Who is interested in vintage PA equipment (Public Address)

[kevinaston1]

Not quite PA, but one bit of it.

1970's I was working as a keyboard player at a well known holiday camp. My Leslie 760 would blow its HF horn every few weeks. I was speaking to the keyboard player of a visiting band, telling him how clear his Leslie sounded compared to mine, and asked him how many HF units he went through.

He smiled and said you need a Liverpool special horn. I paid him and a week later, I got a package from him. The new horn just fitted into the available space; but what a sound.

No idea of its power rating, but a while later, it had a few weeks mated to a Marshall 200W head, which it handled with no problems.

[cmjones01]

Here's one that got away. I saw this 600W PA amplifier at an art exhibition in Warsaw a few years ago. It wasn't in use other than as an artefact. Manufactured by the "Production works of teletechnical materials" in Warsaw, I managed to find some background information on it on the web, a couple of pages of which I attach. It has 120V or 240V line output, intended I think for local radio programme distribution (like Rediffusion). It has a pair of T150-1 transmitter valves in the output stage, driven by KT66s, curiously. The lower-power stages are all ECH21 and EBL21 - those valves turn up in nearly every bit of post-war Polish electronics. The state valve factories must have specialised in them.

I never had chance to go back to the exhibition and ask where the amplifier came from, and it wouldn't have been easy to accommodate it at home!

Chris

[mole42uk]

Originally Posted by Lucien Nunes

I was hoping it would be. At the moment we are not surprisingly quite focused on amplifiers. Who has examples of PA speakers - both horn and cabinet - and microphones?

I’ve a pair of column speakers, Can’t remember the make but I’ll have a look. ISTR four 8” speakers and a tilt stand……used to have some Shure 57 microphones but long gone.

[Techman]

Originally Posted by Kyri

I also noted your comment about sound city. I remember being a student at school and saved up for an old valve head which cost me £50 or maybe £55 in around 1990, it weighed a ton. I had to take it home on the bus, the bus stops were about a mile from the shop and from my house so I had to take rests, but it made a perfect seat whilst taking those rests.

Some of the EL34's (it had 6 of them) needed replacing.....it was a Sound City 120 Head.

Yes, I've got the one with 6 EL34s and it does weigh a ton - and yes, it would make an ideal stool to take a rest and sit on when stood on its end!

[Techman]

Originally Posted by Valvepower

I’m not sure, but were Colorsound pedals made by Solar Sound?

Yes they were. I've got a couple, bought new by me at the time and still have their original boxes.

There's certainly some wonderful valve PA amplifiers being shown, microphones too!

I was at a rally at the weekend and someone had a stack of three solid state PA amplifiers for sale at a fiver each. I cant remember the make/name, but I think it began with an 'A'. I was there for several hours and walked round a number of times and they were still there unsold. On the last walk round just before I left, one had gone leaving two - I wasn't tempted and was being disciplined in not buying things I don't need.

Below are pictures of my little lot, total outlay on the lot being a couple of quid over several years, as half of it was free

[ITAM805]

I've still got this rather rare 'metal clad' VOX 100 PA from the 1960's that I restored with the help of this forum. It weighs about 17 tons

I also have a "pair" of Marshall 2x10 PA columns from the 60's from my band days - well actually it was originally a 4x10 column that we sawed in half to make two stage foldback monitors

[Hartley118]

As the ice-cream season approaches, it's impossible to ignore a highly current niche application of Grampian horn PA speakers - ice cream van chimes. Originally generated by a Swiss-style music box mechanism with an electric-guitar-style magnetic pickup, the chimes typically use as a speaker the diecast throat section normally found on a Grampian 4-foot horn PA speaker. That short horn throat is normally mounted underneath the van in a position to pick up any mud, salt and debris that the road throws up
Pressure unit drivers are typically TOA brand and amplifier power 30W, though higher powers are available.

Nowadays the chimes are generated electronically, a leading UK brand for the necessary kit being Microminiatures, http://www.microminiatures.com/chimes.html

Interestingly, Microminiatures now even own the diecast tooling for the Grampian horn throat - a self-sufficient PA company in an application regarded by children as a delight, while parents may have different reactions.

Here's a photo of a couple of 'ice cream horns' that I picked up a few years ago.

Martin

[Pamphonica]

Well, spurred on by this fascinating thread, I got an unusual piece of 1954 Pamphonic PA equipment running for the first time:
https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...40#post1468440
Wonderful!

[Stevie342000]

I have two Vortexion PA No.1 amplifiers one of which has an open primary (on my to do list). I bypassed the tone controls and went straight in on the potentiometer wiper with an ETI Hybrid Valve Preamplifier.

Used it with an Ortofon Mc10 super, and despite the fact that the manual states it is a PA amplifier it is far better than that, the sound came through form a deadly silence, no hum no hiss.


The manual has the schematic in it as well as a warning from the War Department. The design appears to have been around since around 1937 seen it in old copies of Wireless World.

The feedback is local around the 6V6 output valves (tubes for those overseas). 6Q7s are used in the input which I assume is akin to a 6J5 with a couple of diodes thrown in.

Over 20 years since i used them so have other issues, I did have an issue with one (the one that does not work anymore), there was a loud crackle and then the smell of melting wax. I will get round to repairing it in due course I may need help with the rewind though...…just to check my memory if nothing else. I stopped using both the Preamp and the amplifiers after that...yes I did replace the rectifier.

Would it be worth putting an inline fuse in the HT centre tap to protect both the amplifier and more importantly transformer?

I bought them on the day that New Cross electronics (Mancheter)shut down they had a load more them, its a block of flats now, it was an Aladdin's cave I picked and went in for the ECC88s I needed came out with a Mullard ECC88-01 and I am sure that the other was marked ECC88 - 02 £2 each circa 1992.

[wave solder]

I always think it is bad practice to put a fuse just in the centre tap, for best protection is is best to fit a correctly rated fuse on each end of the winding instead.