[Arran]

Peter;
Hallicrafters radios had an excellent reputation during the war years, and up until the mid 1950s on their communications sets, but they too fell into the same trap as the rest trying to appeal, and price products for the mass market. One cost cutting measure was using IF transformers sourced from outside the company, they used to make their own, as did the National Company, and indeed Hammarlund. To be fair I think those small IF transformers were perfectly fine during the 20 or even 30 years, and some still are, but I think climate, and use are factors in whether they develop problems or not.
Regards
Arran