Fairchild amplifier owners

radioactive

radioactive

tube gear fanatic
Hi everyone,in my never ending quest for information on fairchild i want to conduct a survey of those of you that own fairchild amplfiers particullary the 255, 255a and 260 as it seems that these came as kits.it seems that all the early 260 amplifiers ive seen with the foil design have no serial numbers.so please post if your early 260 has a serial number or not(no need to post the serial number if you dont want to but i collect them for informational purposes )the same goes for any other fairchild amp 255 or 255a.
 
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I own a pair of 260 amp's (The Raymond Loewy golden foil sticker version) with serial # 575 and 618.
I don't think Fairchild ever offered their amps in kit form and have never seen any ad in old Hi-Fi mags or Fairchild litterature showing Fairchild kits. I've seen a couple of times bare 255 chassis (without stickers or markings) and matching transformers sets listed on eBay but these were not complete kits and looked more like factory surplus/unused parts.
AFAIK, the only Hi-Fi item ever offered by Fairchild in kit form was their 440 turntable, re-named 440-2K. (I know this because I have the original asembly manual)
 
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Tubologic, Fairchild did offer their amps in kit form, because there was a tech in Rolla, Missouri who had about 15 pairs of 255s that were unbuilt kits. I knew a mentor who built both a 260 and a 275 from kits. The 412-4ED at one point could be purchased as an aftermarket retrofit kit, as well as the factory assembled. The factory assembled version cost $7 more.
 
sheltie dave said:
Tubologic, Fairchild did offer their amps in kit form, because there was a tech in Rolla, Missouri who had about 15 pairs of 255s that were unbuilt kits. I knew a mentor who built both a 260 and a 275 from kits. The 412-4ED at one point could be purchased as an aftermarket retrofit kit, as well as the factory assembled. The factory assembled version cost $7 more.
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Thanks Dave for clearing that up and you beat me to it.
Tubelogic,
You made reference to never seeing anything advertised in kit form from any of the old magazines such as hifi, audio or such and either did I.Fairchild never did to much advertising for their home hifi gear in any of the magazines let alone mention of kits yet they did have them .
I knew the 255 was offered as a kit but never knew the 260 was also.I can't find a single 260 first production run with a serial number yet
 
radioactive said:
Thanks Dave for clearing that up and you beat me to it.
Tubelogic,
You made reference to never seeing anything advertised in kit form from any of the old magazines such as hifi, audio or such and either did I.Fairchild never did to much advertising for their home hifi gear in any of the magazines let alone mention of kits yet they did have them .
I knew the 255 was offered as a kit but never knew the 260 was also.I can't find a single 260 first production run with a serial number yet
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In some of my searches, I've run across a few Fairchild ads. AKer Seti has some posted at his blog: http://www.itishifi.com/search?q=fairchild
 
I checked my 260's, no serial #'s, it has riveted tube sockets,cap mounts, and input jack. No name plate originally updated to the 6CA7 conversion(a long time ago)
 
