Late '50's GE "musaphonic" AM tube radio

[Jeffhs]

One of my great-uncles (now deceased) had the AM-FM version of the Musaphonic in his kitchen for years; not surprising, as he worked for General Electric from the '50s until at least the late '70s or perhaps early '80s, so he had GE appliances in his house as long as I can remember. Don't know what happened to the radio, as he sold his house and moved to a retirement home several years before his death. The set sounded great as I remember, and it had roughly the same type of "stepped" cabinet as the one being discussed here. It also had a rather large speaker (I'd guess about six or eight inches in diameter) and a vertical illuminated slide-rule tuning dial at the left end of the cabinet. I don't remember offhand if it had a phonograph input, although if it had an 8" speaker and a fairly decent audio stage, IMHO it should have.

The GE Musaphonic radio Reece mentioned is rather unique, with the center-off volume control. I never saw such a design before now. This is probably one of the few sets I've ever heard of with the AC power switch in the center of the control's adjustment range; one half of the control's rotation governing the radio volume and the other half controlling the phono input. Must have used a special, custom-built potentiometer that would be next to impossible to find today.