them with a few modern components, but, in many cases leaving the tube type amplifiers in place. Someretail sites list these things for thousands of dollars.
Why old analog tech with tubes? Only analog can record and playback the full range of sound. Digital can sound crisp and clean, yes. You can also put a terabyte of music on something you can hold in your hand which makes it convenient, but, sound is a sine wave just like analog. Digital can only approximate it.