Ampex signature console on that auction site, new jersey area heads up!!!! Garrard 301?

Well that takes the mystery out of where this Signature went! I saw the eBay ad when it was posted and immediately recognized the Garrard 301 - though I'm still learning about what makes this turntable so special. What a find!

I was unrealistically considering having it shipped to San Diego. I called around to see what it would take for "white glove" palleting and shipment across the country. It would've been about $700. That might've changed when they realized how much this console weighs. I found all the specs except the weight. Still curious what it weighs but if I was to move one on my own I would probably pull the drawers with the turntable and tape deck and pull the amplifiers out first. Fortunately the buyer used "Buy it Now" before I complicated my life even further and had some explaining to do.

I had been eyeing a nice (8002) Signature here in the Orange County California area for quite some time but after seeing this one with the Garrard 301and Stephen's Trusonic speakers I kind of lost interest. This is the only one I've seen with the Garrard 301, but it appears to have been an option - and I seem to recall it was not a very expensive upgrade relative to the cost of the console. I think it was another hundred dollars. The 8002 had the RC 88, Ampex 2x12" on each side, and had the tuner without the multiplexer.

I've wanted one since the one at "New Unto Others" in Los Angeles (Model 8102) was parted out last year after I was short of the $1200 needed at the time. Immediately afterward I started seeing the components selling on eBay. The preamp sold immediately for $700. The amplifiers needed recapping. I don't know what became of them. For some reason the Stevens Trusonic 15FRs were not physically matching - they are still on eBay to this day. I think the 80FR's were also unmatching. It had an Ampex 1250 deck filled with Sonotone tubes and had a Garrard RC 88 turntable, the tuner with the multiplexer unit and all the books and manuals. If the Ampex 1250 deckwas original then this would be a 1961 or 1962 model. I ended up driving to Los Angeles from San Diego for the mostly empty cabinet that had been sitting outside for several days.

Last year I completely scraped the cabinet to bare wood, fixed all the veneer and replaced the tired varnish finish with a nice mahogany stain. The cabinet is gorgeous now - though it was a bit of effort to repair the damage it received between New Unto Others and the buyer's residence. The cabinet in the unit's heritage was meaningless to the buyer. I'm still unfinished with the doors after having trouble with staining them - as they appear to be different wood. Almost all of the cabinet is walnut veneer. The doors are something more like Hickory. They previously matched because of the solid color stain but just don't seem to want to absorb the transparent stain - and look kind of purple. I will probably end up putting walnut veneer on the door frames.

Of course it's far too late to keep it original, but I plan to maintain the essence of it. it'll be a great cabinet for some of my favorite vintage equipment that's been covered up for years. As much as I hate to put a top-notch turntable in a console drawer - it seems like it would help keep the vintage flavor and that of a high-end console. I will probably end up with the Thorens TD 121 turntable with SME 8002 series 2 arm and Dianix moving coil cartridge in the drawer. I have a Marantz 7 to fill where the preamp and tuner are missing after making a new faceplate. I found a really clean Ampex 958 (same as the 960 only in brown) for the drawer - what sounds like what you have on the one from New Jersey. The Stevens Trusonic and Electrovoice T-35 speakers are gone but the interesting thing is that with the speaker panels removed the enclosure widths are exactly that of 19" rackmount equipment. So without the speakers it leaves a lot of room for rackmount equipment. With the center door open everything looks vintage with the feel of original. Behind the side doors where the speakers were I will put power conditioners, an active tube crossover and the needed array of amplifiers, a DAC etc.

Lot of words but if there's any interest I will share what this looks like when it's done.

I'm interested in learning anything I can about the Ampex signature units and all their different variations.

