Tom Mobley

why not? Money, of course. why else would anybody use something cheap when something six times more expensive is readily available? got any decent used EL84/6BQ5? If I could find some of those cheap I could afford to buy the good caps, or at least I would feel better about it.... Tom

well, how's this for a plan? the two original 30uf @ 400V PS caps replaced with Sprague Atom 40uf @ 500V, there is a 30uf@400 available but I'm unable to get it's dimensions. the diameter is touchy, about 1.125" max is it. the 4 original .1uf @ 400V in the 12au7's replaced with .1uf @ 400V Orange Drop 716P's the 2 original .25uf @ 200 caps in the preamp replaced with Auricaps .22uf @ 450V, don't see much 200V out there. Comments, criticism, laughter all welcome. ALso picked up 2 NOS "Made in great Britain" Sylvania EZ81/6ca4's for the rectifiers, unknown mismatch stuff in there. Need to get something known good in place. Tom

the ax's and au's that have enough printing on them to see are the ones with the cartoon, Bugle Boy, I think thats' what they're called. They all look identical to my inexperienced eye. The source deal is the pits, an old JVC CD changer and the $.99 cables that come in the box with cheap SS stuff. I don't have an issue with that right now, what I really want is to get the amp stabilized and solid. I'm worried about that wax dripping out of the PS, but right now it doesn't seem to get all that hot. Bugs me to have those completely different EZ-81's in there, one of them has no marking on it, it might not even be the right tube. I'll look out on ebay to see what's available. Tom EDIT: typo This message has been edited by Tom Mobley on 09-18-2002 at 06:40 PM

mh, Looks like the Sprague Atoms you mention and posted a picture of are about it. All of the other nice ones I found are too large in diameter for the chassis. I really want to replace the rectifier tubes, there's two dissimilar in there, not enough markings to ident one of them. The stuff inside of them is not the same at all. You still think the JJ Tesla's you mention on your page are good? I'm thinking about buying the Spragues, the JJ EZ-81's and a set of new JJ EL84/6BQ5's. They're cheap on ebay, and I don't have a tube tester to go through a bunch of used ones, can't afford NOS Mullards or similar. At this point I just want to make sure there's no real junk in there. The reason I'm concerned about the PS stuff is that there is a little wax on the bottom plate, it looks like it ran down the leads from the PS. Tom BTW, after the cleanup extravaganza I ran the thing for about 6 hours last night, it really cranks the tunes out.

Hmpf. Five cans of contact cleaner and it's like new again. Killed all the bugs in the side yard, too. See, the unexpected benefits of tube amp ownership abound. It really does look a lot better. There was some kind of gunk layered on the chassis, like layers and oil and dust built up over years. Enough contact cleaner and a tooth brush got it down to the native corrosion. Transformer bells are pretty rusty too, but I can fix that. The tube pins didn't want to clean up so I improvised with paint can cap with about a quarter inch of easy off oven cleaner in the bottom, soaked the pins for a minute, clean and bright as new! Clean up with a little bottled water, fine now. (I think I can hear Kelly shuddering all the way to Az, my hearing must be improving too. ) Are those two big orange caps with hose clamp bracket the PS caps? I have a bad feeling about those. Is there a consenus on a good replacement for them? Sort of middle-of-the-roadish? Auricap? I think this thing has every original cap and resistor in the bottom. Sure sounds better. Tom (Kelly, you exchange with Roger is very informative, thanks for taking time to post it.) EDIT: numerous typos This message has been edited by Tom Mobley on 09-17-2002 at 07:38 PM

Yes, Kelly, thank you for taking time to post that detailed response. I appreciate the time and typing. I'm real happy with the way this is going so far, I think it's going to turn out good. Hey, if I'd had 6 or 8 hundred bucks laying around I would have bought one of the nice ones, but I don't. I figure by the time I get done fixing this one up I'll know all about it, be able to keep it running for the foreseeable future. I'll probably have the same money in it, but I'll be able to piece it out a little at a time instead of taking a big hit in the wallet. Tom

