"Last gasp" GE tube/transistor hybrid clock radio

[Reece]

It's a nice clock radio, well preserved, too, and does what it's supposed to do. But consider the power of advertising: it proudly announces "Dual Speakers." Wow, that must be better than a radio with one speaker. It's kind of like a stereo, isn't it? Let's buy this one. Bingo.

The fact that one or two or three or six 4" speakers still sound like...guess what? a four-inch speaker, with the same frequency response, does not matter.

G.E engineers knew that in that same size case they could have got one 4 x 6" or even one 5 x 7" speaker and had much better sound, with a little inkling of bass, but with the clock moved over to one side of the front, and maybe for the same cost, but then they couldn't have advertised Dual Speakers! The Advertising/Marketing Department won out, as they usually do.

Then again, I'm sure 4" speakers were churned out in greater numbers than any other size, and cost next to nothing. So the Bean Counters had the last word, too.

Just some observations on manufacturing.

Reece