The resistors and capacitors were made by the National Radio Company, and as Symphony produced receivers for them, there may have been a link between the two companies.

The receiver has two wavebands, Long Wave and Short Wave. The short waveband doesn't cover what we think of as short wave today, it actually covers about two thirds of the medium waveband.

The inside of the receiver.

The elliptical cone is made from varnished card and uses a strip of felt for the suspension.

The loudspeaker performs extremely well for such a simple design and is presumably helped by the rigid and lightweight elliptical construction.

The two frame aerials can be clearly seen around the outside of the wooden frame. The one at the front is for Short Wave and the Long Wave coil is at the rear.

A Symphony portable receiver. Courtesy of Colin Fisher.

The Symphony portable receivers were built by three men who worked on the ground floor of the main Stewart Street building, just to the right of the entrance.
The receiver used the standard type of Symphony circuit board and had two frame aerials, one for Medium Wave inside the front of the case, and one for Long Wave in the opening back. It used the company's standard elliptical loudspeaker and sold for £17.17s.6d.

The control panel. Courtesy of Colin Fisher.

Although the receivers were built by Symphony they carried the National name.

They are identical to Symphony's own portable, as seen above, except for the case.

The inside of the National receiver.

Another view of the receiver.

The control panel on the National receiver.

The underside of the circuit board.

The top of the circuit board.

Unfortunately the company was not successful. The battery-powered radiogram appears to have sold in large numbers, but suffered from a serious problem. The bakelite sheet onto which the components were mounted was very thin, and would frequently warp and bend, under the weight of the components. The added stress that this placed on the thin brass rivets, which secured the brass connecting strips, would often lead to failure. The rivets would either break or stretch, leading to a poor connection. If a thicker piece of bakelite had been used, or if the board had been better supported, this would not have happened. Hundreds of the radiograms were returned and this eventually led to the company's demise.

The Symphony Gramophone and Radio Company Limited went into liquidation on 17th March, 1930. Henry Morgan of 54 New Broad Street, London was appointed as liquidator. The company had clearly been in financial difficulties for some time.

On January 2nd, 1930 the Plessey Company Limited of Vicarage Lane, Ilford, one of Symphony's creditors, handed a petition to the Chancery Division of the Companies Court in an attempt to obtain money that was owing to them. The petition was also signed by the Igranic Electric Company Limited, Saxton Chatterton & Company Limited, James Relle Morris, D.M. Davies (Woodwork) Limited and 123 of Symphony's other creditors.

The Court ordered that the Symphony Gramophone and Radio Company Limited should be wound up under the provisions of the Companies Act of 1929.

The company's assets were duly sold including the factory, which was purchased by Birmingham estate agents Thomas Foden Flint and Alfred Edward Jones. It sold for £1,175.

Apart from the problem with the circuit boards, the radiograms worked extremely well. At least one working model still survives and it is extremely sensitive for a T.R.F. receiver of that period. The company produced high quality products, which when working, could compete favourably with anything else on the market at the time. If a thicker piece of bakelite had been used for the circuit boards in the battery-powered radiograms, it could all have ended very differently.