No Really Dear, It Followed Me Home.

[Printer2]

I should have started this thread a long time ago, I just stuck my finds in with whatever amp I was working on at the time. I saw this one online for $25, my kind of price. But I have collected enough early era radios, do I need one more? I already let three SS organs with decent speakers go, and they were free. But I just got home, it was listed for an hour.

Butt ugly, but for what I want it for not an issue. I saw a cap can and a tube sticking out, an array of knobs, bass treble, selector, tuning, I was guessing. Messaged and said I'll meet him. Bought it without even looking at it, when he helped me to put it in my car, it wouldn't fit. I have bought a few and somehow squeeze it in, this one no chance. We left it by the house and I got my trailer.

Got it home, started taking the chassis out. It was at the bottom, a 12" speaker in the rear, might have a full range firing forward, the front panel is angled to face splayed outward. Got the chassis unbolted, wires going up to where the speaker is. Oh, did I mention it is -23 C (-10 F for all you disadvantaged on the wrong side of the border) and my fingers were starting to feel it unscrewing stuff. Got the back panel off and... ...a chassis with the power supply and power amp on it.

The bottom chassis was disconnected from the amp chassis and tucked in the top section. And behind the amp chassis facing forward, two more 12's. Well it is truly bizarre. Thought it might have been a home built but the tube layout label beside the amp chassis shows two sections. A VHE-809 RCA, schematic wonderfully available. I see from the service manual how the receiver was suppose to sit, looked like it was jury rigged on the side.

http://pacifictv.ca/schematics/rcavhe809data.pdf

The amp circuit a Cathodyne with a 12AU7 rather than a 12AX7, just one tube short of a Fender 5E3 Deluxe. Or a BF Princeton. I have never picked up an amp that is so ready to convert into a guitar amp. I am going to have to think about what I will do with it. Almost forgot. What good is a thread without a picture?

And for good measure, the numbers on the speakers which I can find nothing about. 961380-2W 279437 RL111D-1. Silly me, in the service manual, Olson Curvilinear Speaker, the best in hifi by RCA.

 

[Gnobuddy]

Another nice find!

...it is -23 C...

*Shudder*. About +1 Celsius here, slated to drop to -11 Celsius early next week. Very cold for this part of Canada.

...a Cathodyne with a 12AU7...

I'm impressed that the designer(s) actually tried to balance the cathodyne - R6 is not the same value as R4, instead it's closer to (R3+R4).


-Gnobuddy

 

[PRR]

And you can connect a _TV_ to it! Joy!

If you have any AM stations left, try it. It has an RF stage. A similar Zenith here would pull Boston, and NYC dimly, when no other AM radio in the house would pull 100 miles. Agree that after logging your Boston you would just use the sockets for zuper-wuper distortion or maybe a reverb chain.

I never heard a RCA/Olson speaker I really liked. Even a twin-cone much more expensive than this console. (I've never heard the much-much-much more expensive monitors). Also not run much guitar through an RCA cone. Good luck.

 

[Printer2]

I am thinking of using this amp rather than continue with the EL84 amp I was building. I have a fair amount of 12V6GT's but only a couple 6V6's so makes more sense this going to my niece's husband. I need to cut off the mounting flanges on the chassis to get it to fit and put some brackets on the ends to mount it. The reverb tank will not fit on the bottom now, shame it was not a side mount style. I'll put together a preamp and leave the power amp as is for now. It pulled in some stations, did not have a terrible amount of hum. I have some visualizing to do with what will go where.




Nope. No fitting 10lbs into a 7lb bag. So this one will be put on the shelf and I will continue with the original EL84 design.

 

[Printer2]

I could not help myself. I have been cooped up at home for a week because of a cold, better now. But a little stir crazy and a blurred picture which I can just make out it has legs and it may not be that large. Ad says record player, $10, and you can make out four big knobs.

Replied asking if it was tubed. Reply of, I think one or two. Five minutes from my place, I will be right over. Got there, took a peak in back, a couple octals and a power transformer. Good enough, sold



Took three screws to get the chassis out, take the nuts off the speaker, a service doc, gee I like the old days. Take a look at the schematic and a 6V6, 6X5, 6AV6, 6BE6, 6BA6. I think a quickie Champ.

 

[Printer2]

I think I need to recap that 68 Bassman I have. Now that I have four of these Yamaha organ speakers. They sound nice with guitar, rated for 60W, are reasonably efficient. May have to wait till the virus thing is over to crank it when the neighbors are not home. Another free organ tonight, I didn't expect to have picked up the forth before summer, if I ever did.

 

[PRR]

Those look like 5/6th scale Japanese JBL D-120s. Four of them on 50 Watts may play loud enough to SHATTER virus and sanitize all your neighbors.

 

[Printer2]

These speakers are pretty high quality, had a 6AK6 P-P amp run through one and more than enough for the bedroom. The console cabinet from the first post was pretty hefty and well made, thought I would keep it for a sub cabinet, glad I did not throw out the one baffle yet, it is set up for two 12"s. The cabinet is the same width of a Marshall stack of 30" and 32" high. A little deeper than the 14.5", it is 20" deep. I think I know what speakers are going in it. No handles though. Might be hard to move around to dust, sure it would shake some loose somewhere.

 

[Printer2]

I need to stick some grill cloth in front of the panels before I can finish this thing. And any store that I can get something resembling grill cloth is closed because of the damn virus.