Jim, The other guys here are much better qualified to answer these questions than me, I'm brand new to the tube game as of yestersay afternoon. I have a newish Nakamichi AV-400, 100W/side, couln't turn it up to 1 if there was anybody else in the house, didn't sound very good with my LaScalas. I had the Eico turned up to 4-5 in the garage, ear bleed volume and primo sound. I think those guys are right when they say "it's all in the first watt." Looks like the high power SS amp with the volume knob turned down to nothing is the problem, not the solution. I paid $140 for this one, but it's rough looking and needs a lot of work internally. But I don't mind fooling with stuff. And, I was expecting to see some problems. mh- Yeah, the guy botched the shipping. There was a set of RCA jackes mounted on the back of the cage, wired to the 16 ohm taps. I think he didn't know what they were and didn't want to take it apart. This thing is filthy, buy stock in contact cleaner companies. 1) OK 2) OK, they were all over the place. DIdn't know that about the on/off, was amazed that there was no switch. 3) Top set of RCA jacks have one that's really loose, I used the second, adjusted the switch. 4) OK, had the screen off after I figured out the RCA speaker jack thingie. Wondered what that little switch on the chassis was. 5) Haven't gotten as far as the hum pot level yet. It had some noticeable hum out of the right speaker just before it went back to scratchy poppoing static, but the left was dead silent between tracks, on Pause, etc. 6) Own stock in any contact cleaner companies? This thing is about to get a major wash down. The labels for the tubes and jacks are on the bottom, still pretty readable. The EZ-81's are producing more heat than the P/S, which was too hot to leave a finger on after a couple hours playing at a very low level. What do those aluminum tubes around the tubes do? RFI shielding? One thing for sure, this thing cooks when it's happy. Tom

I was told it wasn't big on cosmetics, and he was right. But, this thing really kicks some serious patootie when I turn it up a little. The shipping wasn't what it could have been, two of the tubes came mostly out. Sort of bent over with the pins bent. Fixed them up a little, put them back in and cranked it up, loud popping and scratchy static from the right, nothing from the left. Screwed around with it a little bit, called the guy, he had said it worked good. Swapped the two EL-84's in the back sockets and like a miracle the thing comes to life and starts kicking out some serious tunes. Got it hooked up to the DIY LaScala's in the garage, noting but a cheap JVC CD changer hooked up but it still sounds better than anything else I've heard. Even my crummy ears can hear this. It has the transformers with the lips around the edges of the covers, three output tubes that have only "Made in Great Britain" in white around the base and one much newer looking Sylvania. The three look really old, have lots of black burned-looking areas in various places on the inside of the glass. It's generating a lot of heat, the PS is hot but most of it is coming from the two EZ81 in front of the PS. Are these the rectifiers? After several hours of playing at very low levels the scratchy, buzzy static started from the right speaker again, I think I hear a 60Hz buzz. This probably means the PS caps are bad, right? Shut it down. Looks like the bottom might be all original, rats' nest wiring deal. A bunch of the other tubes are Amperex, have the little cartoon on them. Should be a real adventure to get fixed up. Craig, oh Craig, old buddy, old pal-o-mine, you've got a lot spare time with nothing much to do, right? Tom

Al, Is this what you are looking for? http://216.37.9.58/ubb/Forum6/HTML/000855.html or is this for 16 ohm stuff? Tom

Gee, seems like 500 oughta be plenty. For awhile.... Tom

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1381087200 looks pretty nice, with current prices being what they are sellers may be finding motivation. Tom This message has been edited by Tom Mobley on 09-14-2002 at 05:46 PM

I stand by my earlier assertion that while there may be a Tube Asylum, this is the Tube Minefield. Tom

Cap'nBob I can vouch for that ringing deal. I had a pair of bare K-400's sitting around for awhile until I installed them into my LS's. I could hold them up by the small end and speak sharply into them and they would ring like crazy. My 5 year old son thought they were the coolest, wanted to talk and yell into them all the time. It was fun. Bolted into the cabinet there's nothing much left of that. I even pulled the driver off and yelled into one, no ring. Tom

