Quote:
Originally Posted by jr_tech
IMHO, "halfway decent" was about as good as the early tubed table models* got. Sets using field effect RF transistors in the late 60s, or so, started the path toward decent performance.
jr
*however, some tubed component tuners such as the Marantz 10B were quite good performers.
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As was noted, the eight-tube Zenith radios were good sets in their day, and still are today. My C-845 (the set in my avatar), an eight-tube set with a 6BJ6 RF amp for both AM and FM and two IF stages, consistently receives FM from 60+ miles distant just using the built-in line-cord antenna (given good propagation conditions in spring, summer and early fall). I live within one mile of Lake Erie and often hear stations from southwestern Ontario, Canada as well as Detroit, Michigan and Toledo, Ohio, as well as every major FM station in Cleveland. I also have a K731 Zenith atop my refrigerator that works just as well, with what amounts to three IFs on FM (the limiter stage is set up to act as a third IF stage on that band). Even my Zenith R-70 AM/FM nine-transistor portable has four IFs on FM (
very unusual for a transistor portable), and can pull in stations from great distances with just its built-in FM whip antenna.
They don't make them like that anymore. Too bad, because these radios represent, IMO, darn near the top of the line in Zenith's product line from the 1960s through the early '80s (the R-70, so I have been told, was the last "good" transistor portable Zenith ever made before the company went out of the radio business for good later in the decade). I also had a 4-mode Zenith integrated stereo system in the early '80s that had an excellent FM tuner, but the AM tuner was not much better than a crystal set and received short wave in the middle of the AM broadcast band (no foolin') at night. I never did figure out why, unless the AM front end was so poorly designed it wasn't funny.