By the way, Regent-30 and Regent-60 were excellent amps! And they had great speakers!
I still remember their sound...
I still remember their sound...
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Instead I can post our university (TIASUR) band called Allegro. 🙂
We are surrounded by locals... 🙂
Arrived! (I am with a cigarette, near the plane)
And here is a record of the band... Left after one of rehearsals...
http://wavebourn.com/music/alisovskiy/Tomsk-1978-1979/01 ALLEGRO - TIASUR-Juzhnaja.mp3
We are surrounded by locals... 🙂
Arrived! (I am with a cigarette, near the plane)
And here is a record of the band... Left after one of rehearsals...
http://wavebourn.com/music/alisovskiy/Tomsk-1978-1979/01 ALLEGRO - TIASUR-Juzhnaja.mp3
With regards to "Shifty's" question, yes it was possible to make a living with tubes. For several years I bought and sold surplus tubes and did it full time. Because I was attracted to tubes ever since I was a kid it was fun, but also a lot of work. I traveled up and down the East coast going to ham flea markets and Government auctions to buy them. I also did test equipment along with tubes, but for these years it was mostly tube. Not just audio types but large industrial and transmitting tubes. Everything from receiving to magnetrons, klystrons, thyratrons, ignitrons and even CRTs.
Of course everything had to be tested in order to sell them. And I sold mostly to dealers in the industry because it was faster and cleaner. Most all receiving tubes I could test myself using various testers. My favorite was the Hickok USM-118B cardmatic because it was a fast setup and also considered the standard of the surplus industry. Everything else was tested by JFF Research, a one man operation in Nutley NJ. John was an electrical engineer with ITT in Nutley until being laid off. This prompted him to go into business for himself testing tubes for all the surplus dealers nation wide. I became friends with John and spent many countless hours over the years watching and learning how to test big industrial tubes. That's me in the white tee shirt 30 years ago around the mid 80's. Also Bill Scripps, Kashy & Donna all tubes dealers back then. All that equipment in the first picture was hand built by John to test various types of tubes.
When JFF closed in the 90's I built my own big testers based on what I learned there. Basically a bunch of power supplies in a rack cabinet with meters on everything. Transconductance is measured by amplifying a 1KHz signal. The pulse tester is used for everything larger then 1500 watts. It's an emission test and quite simple. Charge up a capacitor bank to 2500 volts and discharge it through the tube made into a diode. It's limited only by available filament power which is about 12V at up to 200A. This is actually a Mil spec. test. They both get little use these days including the New London 901A.
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HollowState, impressive setup! Its look reminds me the naval transmitting equipment that I designed a bit, though the SS. The third photo looks very like it.
I guess your business has a name, what is it?
I guess your business has a name, what is it?
Hey !!! VERY good band !! 🙂
And quite up to date, considering it was the 70´s.
Was it a real Minimoog or some locally made Synthesizer?
What about the electric guitars and bass?
Already knew the Vermona East German amps, quite similar to equivalent designs from Dynacord and others, but very intrigued about the actual speakers you used, which I guess must have been Pro/Cinema type Alnicos.
I have worked a lot with Municipal/City bands, so know well the "State run bands" system, practically the same as yours, including stuff purchased by people you have no contact with , you just use what´s supplied to you like it or not (better like it 😉 ) , incompetent "auditors" and so on.
Yet I see you were quite free to choose and play what you liked 🙂
HollowState,
what's that tube under test shown at your 3rd picture? It resembles a BBC T-500/1, right?
Best regards!
what's that tube under test shown at your 3rd picture? It resembles a BBC T-500/1, right?
Best regards!
Thanks! 🙂
Result of my experiments. Quite different from minimoog. Less flexible, but more musical, like dependence of spectrum on loudness was always present.
German Musima guitars, with pedals that I designed. The guitar effect was with "Dynamic hysteresis", needed attack to open, then long sustain to close. Huge overdrive, but silence in pauses. I even started making a guitar with pickup and such an effect on each string, but did not finish...
One student's dad was a manager on KINAP in Samarkand, he donated a bunch of 4A-32 spreakers - they were better than Vermona.
Not exactly!
We had a concert program that was audited and confirmed, "politcorrect" about love, youth, happiness...
...but could play anything on dances. We played mostly Nazareth, Deep Purple, Juriah Heep. 🙂
Our singer learned German. He knew no word in English, but managed to sing somehow! 🙂
http://wavebourn.com/music/alisovskiy/Tomsk-1978-1979/05 ALLEGRO - If You.mp3
But the funniest thing was about out drummer... He drummed so much so failed examps and was expelled from the university.
He knew that he will be drafted to serve in the Army, so met a girl from a medical university, and borrowed a book about mental disorders. He studied it so well, so he got a real diagnosis from psychiatry.
He did not have any more a place on the campus to stay, so stayed in the room where we were doing our rehearsals, and where was my laboratory of electronic music... I had some mattresses there, to record drums, hanging them from wardrobes surrounding the drum set, so he slept comfortably...
