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Another Baldwin organ amp breathes new life...


jt1stcav

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What exactly is Parallel Push Pull? If I were to assume it would be multiple pairs of power tubes but I am not positive exactly how it works. I have seen amp for sale where there called parallel but only had two a channel. Do the poster just have their facts wrong?

Marantz said its Model 9 monobloc was push-pull parallel -- http://www.hifilit.com/hifilit/Marantz/model%209-2.jpg. As Craig says, each monobloc used four EL-34's instead of a pair of higher-powered tubes. I don't know if they preferred EL-34's for the sound or what, but I always preferred the sonic linearity (to me, anyway) of the EL-34 over the bass-heaviness of contemporary higher-powered tubes like the 6550.

Here is Marantz's circuit diagram for the 9 -- http://www.hifilit.com/hifilit/Marantz/model9man-4.jpg

Thanks for the info everyone.

I'd love to stumple upon some Marantz 9's. Last year my brother called to say he was looking at a console with two Marantz 9's and a Marantz Preamp sitting on a friends back porch.... I about fell out of my chair. When my brother asked if he could buy them the guy went to ebay did a search then said no and brought all the gear in the house... LOL so close.

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Craig, Erik and others...thanks for the clarification on my attempt at describing this amp! I thought the parallel push-pull nomenclature might have been off; guess I read something wrong when I Google searched the wording (and I could've sworn Will told me that when I spoke to him awhile back...maybe he meant something else and I misunderstood him. Nothing new there).

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Those Baldwins have wonderful bass dynamics

I had a different experience with Funky's autospec Balwin at Ian's Dee! Ian's new Onix had more bottom end than the Baldwin but man was it sweet through the midsBig Smile Very nice job on that rebuild and for sure worth 5 bones any day O' the weekYes

Tim,

I haven't heard the Onix, but wouldn't quibble with your take on the Baldwin. The mids are definitely there.

The Baldwin has got some substantial cool factor at 50. Reminds me of an old car that one wouldn't expect to run well but takes off like a bat out of umm heck.

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Before I connected the Baldwin to my system, my youngest brother (who was celebrating his birthday that day) was allowed to hook it up to his 2-channel/home theatre setup, replacing his huge Adcom GFA-555II power amp. When driving his new 90.5dB efficient AV123 X-Statik dipole towers alone (no subwoofer) with the Baldwin, he immediately noticed more improved transparency and soundstage, and bass response was equal (or maybe slightly better) to his SS Adcom (his words)...the 6L6s are not bass-shy by any stretch of the imagination! Now he wants to sell the Adcom and eventually replace it with a Baldwin!

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Those Baldwins have wonderful bass dynamics

I had a different experience with Funky's autospec Balwin at Ian's Dee! Ian's new Onix had more bottom end than the Baldwin but man was it sweet through the midsBig Smile Very nice job on that rebuild and for sure worth 5 bones any day O' the weekYes

Tim,

I haven't heard the Onix, but wouldn't quibble with your take on the Baldwin. The mids are definitely there.

The Baldwin has got some substantial cool factor at 50. Reminds me of an old car that one wouldn't expect to run well but takes off like a bat out of umm heck.

The baldwins mids and highs are dreamy. The bass is just a little shy of the Onix. The Onix can run 6L6 but I have it running 350B and some primo mullard preamp tubes but not sure what is in the Bladwin. It would have been more interesting 6L6 vs 6L6. It was not a trouncing but rather just a difference in the bass. I had just listened to two heavy bass and vocal cds back to back to compare. The bass on the onix was better but I did slightly prefer the mids of the baldwin. If I hadn't had a direct comparison I may not have noticed. The baldwin is a killer deal IMO. It is heavy and looks cool.

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Ol' Jim scores a reasonable high power push pull amplifier before me. (Or one that actually works ;) Now I feel poor.

That's ok....I got my Altec 345A 60 watt push pull amp sitting here waiting to be rebuilt. I have 98% of the parts, and just ordered a quad of EL-34. Now if I can just get the gumption to finish it.

Nice organ amp, BTW.

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Thanks bsam and Mike for the kind words.

With 28 watts (as opposed to my SET's 6.5Wpc) driving my 97dB efficient RB-75s, it's definately more than reasonable high power for my needs (even with pipe organ music)! But 60Wpc from your yet-finished Altec is even better, me thinks.

Now get the gumption to work on it, Mike!

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  • 2 years later...

Here I am resurrecting an old thread because I have also resurrected an old dead amp...

Some of you may remember me as jt1stcav's "little bro". Well about 6 months after this thread, the 3-section can caps in the Baldwin amp died, leaving Jim high and dry, which is why he went and got the Sansui receiver he uses now. Our father is still too busy with his own work to take a look at the Baldwin, so I figured I'd take a stab at it since my father's old Technics SU-8099 just died on me a couple months back.

As of right now, I have gone through the entire amp checking all the caps and resistors. I have disconnected the can caps (keeping them in place) and have soldered in new electrolytics, two pairs of 47uF - 450v filter caps for the power supply and one pair of 47uF - 160v caps for the cathode bias circuit.A couple of the Chinese 6L6GC that came with the amp were super noisy, so I replaced them with a prime matched quad of Russain 6N3C-E mil-spec tubes. I'm still using the RCA 5751 drivers, and have replaced one noisy GE 5U4GB with a NOS Sylvania 5U4G.

At this point, the amp sounds and performs better than ever. Here's one quick pic of the amp now and one of the guts. It's been running flawlessly for more than a month now! I'll add a bit more info and pics in a little bit...

p1011954533-4.jpg

p33455394-4.jpg

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chops

what the heck you been up to. I thought about you the other day when contemplating some dipole speakers........I think you had some for a while.

I did, but they were so massive, I got rid of them and went with "normal" speakers. Now I have a pair of mint NHT 2.9's.

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