DRBILL

I thought I'd check in and let the gang know that I am still alive and in posession of my faculties! 72½. DR BILL

Two Mark IIIs into Klipschorns. A Williamson P-P 6BG6s for Heresy middle "Phantom". Life is sweet! drbill

I thought I'd better check in and give an account of my absence! My new romance is Ham Radio (KF5BXG). It has been all-absorbing for a while, but now I have a pretty good "rig" in place (all vacuum tube, of course) together with an appreciation of the lay of the land. There has been an awful lot to learn. I put it off for 60 years and realized that if I was going to do it, it had better be now! If there are any fellow Hams out there, I work 75M most evenings 1800-2000 CDST on 3880 AM. I'll be more regular on the Klipsch Forum. drbill

I just installed a couple of Zenith boxes from RadioShack for my daughter. Stunning results. Full of features -- maybe too many! You will need a really good UHF antenna, not just a "bow-tie". I used a double colinear. DRBILL

Check the previous post. I finally got a picture up. Father Bill

Well, I can tell that none of you ever lived there! Father Bill

It is the floor model, and yes, it is one of the "desirable" models. They are getting awfully hard to find. It is beautiful to behold with its restored finish and replicated grille cloth. It was actually advertised as a "high fidelity" model! And that wasn't hype. How anything this old can perform so well is an inspiration to me. Father Bill

At another place on the forum I found a schematic that calls for a 16Ω resistor parallel to the mid when operating the mid from tap 1 to maintain the correct crossover point. This was offered as a correction for excessive brightness. Nothing is ever a easy as first imagined! Time to get out the alligator clips and grope around. Thanks, Gill, for the schematic. I should have pulled out my folio of "Dope from Hope." Father Bill

I hope I don’t get hooted off the forum for this, or that this isn’t drawing the saw through an old cut. Nevertheless. . . Having finished the restoration of yet another vintage Zenith radio (10-S-153; 1937; Chassis 1004; ten tubes; 6L6s p-p in the final) but without output transformer or speaker, I decided to be innovative. I will mention that this radio has a wide bandwidth tuner perfectly capable of 30-10,000 Hz audio and the audio section is transformer coupled to the push-pull 6L6s. This is amazing quality for 1937! So, I found a Type E network, a Heresy mid, and an E-V tweeter for a song from a guy who didn’t know what they were for and didn’t care. I installed these together with a high quality Hammond output transformer and a 15” Jensen speaker that I had on hand. I replaced the 2.5 mH inductor with a 1955 Klipsch “spool” inductor, also 2.5 mH. The over-all results were amazing when listening to the several music stations here in the metromess that take pride in the quality of their audio. Except for being in mono, it was as good as most FM. But there was a problem. The bass was altogether too light, not nearly as good as when I was using the 15” woofer by itself. In the recesses of my corroded synapses, I believe I recall that the woofer output of the Heresy was down 6 db from the mid and tweet, and I believe this is what I am hearing. My instincts tell me to move the mid wire from terminal 2 to terminal 1 on the autoformer and cranking up the volume a bit. But since it is presently useable, I though I would wait until I took the pulse of the forum on this. Any suggestions will be appreciated. What say ye? Father Bill

Get him a REAL radio, something like a Hallicrafters Sx-24 off of ebay, and let him have the joy of restoring it. He'll learn something valuable and wind up with a stunning set. There are plenty of forums out there to help the beginner (Antique Radio Forums, Click Communications Receivers. I can also answer many questions. drbill

Dave, The Skinner strings have a secret that is almost too simple to be believeable. A one-pipe taper! It is almost too small to be detected by the eye unless you are looking for it. Calipers reveal it all. The top of a C will be the same diameter as a C# measured at the languid. Dan is a decent organbuilder. In this part of the country, the layman's yard-stick is still the WurLitzer at the Palace Theatre. The organ man is hobbled before the contract is signed. I'll check out your suggestions. I remember your praise of 24 bit and wanted to give it a try. FrBill

I was interested in hearing one of the new 24 bit CDs. I selected Bradley Welch Plays at Broadway Baptist (LRCD 1084). Here we have the largest French-style organ in the world, built by Casavant Freres, Limitee (the firm that I worked for as a youth). It is in a spacious acoustical environment (although it does have a couple of boomy places in midrange). Bradley Welch was the winner of the 2003 Dallas International Organ Competition. And all of this recorded in the new 24bit system. What more could you ask?! For starters, we might have asked to hear something musical! It was pure mud for 68 minutes and 40 seconds. Layer upon layer of thick contrapuntal putty assaulted the ears as the Klipschorns quaked and groaned in misery. I’ll be glad to pass this around in case any of you would like to give it a spin. As for me, I would like to hear one of the new 24 bit CDs. Any suggestions? DRBILL

As Mark Twain wrote, "The report of my demise has been greatly exaggerated." Actually, I have been completely overtaken with the restoration of vintage radios. I just finished a Hallicrafters SX-24 (1939, just like me!) and had a breather before I start the next radio. I haven't lost interest in quality audio, and some of that spills over to the radio bench. The '38 Zenith that is my personal radio has transformer coupled push-pull 6L6s. Now that just cries out for an update. It consisted of a 15" Jenson in a bass reflex enclosure (bottom of the radio case), a horn mid/tweet, L/C crossover and a Hammond output transformer. It is virtually indistinguishable from FM. The purists would have a black mass over that. But it is my radio and I like to listen to it, and I like for it to be pleasing to the ear. I like to believe that I have done what Zenith would have done if they had had the technology. I'll try to check in more often. DRBILL

Me, too. DRBILL

All band members plus bearers and beaters have 9-5 positions, "are bald and have mortgages." They practice reliably on the weekends that they have no bookings. The "groupies" show up before the band is in tune. The insurance was the "off premises" kind that was meant to "save Christmas when the gifts were left in the back seat of the car". My guess would be a competing band and that the gear is dumped in a ravine on the vast prairie west of here. We're talking Texas, you know. I would wish that the Klipschorn might mysteriously appear in my front yard. It had to be among the first. I know the provenance and it has historical value. Ugly beyond belief! I have enjoyed reading your comments and I thank you for the quality of thought that went in to all of this. Is this a great forum, or what?! In the odd turn of events that this should be solved, I'll report back. DRBILL