Chris & Dave, sorry for being contradictive but none of your arguments provides any factual evidence that Fairchild amp kits were actually produced and marketed. Nobody has ever seen one and unless you can show me a picture of a (unbuilt) kit or ANY written reference (ads, reviews, technical papers,catalogs…) or a copy of the assembly manual it remains (afaik) pure speculation. If you can supply any link I gladly stand to be corrected. By “Kit” I mean a complete unbuilt amp with all parts and assembly instructions included, like those offered by Heathkit, Eico,Dynaco,… NOT a small remaining lot of unused N.O.S factory parts put together by “someone somewhere sometime”. And no, retrofitting a 412 turntable with a (assembled) 412ED electronic drive can’t be considered as a kit for me. (the very small difference of only 7$ is the best proof it was NOT a kit, did you ever see how complex a 412ED drive is ?). If Fairchild ever marketed their products in Kit form why would they keep it secret and never advertised or mentioned it in any form or support ? Especially during the period when the Hi-Fi Kit market was at his peak ?
It happens that I am collecting Fairchild gear and all related documents since more than 20 years and have never seen any mention about 255/260/275 amps sold in kit form. Fairchild advertised in many Hi-Fi and Electronics magazines (see link above) and their amps were also reviewed in these mags, but still nothing about kits.
I also checked in my (3) old Annual Electronic Kits Directory where the most obscure brands were listed (ever heard about Erie, Holt, Karlson or Transvision ?) but no trace of Fairchild can be found anywhere… Nothing either in the 1956-1958 Hi-Fi Directory where (assembled) Fairchild amps were listed. Nothing in SAMS Photofacts who usually mentioned both the Kit and Factory model #. NOT A SINGLE PICTURE of a Fairchild amp Kit can be found on the web. Too much "nothings", looks like the best kept secret, quite an unusual marketing strategy for a company like Fairchild... My 15+ years long search on Ebay didn't revealed a single Fairchild amp kit, only a few N.O.S 255 chassis and matching transformers. (not a kit)
Your assumption that (early) 260’s were kits is solely based on the fact that there were no serial # on some but the samples you’re working on are much too small to be statistically significative, or draw any definitive conclusions. Actually, there might be many other reasons for the missing S/N . I can’t explain the missing serial # you noticed on some Fairchild amp’s (all the Fairchild gear I own have a stamped serial # ) but my (educated) guess is that at some point Fairchild considered offering kits but for some reasons never went to the final (marketing) step. It is quite possible that unused chassis/parts were offered to internal employees and later ended on the electronic/surplus market in limited quantities. Or a small company (unrelated to Fairchild) bought all the remaining parts stock and offered partial kits for a short while ? (never seen these either) Or maybe Fairchild stopped producing tube Hi-Fi amps and had extra unused parts in their inventories to clear out ? But all this is unverifiable too and after so many years and all participants gone I’m afraid nobody knows for sure.
I really appreciate all the work you’re doing about Fairchild but to be valid any historical research should contain only factual and well-documented facts. So far, the “Fairchild Kit Story” remains unproven. Keep searching and I’m sure you’ll find something solid at the end to show me I’m wrong.
 
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Tubologic, we don't need to prove you are wrong.

I have seen the decrepit boxes the final pair of Fairchild 255 kits were removed from, by the builder in Rolla. They were not labeled PARTS, they were stamped KIT.

The second reference re the discount for the 412-4ED kit is in my paper files, from personal correspondence between Fairchild to a member of the St. Louis audio society in 1957.

The third reference to the kits came via personal letter from Paul Klipsch to one of my mentors, circa 1960, congratulating him for finishing the 260 kit build, and inquiring if the new K33 woofer was working well.

You are welcome to continue in your belief, and in the interim, we will continue to look for a print ad to satisfy your level of demanded evidence.
 
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Dave, Yes it would be good to have some tangible and dependable informations instead of some old (2nd party) stories and recollections.
Don't want to start arguments but as a Fairchild collector I'm strongly interested to know if they produced amplifier kits or not, but so far I was unable to find any reliable informations to confirm they did. I'm still searching but statements like "I KNOW that"... or '" A friend's friend built one many years ago..." have very little weight to me. OK, call me incredulous. But when you intend to do some historical research work you should be, and cross-check your sources.

As far as the 412ED Retrofit KIT is concerned, it consisted of a fully assembled electronic drive chassis and some accessory parts (knob, wires, hardware, cover plate ?...) needed to mount it in a 412-1 basic turntable. You might do this work yourself (and save 7$) or leave it to your dealer. The (quite complex) electronic drive circuit was never offered in kit form (the price differential would have been MUCH greater). But you may still call it a "KIT" if you are so inclined, after all that's how Fairchild named it. There was also a 440 turntable (440-2K) in kit form, that I'm sure of because I have the original assembly manual and it can also be found advertised in some old mags.
All this to confirm that Fairchild DID actually offered some Hi-Fi kits but these can be traced and documentation/ads can easily be found. And then why nothing about their amp (kits) ?

