04-22-2015, 10:02 PM
What all the fuss is about.
Visited a mentor and friend's curated collection recently and heard what I had heard are two of the best radio's of the entire era. The statement true. They are the 2nd version of the Philco 16B and the 37-690.
The 16B. My goodness what a rich powerful sound. It is just about everything in a table radio. The output power and sound quality puts others to shame and more importantly, the speaker, almost too big for the cabinet, practically blew me out of the front due to it's output capability. The fit, finish and chassis engineering never ceases to impress. It is also one of the most beautiful that I have studied. That radio is very elusive. And when they do surface on ebay, they are either overpriced, refinished wrong and questionable in terms of technical maintenance.
The 37-690 is a masterwork. I have operated and worked with audio and radio gear for the 25+ years of my career and I was not prepared to hear one of the best AM receivers of any time. Frequency response and bandwidth spread as good or better than any pro monitor made today for AM. The output power is so strong that you can put the thing in a club, play songs with your transmitter and be none worse the wear. They thought of everything with the tweeters and acoustic clarifiers and the chassis is fascinating. As I sat in front of it listening to Dawn Upshaw and big bands I turned to my friend and said that this radio moves out of the realm of the consumer and into the professional. His response was that this product almost killed the company. The consoles that came later, although sounding excellent in a different frequency balance, doesn't approach the bandwidth of this at least from my exposure thus far. Owning both is a microcosm of the era. My search for both continues.
Ian M. Gordon
NEARC
HARPS
Visited a mentor and friend's curated collection recently and heard what I had heard are two of the best radio's of the entire era. The statement true. They are the 2nd version of the Philco 16B and the 37-690.
The 16B. My goodness what a rich powerful sound. It is just about everything in a table radio. The output power and sound quality puts others to shame and more importantly, the speaker, almost too big for the cabinet, practically blew me out of the front due to it's output capability. The fit, finish and chassis engineering never ceases to impress. It is also one of the most beautiful that I have studied. That radio is very elusive. And when they do surface on ebay, they are either overpriced, refinished wrong and questionable in terms of technical maintenance.
The 37-690 is a masterwork. I have operated and worked with audio and radio gear for the 25+ years of my career and I was not prepared to hear one of the best AM receivers of any time. Frequency response and bandwidth spread as good or better than any pro monitor made today for AM. The output power is so strong that you can put the thing in a club, play songs with your transmitter and be none worse the wear. They thought of everything with the tweeters and acoustic clarifiers and the chassis is fascinating. As I sat in front of it listening to Dawn Upshaw and big bands I turned to my friend and said that this radio moves out of the realm of the consumer and into the professional. His response was that this product almost killed the company. The consoles that came later, although sounding excellent in a different frequency balance, doesn't approach the bandwidth of this at least from my exposure thus far. Owning both is a microcosm of the era. My search for both continues.
Ian M. Gordon
NEARC
HARPS
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