Philco solid state receiver?

Does anyone know anything about Philco solid state receivers? I came across a Philco Q 7 wa t receiver which has a back of vented particel board, a nice wood case and round metal controls with the volume labeled "Loudness". It has all RCA jacks in back for inputs, including speakers and may be 30 watts per channel. I could get no lights to light so didn't test it with speakers. While it is a small receiver picking it up there is the weight of a pretty hefty transformer. Can't find anything online other than one listed for $150.00 on the bay which curiously didn't sell:scratch2:

RCA jacks for speakers are a dead giveaway, indicating a cheap system, along with the particle board back. Likely not 30 watts RMS. Look near the ac cord and look for the wattage, divided by four, that is the max per channel you'll get, probably 5 watts less than the resulting figure. $150, lol a dreamer, unit is a $5 dollar novelty at best IMO.

Totally agree. By this time Philco was pretty low budget. Philco's last really nice audio piece was made in 1948.

ggregg said:

Totally agree. By this time Philco was pretty low budget. Philco's last really nice audio piece was made in 1948.

Click to expand...

I think you maybe mean 1968? :scratch2:

Philco was still making good tube and solid state stuff into the 1960s, it wasn't until the 1970s just like all of the other American companies that things started going down hill. :yes: :nono:
Which is why now we can't even keep any manufacturing jobs here in America anymore because that was when Nixon screwed things up and passed those bills concerning us having to ship our jobs overseas to open our markets up more to the world supposedly... what good that did us. :nono:

No, Philco made decent consoles, I've worked on a few of them, but I don't consider any console that doesn't say Fisher, Scott, Stromberg Carlson, or Pilot on it to be high end, not including Barzilays with McIntosh stuff in them or something like that. And, there was some models of the brands listed above that weren't all that special either. Just my opinion.

Philco made some very good consoles, just as RCA, Zenith, Capehart, Magnavox, Admiral, Curtis Mathes, etc. did but other than the brands listed above (and I may have missed one or two), they were not high end. Philco made their last truly high end (for the time) set in 1948. Magnavox made a few of models that qualify, in the late fifties and early sixties, like the Concert Grand, but once they totally converted to solid state (Astro-sonic), they were pretty much like everything else, although they usually had bigger speakers.

Yes, it's quite sad what has happened to Philco and the American audio industry. Recently we visited the SPARKS museum in Bellingham, WA, a must see. It has a magnificent collection of very early electric test equipment, think Benjamin Franklin era, and a vast collection of early radios. They even set up an exact reproduction with the identical American Marconi radios of the Titanic radio room, sort of eerie and sad. But getting back to the Philco receiver they had among others this wonderful Philco console radio which used a radio remote control in 1939! How sad that we have lost such innovation and products.

Here is the Philco radio, beautiful wood, inlay, quality and craftsmanship, all the things that we enjoy in vintage gear.

That's a 39-116. I have a 38-116, totally different kettle of fish, but a nice radio nonetheless.

Ford bought Philco, around 1961, for their appliance division and some other parts related to communication, the TV's and radios just came along for the ride. Philco kind of went for broke in the late 1950's coming out with the Safari, the first fully (except for CRT) transistorized television and the Predicta. A funky space age set which was really too far out to sell very well, looking like something that the Jetson's would own. That makes them very desirable today though. Although they had to fire sale them then to motel chains like Howard Johnson's, to get rid of them when they were new. They are also not the easiest sets to work on, many techs refusing to, at the time. This nearly broke the company which led up to the sale to Ford.

Ford kept Philco pretty much up with the competition but they were not the innovators that they were previously. But remember, at this time, all the development was either in hi-fi or mostly color television. Philco's color TV's were mostly modified RCA clones, which wasn't a bad thing, but shows lack of innovation on their part. Ford sold them in the seventies and the name bounced around awhile from North American Phillips to however owns them now.

ggregg, thanks for the background about this radio. There is always so much more to learn.

The 39-116 was the highlight at Philco's New York World's Fair exhibit. The wireless remote was extremely unique at the time.