Need advice on vintage tabletop AM/FM radio

[anden]

I'm on board with the opinions offered on the Zeniths of the 50's - early 60's.
Quality constuction, materials, styling and performance nearly in a league all it's own when compared with other AM/FM radios...the RCA 6-RF-9 from 1956is very close being a fully transformered set, not AC/DC, plus it had a strong
6V6GT output tube. It also had an 8 inch speaker, but no high frequency speakers like the Zenith.

The only table set that had better sound would be the FM only KLH Model 8 with it's 3 IF stages and push-pull audio output. They're really in their own league having a seperate acoustic suspension loudspeaker - furniture grade solid walnut cabnets. Basically the first mini hifi.

KLH's syling is stark, but performance is remarkable.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by Tom Bavis

I used a CD player on the phono inputs on my MJ-1035 , but then I discovered that it's NON-ISOLATED from the power line. There is a 40+ year-old capacitor between me and 120VAC... and I don't feel THAT lucky...

I would replace that isolation capacitor ASAP, before using the phonograph inputs again. The MJ1035 was first introduced by Zenith in 1961 and remained in their product line until 1965, so depending on which model you have (MJ1035, MJ1035-1, MJ1035-W1) that capacitor is anywhere from 43 to 47 years old. I wouldn't trust it, as by now it is almost certainly defective.

What happened to your CD player when you hooked it up to your MJ1035? I would think it would work, albeit with a lot of hum, as the phono inputs may not have been isolated that well from the AC line when the radio was new (there is probably next to no isolation today if the original cap is still in the circuit). The designers of the MJ1035 probably did not even consider that 40-some years after this set was made, people might want to try to connect anything other than a phono turntable to those inputs, so the isolation capacitor was probably just enough to meet safety standards in effect at the time.