A huge element of this story involves when it took place. As a result, those of all ages who are new to this hobby may find it enlightening. For those of us who were really part of vacuum tube audio at the time will remember all too well........
1993: I was given a beautiful brown face LK-72 by a friend. In addition to the typical problems that nearly 20 years of constant use followed by a decade of no-use storage creates, it had an elephant sized problem. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
1983: It was summertime, out in the GA country. A house was being built, and the roof decking had just been finished. The contractor wanted some tunes. Some good tunes. He brings his prized LK-72 that his dad gave him, a tape deck, and some speakers to the job site. The closest neighbor was a couple miles away. The perfect setting to let 'er rip! He asks his handyman buddy to run a makeshift power line from the temporary power pole over to where the Scott is set up and ready to go. He plugs the Scott in first and turns it on, which immediately pops the Scott's fuse rather violently, and produces a dull thud from under the unit. Replacement fuses gave no satisfaction. That's what happens when an LK-72 is plugged into 220 vac........ After the anger and emotions faded, the unit was stored hoping it could be fixed someday, but was ultimately forgotten about.
1993: I had come to know the contractor through work, and through that relationship, he learned of my love for vacuum tube audio gear. The story of the Scott's demise 10 years earlier came out. By then it was a muffled laugh and shake your head story, but he was moving and asked me if I wanted it........
At the time, vacuum tube power transformers were hardly available from Scott (who by then was gone anyway), or the local electronics part house, and the idea of finding a suitable junker/donor unit was truly pie in the sky stuff. What remained of this gear was still stored up in the attics or out in the barns and garages of The Greatest Generation, because they threw nothing away, and had long ago forgotten what all they had to boot.
Even though time would show that there was quite a stockpile of this gear waiting to be dug out of these hiding places, at the time, there was simply no way to find it: In 1993, there was no Internet, no eBay, no Craig's List, and no main line audio magazines anymore, either. At best, all we could do was check with the few remaining (but quickly disappearing) TV repair shops in existence, Good Will (who usually deemed whatever they did get worthless, and so discarded it), attend whatever hamfests we could, or place want ads in the back of Audio Amateur magazine that we sent in and received by snail mail. On top of that, GA was hardly a mecca of high quality audio gear either, so any real chance of finding any of this kind of equipment down here was exceedingly small, and that's being optimistic.
To make matters worse, when I got the Scott, one of the output tubes had gone to air, two had no getter left, and the one remaining one tested weak. So did the two 7199s. In 1993, I would have had better luck finding a suitable kidney replacement than either of these tube types. And a matched quad which the Scott required? Surely you're joking! Remaining NOS tubes were scattered hither-tither in hidden away tube caddies, just like the equipment itself was. Russia had no inkling of what a 7591 or 7199 was (when they did, they never did get the last one right), and there were virtually no tube vendors in business at the time, either. In 1993, this thing was a darn good looking door stop, with almost no hope for repair. Except, that's not the end of the story..........
1993: I was given a beautiful brown face LK-72 by a friend. In addition to the typical problems that nearly 20 years of constant use followed by a decade of no-use storage creates, it had an elephant sized problem. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
1983: It was summertime, out in the GA country. A house was being built, and the roof decking had just been finished. The contractor wanted some tunes. Some good tunes. He brings his prized LK-72 that his dad gave him, a tape deck, and some speakers to the job site. The closest neighbor was a couple miles away. The perfect setting to let 'er rip! He asks his handyman buddy to run a makeshift power line from the temporary power pole over to where the Scott is set up and ready to go. He plugs the Scott in first and turns it on, which immediately pops the Scott's fuse rather violently, and produces a dull thud from under the unit. Replacement fuses gave no satisfaction. That's what happens when an LK-72 is plugged into 220 vac........ After the anger and emotions faded, the unit was stored hoping it could be fixed someday, but was ultimately forgotten about.
1993: I had come to know the contractor through work, and through that relationship, he learned of my love for vacuum tube audio gear. The story of the Scott's demise 10 years earlier came out. By then it was a muffled laugh and shake your head story, but he was moving and asked me if I wanted it........
At the time, vacuum tube power transformers were hardly available from Scott (who by then was gone anyway), or the local electronics part house, and the idea of finding a suitable junker/donor unit was truly pie in the sky stuff. What remained of this gear was still stored up in the attics or out in the barns and garages of The Greatest Generation, because they threw nothing away, and had long ago forgotten what all they had to boot.
Even though time would show that there was quite a stockpile of this gear waiting to be dug out of these hiding places, at the time, there was simply no way to find it: In 1993, there was no Internet, no eBay, no Craig's List, and no main line audio magazines anymore, either. At best, all we could do was check with the few remaining (but quickly disappearing) TV repair shops in existence, Good Will (who usually deemed whatever they did get worthless, and so discarded it), attend whatever hamfests we could, or place want ads in the back of Audio Amateur magazine that we sent in and received by snail mail. On top of that, GA was hardly a mecca of high quality audio gear either, so any real chance of finding any of this kind of equipment down here was exceedingly small, and that's being optimistic.
To make matters worse, when I got the Scott, one of the output tubes had gone to air, two had no getter left, and the one remaining one tested weak. So did the two 7199s. In 1993, I would have had better luck finding a suitable kidney replacement than either of these tube types. And a matched quad which the Scott required? Surely you're joking! Remaining NOS tubes were scattered hither-tither in hidden away tube caddies, just like the equipment itself was. Russia had no inkling of what a 7591 or 7199 was (when they did, they never did get the last one right), and there were virtually no tube vendors in business at the time, either. In 1993, this thing was a darn good looking door stop, with almost no hope for repair. Except, that's not the end of the story..........
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