Another C.E. VII followed me home...........

larryderouin

I'm VERTICAL and Breathing...most of the time.
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A few months ago new member speabody5 announced he had a C.E. VII in a Modern Cabinet and was liquidating his late father's estate and this was part of it. I notified him of interest via PM's and a deal was struck. The plan is to strip my functional but wholly BUTT-FUGGLY cabinet and install my gear into his cabinet. And keep the spare Tuner/preamp/amp /speakers/Turntable and hardware as spares but burn the cabinet.

After a couple of false starts, we finally got together in Va. Bch this morning. The C.E. VII was sitting in the same place (corner of the Dining room) it had been sitting since 1964. Unfortunately no paperwork. No problem. It did come with the 45 spindle, And a Pickering ATE Cartridge. speabody5 stated it had not been used in approx 20 years and his father had told him that it didn't know any of the words (for those who lack a sense of Humor, the Unit HUMS!).

All parts were there and with ambient light all tubes look original. We'll see tomorrow. What I could see were all FISHER branded and either Tele's or Mullards.

The cabinet is flawless, with the exception of a couple of Vacuum cleaner nicks on the front legs. Lettering on the Fascia is totally intact, and all knob brights are present and shiny! The Placard with the tube and wiring diagram on the back is intact as is a placard for changing the dial lamps. This thing looks like it just got delivered from the Factory, it's that good.

It's in the bed of the truck locked up (hard tonneau) with a thick blanket between the cabinet and the tonneau. Pillows front and back with about 1/2" of clearance front and back and less than 1/4" from the tonneau to the front of the unit. It ain't goin anywhere.

Once I get it out tomorrow and in the house, I'll take some pics, before and after dusting/cleaning.

Incidently the deal is once I get it running he wants a movie of it playing some T.J. Brass. So I figured the Whipped Cream Album and the Lonely Bull Album would be appropriate with a little TJ Taxi thrown in for good measure!
 
Congrats Larry! That model holds a special place in my collection. I picked up that exact model in the Richmond VA area a few short years ago and that is the console that sold me on The Fisher mystique. It even came with a Tandberg reel to reel. Can't wait to see your pictures.
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I am. I'm not adding to, I'm replacing with a better example. :D The cabinet on mine is in such lousy shape, it makes sense to get this one, swap the guts, and then overhaul the original guts, and keep them for a spare set. The old cabinet gets cut up for firewood.
 
I just pulled it out of the truck. The following pics are on the porch, and the unit HAS NOT been touched as far as dusting, cleaning, polishing. In the open it exhibits a few very light stains on the top (which will come right out with a cleaning and buffing. (Whaddya expect for 53 years). Otherwise it's in exceptioal condition. It has all of it's original FISHER BRANDED TUBES that I could pull out from the tuner without pulling the tuner (we'll see after I pull the tuner out). Even the output tubes are ORIGINAL FISHER BRANDED 7189's from West Germany. GAWD! I really hope they test well on the Philco. The plan today is to yank out the Tuner/preamp and the amp, and test all of the tubes. Then get inside of at least the amplifier and list all caps and resistors needing replacement, hopefully I'll have enough time today left to do the tuner too.

On to the PIC's

As I picked up! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING DONE TO IT!
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FRONT
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From Left Side
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From RIGHT Side
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CONTROL Compartment
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Another Right Side
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GARRARD AT-6. With Short Spindle in bag, and LRS-6 45RPM Spindle.
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West German 7189 GOODNESS!
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Control Compartment
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Pickering P-AC1 Cartridge. Pure FISHER STUFF!
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I pulled the output tubes and found a pair of FISHER 7189's and a pair of GE 6BQ5's. This correlates with the Original owner's Son telling me he thought a couple of tubes had been replaced. Testing shows;

Testing on the Philco 9100 (a rebadged Hickok 533A) shows;
GM Spec'ed Minimum of 7500. All tubes on Emissions show in the Replace section.
's
The 7189's are shot or very weak. Emissions are deep in the replace side.
#1 3500
#2 6250

The GE 6BQ5's however, show a lot higher,
#3 12500 Emissions at the Replace/ ? border
#4 11000. Emissions about 20% into replace section.

I'll get a quad of EL84M's from Jim McShane
Considering that Hickoks don't test 12xx7 seires tubes accurately, I'll give the tubes the benefit of the doubt and check emissions on the EICO 625. I know where it tests 12ax7's accurately (enough for me anyway.)

The Driver (Tele's) 12ax7's on the Amp; Minimum GM is 1250 for both triodes
#1 "A" Triode 1100 and about 1/3 down on the Replace Section.
"B" Triode 750 and emissions are 60% down in Replace Section

#2 "A" Triode 1000 and 40% into replace
"B" Triode 800 and 60% into Replace
These are probably ok for test mules.

Tuner/preamp tubes (12ax7's) in a bit.
 
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Phono tubes were removed and found to be 1 Sylvania and 1 RCA.

