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HH Scott Owners Thread

Don, I just read through that thread! Wow!.....what a loss! I'm glad to see there are people with far greater computer skills than I've got that are at least working on the issue. I made a post there and I'll echo it here: This is almost like finding out an old high school friend has passed on!! It's as much 'personal' as it is 'practical'. To be honest, that site has helped me through perhaps 50 or more Scott refurbish/resurrection projects over the past 25 years or so. Earlier this year I kinda decided to wind down my acquisition of Scott stuff, as well as to 'purge' myself of the 40 or more Scott amps I have in my collection. I guess turning 70 kinda makes you re-think your priorities. Anyway, while I'm not planning any new 'Scott' amp projects any time soon, there may still be one or two more in my future....and I hope I can at least find Schematic info when the time comes. Much appreciation to T Bavis and hjames for their efforts!! Tom D.
 
Wharfcreek said:
I guess turning 70 kinda makes you re-think your priorities.
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You're not wrong about that. I have several projects on my plate that I'm having trouble finishing or reworking. It's not a physical thing, I'm just not as attracted to the work as I once was and not overly dissatisfied with the performance of my current system.

Jack
 
I've been 'collecting' projects for decades. These range from the usual stuff to do to my house and property, to electronics stuff, guitar projects, and about a half a dozen motorcycle projects all in disarray. And, I just recently committed to an 'automobile' project, so yet another thing on my plate. All this stuff takes time, and that now seems to be commodity that might be running slim. The projects take away from 'activities', like Fishing, riding the motorcycles vs working on them, travel, and of course, family 'stuff'. Bottom line is that where I used to enjoy working on all this stuff, I'm now more wanting to just sit back and enjoy just 'using' it. Why spend a year or two trying to 'build' a motorcycle, when I can just go ride one of the half dozen I already own? It WAS for the fun of it. Now....not so much. Anyway, I'm not that dissatisfied with the performance of my current system either. After 25 years of swapping stuff around, I guess I should be.
 
Cool thread - I just came back to the forum after a very long time away and will put it on my list to read this one all the way though.

I have this old 340B that was my first exposure to tubes. (the photos below where taken over a decade ago, and its basically still in that condition in a storage closet)

I got it during college in the mid 90s, somebody was literally throwing it out during a move. With the help of an EE undergrad friend we had it up and running (replacing the seleniums and bypassing a fried cap - yeah we didn't know better) for a while but at some point the PS gave up the ghost and its been in storage every since. At times I though of trying to take a crack at restoring it to use as a secondary/shop system, but back in the early 00s I think 7591s where hard to find old stock and replacement knobs didn't exist. Not to mention the twistlock caps. Now I see that there are a couple brands of new production 7591s available and replacement knobs and other parts are all over eBay and even companies making replacement twistlocks to order? I may have to give it another go. ( I restored an MC240 myself, but the Scott is a lot more intimidating !)


Do you guys have recommendations for folks to do tuner alignments on these and/or full restos if I dive in and find out I'm over my head?

IMG_0499.jpg IMG_0500.jpg IMG_0498.jpg
 
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jharkin said:
Cool thread - I just came back to the forum after a very long time away and will put it on my list to read this one all the way though.

I have this old 340B that was my first exposure to tubes. (the photos below where taken over a decade ago, and its basically still in that condition in a storage closet)

I got it during college in the mid 90s, somebody was literally throwing it out during a move. With the help of an EE undergrad friend we had it up and running (replacing the seleniums and bypassing a fried cap - yeah we didn't know better) for a while but at some point the PS gave up the ghost and its been in storage every since. At times I though of trying to take a crack at restoring it to use as a secondary/shop system, but back in the early 00s I think 7591s where hard to find old stock and replacement knobs didn't exist. Not to mention the twistlock caps. Now I see that there are a couple brands of new production 7591s available and replacement knobs and other parts are all over eBay and even companies making replacement twistlocks to order? I may have to give it another go. ( I restored an MC240 myself, but the Scott is a lot more intimidating !)


Do you guys have recommendations for folks to do tuner alignments on these and/or full restos if I dive in and find out I'm over my head?

View attachment 2739625 View attachment 2739626 View attachment 2739627
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Nice example and certainly worth bringing back to life. A plus? You have an HH Scott walnut veneer plywood cabinet. Those missing knob caps can often be replaced/purchased as reproduction and NOS on the auction site. I have used the smaller ones and they are quite adequate. You may even find the NOS large tuning knob there as well.
 
Yeah thanks for the feedback.. It definitely seems like the resources to bring it back are a lot easier to find now than when I first got it... And I'm lucky that the faceplate and glass is clean (or was last time I looked!)... so some new knob brights, a recap and tune up plus some cosmetic cleanup could do wonders.

Not diving into this right away but maybe over the next year or so. It will definitely bring back memories - this was my dorm stereo when I was in school.



BTW, I live < 20 miles from where the old Scott factory was. I know the road it was on but have no idea exactly where the buildings where or if they still exist with other tenants....
 
jharkin said:
Yeah thanks for the feedback.. It definitely seems like the resources to bring it back are a lot easier to find now than when I first got it... And I'm lucky that the faceplate and glass is clean (or was last time I looked!)... so some new knob brights, a recap and tune up plus some cosmetic cleanup could do wonders.

Not diving into this right away but maybe over the next year or so. It will definitely bring back memories - this was my dorm stereo when I was in school.



