CoastinHome
Well-Known Member
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 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