[NostalgiaRadioTime]

+1 on the speaker. It could be the cone itself

On these loctal sets, I take a safety knife and scrape each pin on each tube until they're nice and shiny. Then follow up with some Deoxit in the sockets, taking the tube in and out a few times. I'm sure scraping the pins on loctal tubes is SOP for you already though, Ron.

You also might want to double check and re-solder if necessary, the antenna connections. Those flimsy wire antennas Philco was using at the time are very finicky if not making a solid connection. I've had that cause garbled sound on several radios over the years. If the antenna was disconnected, I always scrape those wires too before resoldering to make sure all the enamel coating is off of the wire.

I feel kind of silly offering what are probably obvious things to check to you Ron, as you've been doing this far longer and know far more about Philco's than I ever will! And I mean that with the greatest respect and admiration.