[jcr1972]

This is a very interesting thread!
It is very much like the "battle" we have here in Denmark with the Bang&Olufsen brand. I'm not able to give a lot of inputs on the Zenith products because they were not sold over here. I do have a Z console myself, a 12U159, and to me it sounds wonderful, but as mentioned in another reply I think the acoustic adapter on the large main speaker has a lot to do with it. It is very easy to tune the sound to the room. I have an unrestored Philco, so I can't really compare the Zenith with others, and we didn't even have those large powerful consoles here.
Well about the B&O brand, it was in my opinion always overrated. Especially later on when they started all their modern design models late 50's - early 60's (among lots of other brands as well). Although Denmark is a very small country, we had more than 30 companies producing radios/tv's (only 24 of them managed to produce tv's) from 1925-1975.
The only one left now is B&O, and they are HIGHLY overrated. In a biography about the B&O company, one of the founders Peter Bang or Svend Olufsen told, that they were not even that good at building radios They were better at the AF section. And I heard a lot of the older technicians say the same thing: vintage B&O radios/tv's are in general only standart engineering/products. Other brands where a lot better tecnically. Just like it seems with the Zenith products.
The brand that could manage the highest overall quality here was Neutrofon, and later Linnet&Laursen. Early Neutrofon radios are rare because they were very expensive. Linnet&Laursen started in 1946. The founders, Harald Linnet and Valdemar Hofman Laursen were B&O employees until they split with them to start their own factory, building higher quality products.