Wednesday, February 19, 2020
Bespoke radios
American Radio Library has added a few issues of a newsletter from McMurdo Silver, one of the most expensive radios of the '30s. I've never seen one. They were rare for a good reason.
You can see that they're all the same chassis, clumsily inserted in different cabinets. The cabinets are also clumsy and ill-proportioned.
A closeup shows an even worse problem:
The dial bezel is stylish but the knobs are generic and cheap. Ham operators and experimenters bought these knobs. No professional manufacturer used them. Better knobs were available from regular suppliers, and the professional radiomakers commissioned or made their own knobs to match their elegant cabinets. Even GenRad, which sold only to industrial customers, had its own style in dials and knobs.
Why would you pay bespoke prices for a clumsy standardized radio that looked like something a ham cobbled together from junkbox parts?
Later: Here's an exception to the rule. A ham station with high-quality knobs.
¶ 1:12 AM 
In no sense of the word is the MASTERPIECE V standardized. Each one is different, each one custom built to the exact specifications and needs of its particular owner. Basically, the MASTERPIECE V which we offer you is an extraordinarily flexible basic design having certain fundamental characteristics. Upon this flexibility is erected the structure of your own particular receiver. With your order you give us information about your antenna location, your home, your reception conditions and your own particular desires and specifications of what you want. With this data at hand, McMurdo Silver personally plans and lays out your own radio and supervises its building to these exact specifications. Through building and preliminary test and adjustment, this is your radio, not a standardized averaged radio, but your own special set.Despite the 'bespoke' verbiage, all McMurdo radios looked the same.
You can see that they're all the same chassis, clumsily inserted in different cabinets. The cabinets are also clumsy and ill-proportioned.
A closeup shows an even worse problem:
The dial bezel is stylish but the knobs are generic and cheap. Ham operators and experimenters bought these knobs. No professional manufacturer used them. Better knobs were available from regular suppliers, and the professional radiomakers commissioned or made their own knobs to match their elegant cabinets. Even GenRad, which sold only to industrial customers, had its own style in dials and knobs.
Why would you pay bespoke prices for a clumsy standardized radio that looked like something a ham cobbled together from junkbox parts?
Later: Here's an exception to the rule. A ham station with high-quality knobs.
¶ 1:12 AM