BTW, I live < 20 miles from where the old Scott factory was. I know the road it was on but have no idea exactly where the buildings where or if they still exist with other tenants....
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If you do the rest and need the tuner aligned, Boston Audio Society - Links Page 7 of 7 There is also Tech HiFi in Hanson Mass. I think tuner alignment on my 387B is like 13 or more pages alone in my service manual.

Last paragraph Maynard Life Outdoors and Hidden History of Maynard: H.H. Scott, Inc., Maynard "Hi-Fi" company
 
jharkin said:
Yeah thanks for the feedback....And I'm lucky that the faceplate and glass is clean (or was last time I looked!)... ....
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Whatever you do, do not use any cleaner on the inside dial glass where the markings are. I cleaned one years ago and found out that HH Scott had used magic disappearing ink on those numbers. Poof!!! Gone.

On tubes, and of course most of the Telefunken tubes were also printed with "Disappearing Ink", you can sometimes get away with using a well used dryer sheet and very, very gently wipe the glass. However, Q-Tips used ultra carefully can also be used. Of course, do any of this at your own risk; as they say, "Your Mileage May Vary!"
 
Don, I'm now working on bringing back to life an old Heathkit AA-100. Maybe similar to a Scott 299C/D -233? Anyway, this amp has a really nice illuminated faceplate with white lettering, but made of acrylic vs glass. I just finished doing the clean-up on it with just warm water and well-diluted dish soap. It turned out spectacularly, which delighted me! But, my point here is that with makers like Scott, Fisher, and even the Lofty McIntosh stuff all doing this disappearing ink on glass stuff, ain't it odd that Heathkit, using cheap plastic, could make a faceplate that still looks like new over 50 years later? Not to mention all those busted up Mac units! Sheesh!!
 
image.jpg Some manufacturers just got it “right”. Perhaps by chance or better engineering, who knows. (Sherwood) Glass dial and seems to be painted letters/numbers, they withstood a heavy cleaning regardless.

Oh here’s my Scott! After all this is a Scott thread!BDAA0414-5F09-4B28-A66E-16BD23EFC893.jpeg Circa1964.
 
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True, so very true. On the bench now is a Kenwood circa 1966 1100u tube receiver, 7591 outputs, 6AN8 driver/phase inverter etc. That dial glass has tough silkscreen numbers. But I was extremely careful. More than one Scott has disappointed me.
 
Wharfcreek said:
I think that's 35ma per tube, not 350ma. I've run plenty of JJ 7591 tubes, and honestly I think the issue with them is more just the luck of the draw as opposed to having to alter the operating points. I have had failures, but i've managed to find a suitable replacement to match up with the remaining set, and that usually solved the problem. And, I think they're getting better, as I've not had one of these failures in a good long time. Not saying its not a good plan to run the bias a bit more on the cooler side, and I do think that will help the overall life of the entire output quad. But i also think that if you've got a 'questionable' tube in there, then its ultimately going to shoot craps regardless of where your bias is set.
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Checking in on the HH Scott thread...

I concur with Wharfcreek. I recently contacted the tech that restored my 380 receiver some years back and he said that the JJ 7951S was pretty much drop in.
He restored the receiver to HH Scott factory specs so no alterations were added.

I recently bought a burned in and matched quad of JJ. They tested fine as drop in.
I swapped out the RCA 7591 quad for the test.
I always use a variable output autotransformer (often called a "Variac", which is a trade name) and adjust the input voltage to the Scott schematics of 117VAC, as KVFlyer already mentioned.

This test does not,however, speak of performance vs NOS or modern TungSol. Just that the JJ work OK. I also concur that it is a matter of good shopping to get a quad that is min 24 hour burned in and carefully matched.
These JJ are just stand by tubes now since the NOS power tubes are fine. THe height fits the factory cabinet. Although the new Tungsol seem closer in height to the NOS.
 
Will need to slide out of the wood case to see. Funny but contemplating taking this over main system as I can never likely find this again. And they are knockout tuners.
 
I'm curious, what is the damping factor of the LK-72 and the 290?
Also curious how much power per channel they output into 16 ohms.
I can't find these specs anywhere.
And what's the input sensitivity and distortion of the 290?
 
Sanfansui said:
I'm curious, what is the damping factor of the LK-72 and the 290?
Also curious how much power per channel they output into 16 ohms.
I can't find these specs anywhere.
And what's the input sensitivity and distortion of the 290?
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Output is the same, speaker impedance doesn’t matter since they have a dedicated tap off the OT. Not like a solid state that changes output to match speakers. I haven’t found a damping factor but it’s likely around 40 as tube amps aren’t nearly as efficient as solid state amps. Not sure of sensitivity but I’ve seen distortion numbers at around 1%, again typical of a vintage tube amp.
 
Sanfansui said:
I'm curious, what is the damping factor of the LK-72 and the 290?
Also curious how much power per channel they output into 16 ohms.
I can't find these specs anywhere.
And what's the input sensitivity and distortion of the 290?
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The LK-72 being the kit form of the 299-C, maybe the 299-C information is out there.
 
Nimbley said:
Output is the same, speaker impedance doesn’t matter since they have a dedicated tap off the OT. Not like a solid state that changes output to match speakers. I haven’t found a damping factor but it’s likely around 40 as tube amps aren’t nearly as efficient as solid state amps. Not sure of sensitivity but I’ve seen distortion numbers at around 1%, again typical of a vintage tube amp.
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Do you mean that the 290 outputs the same power into 8 ohms as into 16 ohms? And similarly for the LK-72?
 
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