!940's Consumer Ampex Transport and Pre-Amp Only?

[Henry Finley]

Im asking this questio on behalf of a friend who is looking at a Magnavox Console Radio/Phonograph from approx 1948, best as I can date it. Unfortunately it has a hacked-in cheesy-looking 1960s-looking turntable. At first I was trying to help him find something like a 1956 Collaro turntable to give him a more plausible match to get rid of that knukleheaded hack job of a crap 1966-looking stereo turntable, and still give him reasonable compatibility to later microgroove 45's and 33's and stereo.
But better yet, since he has a stack of great mono tapes he found at auction, and because the Magnavox is ALREADY hacked up, why not drop in a mono 1940s Ampex transport? Naturally it would need a pre-amp to feed the RCA input jack from te original turntable. I know Ampex stereo gear very well, but none of that 40s and 50s mono stuff. Is there even such a thing? I dont suppose it HAS to be Ampex. But who else? Thank you.

 

[mcgjohn]

Im asking this questio on behalf of a friend who is looking at a Magnavox Console Radio/Phonograph from approx 1948, best as I can date it. Unfortunately it has a hacked-in cheesy-looking 1960s-looking turntable. At first I was trying to help him find something like a 1956 Collaro turntable to give him a more plausible match to get rid of that knukleheaded hack job of a crap 1966-looking stereo turntable, and still give him reasonable compatibility to later microgroove 45's and 33's and stereo.
But better yet, since he has a stack of great mono tapes he found at auction, and because the Magnavox is ALREADY hacked up, why not drop in a mono 1940s Ampex transport? Naturally it would need a pre-amp to feed the RCA input jack from te original turntable. I know Ampex stereo gear very well, but none of that 40s and 50s mono stuff. Is there even such a thing? I dont suppose it HAS to be Ampex. But who else? Thank you.

if you can locate an older pro unit, they were built as MONO tape head preamps, but doubt it would be plug and play, would prob need a lot of work to do what you are thinking.

 

[twiiii]

There is a version of the Ampex 960 from the late 50's that was a 1/2 track mono machine. Then there was a 2 track stagger headed stereo machine. Then came the the version that was 1/4 trk stereo with a playback head shift kit to playback 2 trk stereo tapes..