Any Southwest Technical Products Builders/ Owners Out There?

[Pete B]

It is really unfortunate that the site is down, I enjoy the old memories when
visiting historical pages. Someone should bring it back perhaps on wikipedia.
It would be nice to have separate listings for audio and computer.

 

[Pete B]

Michael Holley put a lot of work into that site does anyone know if he is okay?

 

[rickl]

Seems the 198/A used 4 of the 195 preamp boards to provide a HiFi preamp, not sure if there ever was a construction article for it.

I found a construction manual for a 198/A in my 275 notes. I must have made a copy of the manual when I fixed one for a friend (in the 70s).

 

[jimbo2k]

The 198a preamp sounded really good, but suffered from poor switches. Bass and treble controls by pushbuttons?

 

[rickl]

snapped a pic of my 275 while doing a power amp shoot out. Only the Hafler and the Tigers had speaker binding posts. This made swapping in different amps a huge pain in the *ss.

 

[forsgren]

I found a construction manual for a 198/A in my 275 notes. I must have made a copy of the manual when I fixed one for a friend (in the 70s).

rickl, would you be willing to share your manual? I am slowly working my way through the 198/A.

 

[rickl]

Sure. I'l try to scan it in tomorrow.

 

[forsgren]

Looking forward to getting this working! Thanks in advance!

 

[d sharka]

It appears that Mike Holley's page has been moved to this location:
https://deramp.com/swtpc.com/
I think it is the same info from the Wayback Machine Archive.

 

[RobMcCall]

I built a pair of 207/A’s. To this day they are the best or at least as good sounding as any amps I have owned, including one high-end Sanyo and another Macintosh. They have better damping and are less muddy sounding than many other amps I have built or purchased. The biggest drawback to the Southwest technical products, as I recall is that they lacked some of the bells and whistle‘s that most of us appreciate, For example, turning on a 207/A always produces a bit of a thump in your bass speaker. No delay relay or circuitry. I cannot identify with the comments about fire or overheating. I ran these amps at high and medium power for many years and never had a problem. The problem may have arisen with how well they were built. Recently I pulled these out of storage, replaced the large electrolytic capacitors just for good practice, and drove my two Wharfdale‘s with them. The sound was very rewarding. I love these amps. One can only imagine what kind of products they would be producing today if they had stayed in business.

 

[rickl]

I ran these amps at high and medium power for many years and never had a problem.

we used to use a window box fan to keep them from over heating and shutting down at frat parties. seemed to work.

I pulled these out of storage, replaced the large electrolytic capacitors just for good practice.

I thought the Mallory PS caps were the weakest part of the amp. I was always replacing them.

I too recently recapped the amps and thought they sounded fine.

 

[audiomaniac2]

Here is a Universal Tiger amp I built from scratch in 1977. I used way more caps than called for in the power supply. I had a big transformer that was two high of voltage so I used a variable xfmr in the primary to lower the output voltage of the main xfmr. I used a 25 amp bridge rectifier. It was a really good sounding amp.I was 22 when I built it. Being bored one night , I decided to crank up the voltage on the power supply to see what would happen. I found out. The amp did not like it and blew out. I shelved it.
I still have it and checked it out around a year ago.I found that all the transistors are still good It just took out a few of the caps on the amp board and I think a resistor or two. I plan on repairing it and listening to it for old times.
I removed the variable xfmr years ago for another prodject. I have one to replace it.

 

[tarior]

There is something beautiful about an amp built on plywood with masonite circuit boards!

 

[audiomaniac2]

There is something beautiful about an amp built on plywood with masonite circuit boards!

That's a printed circuit board that I eched. I tinned all the copper traces.

 

[llwhtt]

I have a Tigersaurus somewhere in my piles o'crap.

 

[RobMcCall]

we used to use a window box fan to keep them from over heating and shutting down at frat parties. seemed to work.

I thought the Mallory PS caps were the weakest part of the amp. I was always replacing them.

I too recently recapped the amps and thought they sounded fine.

I mostly drove 8 ohm loads, I think that helped with the temperature.

 

[wad0]

If anyone's interested in documentation for the Tiger .01 (AKA 207/A), I have the schematics, chassis wiring diagram, and build instructions (which include the Radio-Electronics March and April 1973 articles). I have two units in very good condition (recently "dusted off" and powered up).

Wow... amazing that this thread which started almost 18 years ago is still active!

Wayne

 

[miniman82]

I meant to reply to this thread ages ago, but here goes.

I acquired a pair of the Tigers that Bob (ohohyodafarted) had removed from the multi amp cabinets he spoke about in a previous post, I welded a chassis for them and bought a large steel cased Freed power transformer to power it. This is the end result, it sounds as good as it looks.

 

[miniman82]

I also have a pair of 210A’s, these have been repaired and are working but I haven’t done anything to beautify the chassis yet. Thinking of using perforated aluminum with a fan to keep those 4 big sand resistors from destroying the boards.

 

[rickl]

amazing that this thread which started almost 18 years ago is still active!

Every time I see a tiger post, I want to pull out mine for a listen. Amazing amps for early 70s.