[Jeffhs]

Interesting. I never saw a Zenith radio like that one before now, although I have seen the smaller 2-transistor sets with the owl design on the front; the latter show up on eBay every once in a while. The Zenith Royal 500 series radios are also sometimes referred to as "owl eyes" sets, because of the large knobs and the half-moon dial scales on the front panel.

I don't blame your wife for not letting you sell your Zenith "owl" radio. It seems to be one of a kind, so I'd hold on to it. Being a Zenith from the early 1970s, this set should work well for you; good sensitivity and selectivity, and excellent sound as well. Zenith radios, until the so-called "bitter end" when the company ended radio production forever in 1982, were known for their very good sound fidelity; the better tube sets had volume and tone compensation, plus a true tone control that varied the entire response curve of the audio stages rather than just cutting down the high frequencies, as do most modern tone control circuits).

BTW: I don't know how good or bad the sound was from Zenith's last table radio, the G430W from 1982. This radio had a tuning meter, slide controls for bass, treble and volume, and a device on the back cover they referred to as a "bass booster", although I have a sneaking suspicion it was simply an air chamber leading from the speaker to the back of the radio; it may or may not have contributed anything to the sound fidelity. However, never having owned a G430W radio (I've only seen pictures of it on eBay and elsewhere), I am taking a wild guess at best as to how the bass booster actually worked or if it really improved the audio quality.