Hi Andrew,
I agree with Mooly here - except perhaps when he fondly remembers the sound of most of those sets. I repaired one on a lark and gave it to a "hifi guy" to use. More as a lesson for how far up the budget audio stuff has come up from back then.
Germanium transistors have both a low turn on voltage threshold and a fair amount of leakage current. Some new transistors (back then) had leakage that was too high. Many did not use a bias control of any kind, or a thermistor. Then if you found a unit with a burnt thermistor and no manual or info .... Yuk. A black hole of service time. Luckily, many of these didn't have enough power to really hurt themselves.
To install silicon transistors, you are looking at both a bias network change and also possibly another current stage too. Not something I would do for fun unless I was able to install a complete amplifier assembly. Then again, you still have all those early gain stages and iffy tuner. Not really worth while if you ask me. I guess you haven't ever had the pleasure of working on one of these?
-Chris
I agree with Mooly here - except perhaps when he fondly remembers the sound of most of those sets. I repaired one on a lark and gave it to a "hifi guy" to use. More as a lesson for how far up the budget audio stuff has come up from back then.
Germanium transistors have both a low turn on voltage threshold and a fair amount of leakage current. Some new transistors (back then) had leakage that was too high. Many did not use a bias control of any kind, or a thermistor. Then if you found a unit with a burnt thermistor and no manual or info .... Yuk. A black hole of service time. Luckily, many of these didn't have enough power to really hurt themselves.
To install silicon transistors, you are looking at both a bias network change and also possibly another current stage too. Not something I would do for fun unless I was able to install a complete amplifier assembly. Then again, you still have all those early gain stages and iffy tuner. Not really worth while if you ask me. I guess you haven't ever had the pleasure of working on one of these?
-Chris
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