C&S, good questions, all. I don't have ready answers for them yet, haven't yet decided if it's worth persuing those answers. First, I want to resolve the transformer issue. It shows how early I am in this process that I hadn't yet run across that link you just posted. The "outside of this Klipsch Heritage forum" deal is a big question. Maybe the biggest. I don't see that this deal would necessarily appeal to the people who are paying top dollar for the stuff on enbay now. Might be a different market altogether. Not a collectible. Whole thing sort of depends on being able to duplicate the performance, hitch on to whatever mystique is out there. Otherwise it's just another EL84 amp, as you've pointed out there's no shortage of those already. Tom (gotta go, won't be back for awhile)

Thanks, C&S. I'm bookmarking every one of those. However, I'm not envisioning parting out the 81 for other stuff. I'm going to clean it up, get Craig to re-cap it. Make sure it plays good. Then I'm going to have the trannies analyzed to see what they actually are. (EDIT): If they appear to duplicable, I'm going to have a few sets prototyped for evaluation and pass them around to a few people. I'm still sniffing around the edges of a project to re-issue the amp in a modernized and simplified form. Won't be needing tape head input, that kind of stuff. I think I'm capable of the project at the technical and nuts and bolts level, but I've demo'd in the past that I'm not good at producing actual cash income from the value I create. Not one of my talents, too bad. May as well admit it and get over it. I don't know why it seems so easy for financial guys to admit they're hopeless technically, but hard for technical guys to admin they're hopeless financially. But, there's help on the horizon, I know people in that field now. And they're always needing their stuff fixed, even better. Actually, jazman sort of inspired me with one of his posts over on the unbuilt eico thread. I quoted part of it in my later reply. Tom This message has been edited by Tom Mobley on 09-10-2002 at 01:04 PM

Craig, I replied to you about this over in the HF-81 thread. I ran across a guy who has a large amount of old gear, he's selling me this Eico I think because he got another "mint" one. It's not nice looking at all, but apparently works well. I think it's all stock, unmodified. I'll be posting about it when it comes in. Tom

Craig, I have one coming in. It supposedly works good, but is lacking in the appearance department. No chance this one will ever be a museum piece. I'm thinking I will ask you to re-cap it, see how it sounds, then ship one of the trannies off to my guy in that business. Problem is, it needs a serious cleaning at the "take it all apart" level, I'm trying to figure out how to co-ordinate that job with sending it to you for caps and resistors. I'll figure something out. It should be here late this week or early next. Tom

Sounds like a pretty good deal to me. The B&K seem to well thought of. Looks like anything much good is near $300, more if it's been gone over and calibrated. Tom

bigdnfay, Didn't you recently complete the project of building a set of Khorns from scratch? And you already had some? You must be dedicated, or have got waaaayyy too much time on your hands. Tom

What's that white thing on the pole next to it? Tom

interesting page that guy has got up there. Looks like he has the Hickok stuff covered. Tom

Ok, thanks for the info. the Hickoks are expensive, the Eico's are cheap, there is a bunch of other brands too. I'll email Chris, see what he's got. Any other opinions? Tom

I'm going to pick up a tube tester, those Hickoks and their military versions are expensive. Are the Eico's any good or what brand might be usable? I hit ebay for tube testers and there's a million or so out there. What to do? I'm going to need to test the tubes in the HF-81 I just bought. Tom

Wow, $810.01. Offshore guy according to his feedback. Wonder who will get that really nice looking one that's up now? Tom . This message has been edited by Tom Mobley on 09-09-2002 at 12:55 AM

jeez, that http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1379468601 really looks nice, and I'll bet the guy who was bidding against docj will be primed for it. He might get it a lot cheaper because Doc already has his. That thing is really clean looking. I'll bet the seller is just drooling, especially if he paid $20 at a yard sale. Tom