WEGA (Wuerttembergische Radio-Gesellschaft mbh) was a prestigious German company founded in 1923 that was acquired by SONY Corporation in 1975. It was in these early years that Sony had plans on launching unique "WEGA styled" hifi systems based on Sony electronics. The WEGA Concept 51K seen here was one of their more ambitious projects of this kind. Responsible for the unique design of this music centre was long time WEGA designer Hartmut Esslinger. Early designs created by Esslinger Design (later frog Design inc.) in 1976 show a prototype named "Skywalker" that featured needle type VU meters and slider controls that later developed into the final product known as the Concept 51K.
While earlier WEGA music centers featured DUAL turntable this time it was used a SONY turntable with BSL Direct-Drive motor and S-shaped tonearm fitted with a Sony XL-15 cartridge. To the right of the fully covered turntable (featuring only an arch shaped window) we can find distinct "vertical segments" for the cassette recorder, digital tuner and amplifier. The cassette recorder section features Ferrite&Ferrite heads, normal, Fe-Cr and Chrome tape compatibility, Dolby noise reduction and LED VU meters. The tuner section is an analog tuner with digital grafic display, FM, AM and LW wavelength and 7 FM presets. On the amplifier section we will find the usual controls such as: input selector, two pairs of loudspeakers, bass, mid and treble control, low and high filter and loudness control. The power rating is 50 W/ch sinus DIN 4 ohm. There was a dedicated stand designed for this system (incorporating loudspeakers), as well as visually matching loudspeakers, the WEGA Direct model range. The system was available in black and white (in German this was called light grey). Size: 845xx133x401 mm | Original sale price: 2198 DM (Germany)
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| Skywalker sketch 1976 |
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| Skywalker Design Study 1976 |
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| Final Design (Hartmut Esslinger, Andreas Haug, Georg Spreng) |