Sylvania tube
"A" Triode . 750 over 1250min and 50% down in Replace
"B" Triode 1150 and 30% down in replace

RCA TUBE
"A" Triode 1000 and 50% down in replace

Single Pre Driver in Preamp. (Tele)
"A" Triode 1400 and 20% down in Replace
"B" Triode 1400 and 20% down in Replace

MPX Tubes (Tele's)
V100
"A" Triode 1000 and 40% down
"B" Triode 1150 and 25% down

V101
"A" Triode 1150 and 25% down
"B" Triode 1200 and 20% down

V102
"A" Triode 900 and 50% down
"B" Triode 1000 and 40% down

So far it looks like the pre driver and MPX tubes are the best of the lot.

I'll do the component swap and see how these stack up to the tubes already in the other unit.
 
Larry;
That is a great looking cabinet! I note that the escutcheon panel on the tuner/preamp has an earphone jack on it. That is a nice feature for listening if the need to listen but not disturb others occurs.

My method of testing tubes is to keep some new or known good ones on hand and swap them out to see it a condition the unit under test exhibits improves. Over the years I developed a distrust of most tube testers. Sometimes I do not have a given tube type and go ahead and order one or two to have some to use for testing. I do have two tube testers, one is an Allied Radio unit and the other is a B&K. The two cover all tube types from the late 1920s to the latest compactrons with some overlap. The B&K is the newest and does not test Loctals and the older types without keying center-pins. The testers are a good way of spotting tubes that are truly weak and ones with shorts though. The B&K is a model 667 and has a test for grid leakage. I use that on power output tubes, leaving them on for 5-10 minutes in order to get an accurate indication whether they have grid leakage.

Joe
 
I've got a EICO 625 which on 12ax7's I know whether they are good or not. It's highly consistant for an emissions only tester. I'm gonna take all the 12ax7's tomorrow and run them thru the 625. Usually on the Philco if one side is lower in gm, it'll show up on the EICO as a lower emissions level. Brand new tubes (both old stock and new stock) consistantly read 62-64 on the 100 scale of the EICO, no matter who made them. I tend to trust it more than the Hickok circuit in the Philco. I will say tho I've compared the Philco to a 533A(which it's a clone of) and the gm readings are consistantly equivalent between the two.

On the time left in the tester, I was taught 5 minutes minimum to allow the tube to heat up and stabilize, before testing. I tend to cut that down to 3-4 minutes anymore but I'm keeping the test button down for 30 seconds to a minute to let the tube to equalize.

As the unit has a demonstrated ORAL HX of HUM, I generally discount putting voltage to it until I've recapped the Mains and coupling caps. Plus for this one I've got an exact model in the bedroom with a crappy cabinet so I'm swapping the guts for a while (this set has been rebuilt within the last 5 years), until I get this one's guts rebuilt. Then swap the units and leave my known good tubes (pretty much all new old stock except for the russian 6p14p-eb's)in the gear in the cabinet.
 
Larry;

Yes, with enough time and experience using a given tube tester you can develop a sense of confidence in its abilities. Glad that you have some dependable ones!

The Garrard AT-60 is like one I bought many years ago. Unfortunately the contacts in the end of the tone arm where the cartridge shell connects went bad and it is a parts unit now. I probably should get another one so I can put together one good one from two faulty units. For the price paid these were very good units, durable and easy to repair in most cases.

Joe
 
Very nice condition. Your test results are why I don't bother to test tubes though. It gets expensive :)
 
Probably the reason for the hum. The smoke residue is greasy which leads me to believe the transformer may possibly be shot. I'll ohm it out, and then open it up later. Right now I'm in process of getting the gear out of both cabinets, and swapped in the cabinets, and cutting up the bad cabinet. The smokey area is confined by the TWO Terminal strips at the bottom of the pics right under the Power Transformer. None of the parts in that area show signs of burning, but the wiring all has some amount of smokey residues.

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hm, is the fuse the right one? I'd expect that to let go before the smoke came out. I have seen incinerated transformers before but only on things with no or very much the wrong fuse.
 
Chassis Marked 3A slo-blo.
Fuse is 3-2/10A Slo-Blo and is intact by 2 meters. It didn't blow for some odd reason.

I swapped out the amps, and all the Signal tubes. 6P14p-EV's and JAN Sylvania 12ax7s with Sovtek 12ax7LPS in Phono's. Ramped up on variac with 100W DBT as tuner hadn't been run in a decade at least. Came right up and no problems. Sounds Really good. AM is pretty much dead on, FM is 1mHz High. Gotta take the tuner out anyway for cleaning and such, so might as well check the alignment.
 
Cool. I like Herb Alpert. Not everyone digs the sound, but I find its a good fatigue test. If something will do horns without making you want to stick your fingers in your ears you got something. The fact that the recordings were well done helps a lot with that of course.
 
The Two of the 3 secondaries are shorted, and fused together. It's a fused and smelly mess inside.
Am on the lookout for a C.E. VII POWER TRANSFORMER now, ( T-963-115) so I can use it either as a spare or as a standalone. If anyone has the specs for it I would appreciate it. Then I could get Heyboer to manufacture one for me.

Larry
 
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