This one is badged as a model 8102 - perhaps from 1961. The speaker panel appears to have been machined for the Ampex bullet tweeters and then factory retrofitted for the EV T-35's. I have another pair of speakers that have the same retrofit configuration. They were actually custom-made years ago by a clockmaker who rescued an abandoned signature console and made a pair of speaker cabinets for the original driver panel and speaker grill. These have the Ampex midrange and 2-12 inch Ampex drivers. I haven't measured to see whether he maintained the original enclosure volume but it looks pretty close. He didn't use any of that fiberglass wool and silica when he built these. I will fill them with the original material from the other cabinet as soon as I get some of the proper mesh to protect the back of the driver. Then hopefully these will be better sounding speakers. Perhaps they need to be mated to those EL 34 amplifiers to shine but they're not on the level of stickers I prefer to listen to. I wonder how those Stevens Trusonics sound.

When I can make the room for them I have a pair of Sequerra MET7's sevens and 8W woofers that I would like to use with this system.

Tell me about your Signature...

Bob in San Diego
 
I know this thread is a few years old, but I am hoping someone can help me with information regarding the crossovers used in the Ampex consoles and their application. I have collected a few of the amps and speakers over the years and am now trying to put to use a pair of crossovers which I think is from a Signature console. I know the amps were all 16 ohm output, but I am not sure which crossovers were used with which amp and speaker combo? I have several crossovers for a three way set up but some are larger with more coils that the others. Can someone fill me in on which crossover was used with the two 12" woofers?
Thanks in advance.
 
I'm away from home for a couple of weeks but will be glad to snap a picture of the inside of my Signature cabinet upon my return. Mine has two 12" Ampex drivers, a single 8" Ampex JBL style driver and an EV T-35 tweeter on each side. Everything is original except the damping material which had been removed by a prior owner.

Maybe you can answer my question: What acoustic material was originally used in the above cabinet? I have two surprisingly heavy bags of the fiberglass wool and silica mix that was salvaged from a parted Signature which originally utilized 15" Trusonic woofers, 8" Trusonic 80FR Full Range drivers and the T-35. The 12" drivers have gauze in place to keep damping material out of the drivers -- so I'm guessing the box was stuffed.
 
Can someone fill me in on which crossover was used with the two 12" woofers?
Ampex used the same crossover for their three-way systems with 15" woofers as they did for their three-way systems with two 12" woofers. Of course there may have been production changes to accommodate the many different driver configurations that these consoles went through in their few years of production. The first photo below is from an 8202 w/ Altec 15" / EV 8" / EV T-35 -- but the identical crossover with the identical values is used in an earlier Signature with Ampex 12" + 12" / Ampex 8 / EV T-35.

The input is the two open lugs at the forefront of the picture; "+" is on the left. The woofer connections are directly opposite that on the board. The two wires go to an Altec 803B 15" woofer in the 8202. Note the yellow jumper between the unused lugs. When used with the 12" + 12" Ampex configuration the woofers are connected to each outside pair to wire them in series.

A while back someone posted pictures on Audio Asylum of a (likely very early) 2 x 12" Ampex configuration using a four-way crossover with five inductors and the same unidentified dome tweeter used in some of their other consoles. In fact, it appears that most (if not all) of the Signature baffles were originally cut out for this dome tweeter, and later retrofitted with a plywood filler panel (early ones overlaid, later ones flush or angled) for the EV T-35 tweeter.

Pictures two and three are of the four-way crossover and dome tweeter installation. Another notable difference between this configuration and my 12" + 12" configuration is the different installation of the dampening material. Mine has open cloth mesh over the back of the speakers to keep the loose dampening material out of the speakers. It appears that mine had at one time been packed with a surprisingly heavy combination of what appears to be glass wool and sand. (I had asked about in a previous post before discovering that small remnant of what appears to be the same as was used in the cabinet shown in the fourth picture.)

Hope this helps.
 

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I've got a new to me Ampex Console recently acquired off CL.

It has the 6973 mono blocks.

I am going to crack open the speaker backs in the next week....so will start a thread and post some pics.

Console has the separate Tuner and Preamp...and a RTR. No Turntable.
Plus, mine has a multiplex unit installed. So I'll take pics of that and how it is mounted.
 
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