 

[Hearinspace]

Well, maybe the ones close to home are. These guys aren't.

 

[Gnobuddy]

...any store that I can get something resembling grill cloth is closed...

The dollar stores are still open here. You and I have both used place-mats for grille cloth before. The combo guitar amp in the attached pic uses a dollar-store place mat for a grille cloth.

Michael's (arts/crafts store) is also still open around here. They often have rolls of mesh fabric in several colours, usually used to make decorative backdrops for weddings and other celebrations. They make good grille-cloth, too - I had to double up the cloth to get it to show some colour (dark blue) and not bee too transparent in the last cab for which I used it.


-Gnobuddy

 

[Printer2]

Well, maybe the ones close to home are. These guys aren't.

I will have to check out what the shipping and getting it across the border will cost.

The dollar stores are still open here. You and I have both used place-mats for grille cloth before. The combo guitar amp in the attached pic uses a dollar-store place mat for a grille cloth.

Michael's (arts/crafts store) is also still open around here. They often have rolls of mesh fabric in several colours, usually used to make decorative backdrops for weddings and other celebrations. They make good grille-cloth, too - I had to double up the cloth to get it to show some colour (dark blue) and not bee too transparent in the last cab for which I used it.


-Gnobuddy

I like that one, do not have it. Been there done that. I have a supply of place mats to use, just not big enough for this project. My first place mat grill, I used some stain to age the look of it to match the condition of the radither than places that sell food here and hardware stores all stores are closed.

 

[Gnobuddy]

...hardware stores...

Screen-door mesh from the hardware store works great. I've used both the black plastic kind, and the dark-grey aluminium kind. The metal stuff looks better, but is so easy to crease or dent, and then it looks awful.

There is one major downside to screen-door mesh: I had to buy some thirty bucks worth at one shot. They don't sell it except as a full roll.

I just found this mesh fabric on Amazon: Annies Lightweight Pewter Mesh Fabric LTWT 18x54, 54 Inches: Amazon.ca: Home & Kitchen

The gauzy stuff I've bought from Michael's is apparently tulle, and Amazon has some: Falk Fabrics Tulle Spool, 6-Inch by 100-Yard, Navy: Amazon.ca: Home & Kitchen

This particular navy-blue tulle is only 6" wide, half as wide as the 12" stuff (same colour) that I bought on clearance at Michaels. That was just wide enough to work with my 8" speakers.

Amazon does have wider tulle, maybe worth a look-see in case they have something other than bright red: tulle_bolt-54-inches wide by 40 yards long (red): Amazon.ca: Home & Kitchen


-Gnobuddy

 

[Printer2]

I found a grill from a Leslie cabinet that might work. On the slow burn pile though. Picke up an old Wurlitzer, not old enough though, SS. Usually the giveaway is if there is a slider for a volume control, got fulled. Free so no big loss.



Just picked up a Yamaha with a SS tone generation and a tube amplifier. It was a 1965 model B-6. No schematic or details online I can find. Two 12"s and the power amp has 7868 output tubes and the OT says 9k on it. Looking up the datasheet and if at given values for 450V would be about 28W at 2% THD. Good they make the tubes again. Has two 6AU6's before them, guess Cathodyne splitter. Has a transformerless 6AQ5 reverb, fair sized resistors to dissipate the heat. A pair of JA3051 yamaha speaker, alnico's. That is it for my organ shopping spree. Have enough speakers and amplifier parts to last me as long as I will likely be interested in them.

 

[Printer2]

I was mistaken on the reverb, it is a 6AQ6, should have noticed the bottle is narrower. A double triode. Also all the tone generating circuits, Germanium transistors, lots of them. I would have kept the organ intact if it had a decent piano sound, nothing doing. So parting it out. I think it would be nifty to have both speakers paired up with the output transformer in a 2x12 combo. But that is minimum over a year from now. Still working (slowly) on a EL84 amp at the moment.

 

[Tubelab_com]

The 6AQ6 is a single triode with two diodes, similar to the 6AV6 and 6AT6, except for it's stingy 6.3V 150 mA heater.

It is often found in old military radios, and rarely seen elsewhere. I have a box full of them somewhere. They don't look anything like the tube in your picture. 6EU7 maybe?

 

[Printer2]

The 6AQ6 is a single triode with two diodes, similar to the 6AV6 and 6AT6, except for it's stingy 6.3V 150 mA heater.

It is often found in old military radios, and rarely seen elsewhere. I have a box full of them somewhere. They don't look anything like the tube in your picture. 6EU7 maybe?

I can't even get the correction right. It is a 6AQ8.

 

[Printer2]

I know I probably should not have, but ten bucks! A record player, no preamp tube, just a 50L6 fed by the ceramic cartridge. Just picked it up for the case to put an amp in. The panel that the speakers and amp sits on fits in where the hole is.

 

[Printer2]

OK, last one. It dropped in price from $50 to $20. Only saw the picture in the front, not too far from my place so I took a chance. Could not find the address so went back home, contacted the person and they messed up one number. O well. Pictures not mine.

7149 Radio Sparton of Canada; London, ON, build 1948/1949, 2


Got it home and looked at the tube complement (never even checked there). A 5Y3, so far so good, a 6V6, check, another 6V6, 6AT6.

12" speaker. A large power transformer, may have to swap one of my others. Why carry the weight if you don't have to? So worth the inconvenience and the $20.