[Jeffhs]

You can't go wrong with any Zenith radio from the 1940s through the sixties; they were built for great sound and excellent RF sensitivity as well. I have a Zenith C845 that sounds great and pulls in stations like a magnet, just with its built-in antennas. I also own a Zenith K731 which does not have an AM RF stage, but does have two IFs and a limiter stage which amounts to three IF amps....it works very well and sounds great, with a 6x9 oval speaker and a 3" electrostatic tweeter.

It was a darn shame that Zenith went out of the radio business in 1982; their last radio was model J430W, AM/FM, with slide controls for volume, bass and treble and a tuning meter. It was housed in a particle-board cabinet with, IIRC, a faux wood veneer, not unlike Contact paper, over it. The radio also had on the back what Zenith referred to as a "bass booster"; however, I don't think this was much more than an air chamber that may not have had much (if any) effect on the sound from the radio's single speaker. The only clue that this was a Zenith radio was a stamped plastic nameplate on the front panel, at the lower left corner of the speaker grille, unless there was also the word "Zenith", with the company's famous lightning bolt logo used as the Z, stamped into the back cover. The radio itself was probably made by a subsidiary of Zenith in Taiwan or Korea; my best guess is the former, as many if not most Zenith radios from 1980 until the end of the company's radio production era were probably (even likely) built in Taiwan.

BTW, I wonder what ever happened to the Z lightning-bolt logo. Is Zenith still using it on its LG-built televisions? If not.....I hate to think they just abandoned the symbol (or it quietly went into the public domain[!]) a year or so after the LG takeover, as this was a symbol for quality known literally the world over (Zenith radios were in use in many European countries prior to and after WWII, as evidenced by the company's export models of certain of their more popular receivers of the late forties if not earlier). Now that it's gone (if in fact it is gone for good)....again, I hate to think of it. I always thought Zenith would not give up that logo without a fight, as well-known as it was, regardless who would own the company years or decades into the future. There is always the possibility that LG does not know or care beans about Zenith's history, being concerned only with its (LG's) bottom line; if this is the case, it is just too bad.