Picked up a Zenith 6R886 Radio/Phono Combo today!

[vortalexfan]

Greetings everyone, a good friend of mine picked up at one of the local Goodwill stores a 1948 Zenith 6R886 Radio/Phono Combo unit that is in pretty good shape yet and looks like it might of had an older restoration job done on it because the the power cord was replaced on it at one point in time and the radio has no hum when it plays the only thing that doesn't work right is the record changer, which is a first generation Cobra-Matic 3 speed record changer that uses the "Radionic" needle (the needle that uses the special oscillator circuit in the radio to pickup the audio from the cartridge rather than a dedicated phono-preamp stage.)

I've noticed that however the "Radionic" needles are next to impossible to find and when they do show up (there are currently two listed on feebay) they want $100 for them.


I bought the unit off my friend for $50 (which I thought was more than fair because he has helped me out in the past by taking old radio cabinets off my hand that I was unable to repair the guts in them so with him being a woodworker he was more than happy to take the cabinets off my hand, to reuse in some of his woodworking projects.)

Anyone know anything about this radio/phono combo and how good it is performance wise compared to other comparable units?

Also is there any way to retrofit this unit with a cartridge that uses a regular style needle rather than using the original "Radionic" needle, since the original "Radionic" needles are extremely scarce and expensive?