I'm sure this has been asked before-advice

[RitchieMars]

I don't know much about the Sylvania sets, but I do have a Zenith K731 that I really like. They have a good-sounding oval-shaped speaker that puts out plenty of bass along with an electrostatic tweeter for treble that usually fails with age. The tweeter in mine doesn't work but it still sounds great without it. They have a typical compliment of electrolytic, ceramic, and ceramic-cased wax capacitors. Mine has always worked fine, and I've never serviced it so I'm not too keen on the details. I know the knobs don't simply "pull" off the front, and I'm not sure how exactly they come off. I'll get around to figuring it out sometime or another.

Where you planning to build a custom-made case for your radio? I image that would be a unique challenge, depending on what model you choose but I often see naked chassis's on Ebay that would be prime candidates for that sort of thing.