[Arran]

This cabinet is a good example of how Philco aced RCA, and especially Zenith with quality cabinets. The matched wood on the dial door is a good example of Philco's quality supremacy. The veneer inlays are another example of Philco's cabinet quality. There were very few, if any Zenith sets in the 1936-42 years, with doors on the cabinets. Not so, for Philco and RCA. Maybe the customers never fully understood why they were drawn to the Philco sets, but these were some of the reasons why. Some of the reasons that I never do do handsprings and cartwheels over Zenith stuff; even the Strato.

Also, a restorer here in my general area, observed that you see a lot of Zenith and RCA power transformers burning up, but rarely a Philco. I've observed the same thing.

If you look at some versions of the model 633X (?) carrying into the 37-630X, the inlays are amazing for a household set.

Interesting!

Especially with the Zeniths, you can tell just looking at one that the power supply was greatly underengineered for what was intended, along with whacky power supply designs like dual 6X5 tubes with both sections wired in parallel to form one diode, autotransformers, and other stupid things. I have noticed that with Zenith what quality they did have in their cabinets from 1936-38 was pretty much gone from 1939 and later, and I never did like superficial glitz over true quality and performance anyhow. Commander MacDonald really should have kept his nose out of the engineering department, not unlike another used car salesmen named Ed Muntz.
In Canada some of the worst offenders for smoking power transformers are RCA and CGE sets from 1939-42, not undersized like the Zenith ones for the job but they also can't stand much abuse. As yet I haven't found even a Philco from that period with a burned transformer, but I have encountered a CGE and an RCA with a shorted high voltage winding and another CGE set with a burned transformer, and and RCA and a Northern Electric with Hammond replacements. But one thing they all had were nice cabinets on all but the cheapest models and were otherwise decent performers.
Regards
Arran