Magnavox tube preamp questions

bigtuna

AK Subscriber
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Ok just got this is model AMP 165AA , ADVERTIS3D AS A PREAMP, I will be wanting this to take the place of my art dj pre. Ang go to the Maggie 81-01 . Was just so damn clean and cute. It's all orig. Still has all the wife and plugs for the rest of the console, and I liked it because it's without the tuner. 20170817_133549.jpg 20170817_133532.jpg
 
How are you going to power it? It needs the 165AA amp to power it unless you know how to build an external power supply for it. Its also mono so its not going to work with your stereo bi-amp.
 
You don't have to stick solely with Magnavox brand tube preamplifiers. Look at e-bay (no affiliation) and search for "vintage tube stereo preamplifier" and you will get some ideas.
 
With a schematic, power supplies are pretty easy to build. I built one years ago on board my AMP 175 tuner/preamp so I could use it with anything.

Basically a power supply with around 250 to 300 volts will usually run the tuner/preamps without the main amp to power them.

I just used a power transformer out of an old tape machine which had taps for 6.3 volts and 270 - 0 - 270 high voltage with center tap using a spare 6CA4 rectifier tube. I suppose I could have used solid state rectification along with a dropping resistor (no biggie) but I wanted to keep it totally all tube.

Most of those Magnavox tuner/preamps have an on board filter capacitor so your B+ would connect right there. Filament connections are pretty basic.

Or...........find another one of those Magnavox mono preamps and then you would have stereo. Then the only other obstacle would be to find a way to power them separately or from your existing amplifier. Either way, it can be done.
 
Well I should have put some more thought into this before I jumped on it, I'm still very new to the whole tube thing. I think it's more than I'm willing to tackle at this point. I'm just hoping to get my money out of it, I have listed it in bartertown, caveman I appreciate you trying to make suggestions. Thank you.
 
Don't give up. Sell the one you have and look for maybe Magnavox amps just stereo models. Something like the 8800, 185, 175 series of amps.
 
Oh definitely not giving up, I'm having a shitload of fun, I sold mitsu. Lt30. To another a.k member on here. And I would up buying tubes from him for the 81-01 , he told me when I get ready for another project he had other Maggie's he would sell
Had a brain fart, thinking this would work. It just looks so damn cool. , but ya I'm really really happy with the 81-01, it just runs the Yamaha px3 turntable, but I have to use the art pre. With it, I'd just like to find a Maggie tube amp that I can use for a preamp, and get rid of the art pre.
 
You are probably limiting yourself by demanding a Magnavox preamp, I'm all for brand loyalty and making matching sets etc... But I just dont know that there are a lot of worthy contenders for a preamp worth spending $ on from Magnavox... Maybe there are and I just dont know, but didn't they mostly do consoles?

And if thats true, you would probably find more tuner-preamp combos that match to those amps... Still i dont think I would hunt one down, though you probably could score one cheap-ish..

If I could give any advice to a newly indoctrinated tube junkie, it would be to buy something that mostly works, and buy something that other people know about.

I had a shelf full of junk part tubey chassis stuff before I ever passed a signal through anything, lots of stuff like that preamp (yours is beautiful...), but I couldn't get anything to work... Because I didn't know enough about anything...

I finally got a working akai m-8 tape deck and had a succesful dissection of preamp and amp (with the hands on help of a friend)
 
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The hardest thing to do is slow down. I know. I get excited about something, dive in head first, and then find out I didn't know enough to make the right decision.

It is a shame that Maggie is mono pre. She sure is cute.
 
Well I should have put some more thought into this before I jumped on it, I'm still very new to the whole tube thing. I think it's more than I'm willing to tackle at this point. I'm just hoping to get my money out of it, I have listed it in bartertown, caveman I appreciate you trying to make suggestions. Thank you.
If you like the looks and functions on this preamp maybe you should wait a little bit to see another one turns up. A magnetic phono stage can be added by removing an unused spot on the selector switch. Then making a power supply to your needs that is somewhat over engineered would be a nice project. Power supplies are always a good learning project
 
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