Nifty old Zenith Chain Drive

[jaymanaa]

Hello All, I saw the strangest old Zenith yesterday while making my junk shop rounds. I got caught without my readers but it looked like the tube layout included 2) 6SL7's. It was a combo auto-matic record player/radio. The thing that really seemed odd was the chain drive on the turn-table. The needle in the really cool (Zenith labeled) tone arm looked more like a spike than a phono stylus. I'm assuming this plays those really old heavy records. I have a couple old Zenith pieces which I like quite well, and was thinking of adding this. The fellow at the store said the radio played at low volume but the table did not spin. I was wandering if anyone here had any experience with these and what I could expect beyond normal recapping and tube freshening. The wood was good with no de-laminating and just a few scratches. Cosmetically maybe a 7 or 8. Price was 50 bux. Thanks for sharing any thoughts, Jay

[jstout66]

Sounds like you ran across a Zenith with a Cobramatic turntable. I think I have a Zenith repair book on Cobramatics. If it's the combo I'm thinking of (is it in a cabinet and has 2 pull out drawers in the front? On the left would be the turntable and the right the radio?) If it's that one they usually are a good performer.

[Sandy G]

My granmother had a Bakelite Cobramatic phono/radio unit that kinda looked like the hood offa '48 Buick. It quit working when I was 10, 11 maybe-and got put at the end of the driveway for the trash. Think it might have had FM on it-but I really can't say for sure. Seems like it weighed about 2 tons, the Bakelite was 1/4" thick on it. Zenith's stuff was always built "substantial"...<grin> Sure do wish I had it now...

[Randy Bassham]

I've got a Zenith 12H090 with the Cobra Matic changer, plays only 78's. They used what they called a Radionic Pickup that's basically just a coil of wire with a small disk that is part of the needle shaft in front of the coil. The coil is part of an oscillator circuit and the disk changes the "Q" of the coil varying the output voltage of the oscillator. When it comes out the varying voltage is detected and fed into the amplifer. I hope I've got that right. I will say that it sounds better than most of the pick ups that were used at the time. A lot of these pickups were used IIRC in Wurlitzer jukeboxes. My changer has the chain drive and it works quite well except it's pretty hard on records when it drops them. The Radio is AM and Both 42-50 and 88-108 FM. These are great sets and they can usually be bought cheap.