... until May 1'St come. The room was on the 3'rd store of the building, and a tribune that used for parades was right in front of windows, on an opposite side of the street. The night before people from KGB checked and sealed all doors. They did not expect our Garic slipping there...
Now imagine: all town heads standing on the tribune; people with balloons, flags, banners, are marching and yelling what they suppose to yell about Solidarity of Working Class of the Earth, when suddenly in fromt of the tribune opens a window, a bearded half-naked man appears there yawning and scratching his chest... 😀
..later we were invited to Profkom (Trade Union Comittee), and a guy from KGB questioned us. Of course, we confirmed that our Garik is a good guy, and he meant absolutely nothing political! 😀
http://wavebourn.com/music/alisovskiy/Tomsk-1978-1979/05 ALLEGRO - If You.mp3
But the funniest thing was about out drummer... He drummed so much so failed examps and was expelled from the university.
He knew that he will be drafted to serve in the Army, so met a girl from a medical university, and borrowed a book about mental disorders. He studied it so well, so he got a real diagnosis from psychiatry.
He did not have any more a place on the campus to stay, so stayed in the room where we were doing our rehearsals, and where was my laboratory of electronic music... I had some mattresses there, to record drums, hanging them from wardrobes surrounding the drum set, so he slept comfortably...
... until May 1'St come. The room was on the 3'rd store of the building, and a tribune that used for parades was right in front of windows, on an opposite side of the street. The night before people from KGB checked and sealed all doors. They did not expect our Garic slipping there...
Now imagine: all town heads standing on the tribune; people with balloons, flags, banners, are marching and yelling what they suppose to yell about Solidarity of Working Class of the Earth, when suddenly in fromt of the tribune opens a window, a bearded half-naked man appears there yawning and scratching his chest... 😀
..later we were invited to Profkom (Trade Union Comittee), and a guy from KGB questioned us. Of course, we confirmed that our Garik is a good guy, and he meant absolutely nothing political! 😀
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Actually that tube is an Amperex 5868 triode also known as an AX9902.
I never used an official business name, but did business under my personal name.Shef said:
Here is a cone from Vermona woofer on my head... I fried the coil by my Swinik amp (class A+C amp I made for a bass guitar)
The amp that fried Vermona speaker is on the right side of the table, in the case from a vacuum tube oscilloscope. Left to the keyboard are speakers that we had to use to replace fried one...
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Bass cabinet we called Tessha (mother in law). It was fatty! 2x18", and a horn on top. My Swinik amp was driving it. On top of Vermona is standing a guitar amp I built; to the left is a 2x100W amp with 6R3S-1 tubes built by Victor (sound engineer).
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Speaking of business... I just put some amp on epay, but still no offers... People like my amps on facebook, but don't contact... Dead niche, or I am doing something wrong?
How about new AC701 tubes that are just as good as the old Telefunkens? Good new ones could help reduce the need to pay exorbitant prices on ebay....
Yes. And I offered it in a local FB audiophile group. One audiophile borrowed one amp, that is currently on ebay. His response was,
I.e. the guy found the amp sounding cleaner than what he has, he and his wife heard more details, but still want some "Voicing", installing some special snake oil coupling caps... :-(
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Thanks for the pictures Wavebourn ,brings back memories living behind the Curtain.
I remember the BEAG tape echo, I had a reel to reel mono tube tape recorder from the company called M8, recognizing the pinch roller and the plunger , it was manufactured in the third district of Budapest.😀
Vermona and BEAG made all that we could dream about. However, as soon as our band was in the Universito of Radio and Electronics, we could afford to design and build what we needed. I believed then that tubes are obsolete, and solid state devices is the way to go. I designed and built many different amps. Even a completely symmetric one, from top to bottom, similar to JC's designs (of course I did not know him, and never saw his amps nor schematics), but Tesla MONO-130 amp we had in our band anyway sounded better!
My bass guitar amp Swinik had a power transformer that I made from 2KW variac, it easily delivered 200W, but that Tesla amp with 4xEL34 sounded cleaner! 😀
Back to BEAG, back in 1974 I was on a television contest, and saw there active studio monitors... They sounded sooo clean! I still remember that sound. They were bi-amped, 2 amps each with 2xEL34 output, one woofer and many tweeters forming a semi-sphere, as I understand now, to match more or less directivity on lows...
But speaking of business... 18 clicks on the link on ebay about an audiophile quality 4W per channel SE amp. And 156 clicks on a link with ugly unfinished amp chassis for 2 x 80W amp, during the same week.
Conclusion?
No need for audiophile quality sound. Even for 18 persons that clicked. All need more power, and as cheap as possible...
Can we make a living from tubes?
May be, if to invest heavily in manufacturing of awfully cheap Chinese amplifiers, or even cheaper kits...
Ebay is not the place for audiophiles seeking new designs, it's a place for bargains, cheap mee-to kind of things. Which is not to say that real
world-class devices are found here but it's well-known things like dynaco arc etc.
You might be better off with unique cheap components on ebay, and at the same time hint that you make very good amps using these components..
But selling audio related stuff is difficult, few can live on this. Money is
in phones games and pads today.
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