Quote:
Originally posted by maxm
Yeah, Those Zenith AM/FM radios are some of the best out there in terms of sound and quality, always point to point wiring and a metal chassis. They made the same basic chassis from the early 50s to the end of tubes. With the addition of an AFC for the FM in the mid 50s. I have one of the earlier ones from the 50s, my first old radio, had it for years and it works great, I use it almost every day. I'm still amazed at how good the tuning and sound is on it. I believe many of these sets had two electrostatic tweeters to compliment the huge main speaker.
Enjoy!
|
Max, your set and the K-731 were among Zenith's best AM/FM tube radios in the late '50s-early '60s. My '731, an ebay score last spring, in many ways sounds and works better than my Aiwa bookshelf stereo. The '731 has a 5x7 oval speaker for lows and an electrostatic tweeter, connected directly to the plate of the 35C5 audio output tube (this is the first radio with an electrostatic tweeter I've seen in four decades of electronics experimenting).
I like the hand-wiring and all-metal chassis of Zenith's early (until the '80s) radios and TVs as well. I had a 12-inch Zenith solid-state b&w portable TV in the late '70s (bought new in 1978) that lasted 22 years. It was still working when I got rid of it four years ago (no room for it in the apartment I moved to a year earlier, and it didn't work well on its monopole VHF antenna as I live in a fringe area for Cleveland television). This TV, ironically, had one large circuit board which contained the entire set, including, IIRC, the flyback, but I had absolutely no trouble with it in all the years I had it. The only thing wrong with it when I finally gave it up was the detent on the UHF tuner broke or jammed, locking the tuner on one channel (as bad luck would have it, the thing wound up on a blank channel in our area, but it didn't bother me at the time; the CBS station in Cleveland didn't switch to a UHF channel until years later, I wasn't watching PBS much in those days, and the one [at that time] independent UHF station in Cleveland didn't have much to watch back then either [years before there were any such networks as UPN, The WB, etc.]).
I saw a 1982-vintage Zenith hi-fi radio on ebay last night, solid state, wood cabinet, tuning meter, the whole nine yards. The seller described this one as one of the last radios Zenith ever had manufactured to its own specifications, although the radio had been built offshore (their radio/audio division was already based in Korea by the '80s; I once owned a Zenith integrated stereo system of late '70s-early '80s vintage which had been made there). By this time Zenith had stopped using its famous lightning-bolt Z and the crest emblem on its TVs and audio gear, but the lightning bolt resurfaced for a short time on GoldStar-built Zenith-branded television sets (though I understand it was dropped again not long ago, this time probably, even likely, for good).