I think it's quite possible that at some point unbuilt Fairchild amps appeared on the market in kit form but it's very unlikely they were produced by Fairchild. Most likely someone bought the remaining parts stock and made some (semi) kits of them. The fact that they were unlabelled (unbranded) and without S/N tend to support this idea. Most other kit makers (Heathkit, Eico...) had a S/N printed on the chassis or on a sticker. The Fairchild packing box labelled "Kit" would be very interesting to see.
And strangely enough nobody has ever seen a Fairchild Kit amp assembly manual which was of course essential to build the unit.
Again, I have only seen a few (N.O.S) 255 amp chassis offered for sale (unlabelled,with some factory mounted parts and harware) and transformers sets. But no boxes, manual, passive parts... just not what I would call a kit. And absolutely NOTHING can be found about 260's and 275's in kit form...
 
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Harry -- I have not seen any Fairchild circuit that uses any type of output stage cathode feedback via any of the output transformer windings, and their typical driver topology would be very stretched to drive an output stage configured this way as well. Do you know of a specific model using this topology?

Dave
 
Tubologic said:
Dave, Yes it would be good to have some tangible and dependable informations instead of some old (2nd party) stories and recollections.
Don't want to start arguments but as a Fairchild collector I'm strongly interested to know if they produced amplifier kits or not, but so far I was unable to find any reliable informations to confirm they did. I'm still searching but statements like "I KNOW that"... or '" A friend's friend built one many years ago..." have very little weight to me. OK, call me incredulous. But when you intend to do some historical research work you should be, and cross-check your sources.

As far as the 412ED Retrofit KIT is concerned, it consisted of a fully assembled electronic drive chassis and some accessory parts (knob, wires, hardware, cover plate ?...) needed to mount it in a 412-1 basic turntable. You might do this work yourself (and save 7$) or leave it to your dealer. The (quite complex) electronic drive circuit was never offered in kit form (the price differential would have been MUCH greater). But you may still call it a "KIT" if you are so inclined, after all that's how Fairchild named it. There was also a 440 turntable (440-2K) in kit form, that I'm sure of because I have the original assembly manual and it can also be found advertised in some old mags.
All this to confirm that Fairchild DID actually offered some Hi-Fi kits but these can be traced and documentation/ads can easily be found. And then why nothing about their amp (kits) ?

I think it's quite possible that at some point unbuilt Fairchild amps appeared on the market in kit form but it's very unlikely they were produced by Fairchild. Most likely someone bought the remaining parts stock and made some (semi) kits of them. The fact that they were unlabelled (unbranded) and without S/N tend to support this idea. Most other kit makers (Heathkit, Eico...) had a S/N printed on the chassis or on a sticker. The Fairchild packing box labelled "Kit" would be very interesting to see.
And strangely enough nobody has ever seen a Fairchild Kit amp assembly manual which was of course essential to build the unit.
Again, I have only seen a few (N.O.S) 255 amp chassis offered for sale (unlabelled,with some factory mounted parts and harware) and transformers sets. But no boxes, manual, passive parts... just not what I would call a kit. And absolutely NOTHING can be found about 260's and 275's in kit form...
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I'm at a loss as to why such a discussion necessitates this tone or questioning the voracity of a member's claim.
 
sheltie dave said:
Chris, my 260 is #171. I think that would be close to the second month of production for the 260s.
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Thanks Dave ,yours is the first so far with a serial number that I've seen for a early production model.as a side note ive seen ads for the 260 with no decal on the front so I'm figuring the very first ads for the 260 were a picture of the prototype and they hadn't decided on what the emblem would be.
 
Here is a brochure from 1958 and the last half of a paragraph for the 255a amps. No other amps are mentioned. Just cartridges, preamps, and turntables. In case anyone cares.

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The last page of a 411 turntable brochure I have lists 255 and 275 power amps as well as 240 preamp. The 411 came out in very late '56 and was replaced by the 412 by '58. I should add that the brochure copy does not suggest that any plinth was offered, it describes a recommended "mounting board" cut according to supplied template.
 
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