Magnavox 1ST294A

[thaxman]

Wife found this smaller Maggie at a local thrift store. SHE wanted to possibly gut it and transform it into a file cabinet (didn't tell me until after it came home). I went back to look at it and wasn't sold on it until I pulled the back off and saw a tube amp.
$15, but maybe I could have talked them down some if I tried. Ah, its OK. So for the questions:

#1 tone arm is broken clean off, BUT I have been holding on to my Imperial Macromatic turntable although it seems to have some damage in the cart area (I know very little of these things so far). Can I take the needle or cartridge out of this tone arm and put it in the Imperial, AND will the Imperial fit in this cutout?
#2 These things really are kinda obsolete in today's world without AUX inputs. Is there a way to insert some type of preamp or input switch somewhere between the tuner/preamp and the amp? I would prefer something flat-ish so I could insert it over the left channel and have it look fully integrated.

 

[gadget73]

I believe all of those Collaro changers drop into the same hole.

The cartridge also likely will swap, if its any good. The rubber bits on those tend to fail with age, so you may have another dud on your hands. I would change the needle at an absolute minimum. If the cartridge is dead, try Gary at thevoiceofmusic for a replacement.

If there are no aux input jacks on the tuner, you can probably switch the phono input to an external jack. Ceramic cartridges are effectively line level, so an ipod or cd player or whatever will work into that input. That would leave the volume controls in place. Switching directly into the amp would work but you would need something with a volume control to make it useful.


I'm guessing you've already heard the standard bits about replacing caps in the amp and speakers and all that to make it work right, so I'll save the spiel

 

[thaxman]

I believe all of those Collaro changers drop into the same hole.

The cartridge also likely will swap, if its any good. The rubber bits on those tend to fail with age, so you may have another dud on your hands. I would change the needle at an absolute minimum. If the cartridge is dead, try Gary at thevoiceofmusic for a replacement.

If there are no aux input jacks on the tuner, you can probably switch the phono input to an external jack. Ceramic cartridges are effectively line level, so an ipod or cd player or whatever will work into that input. That would leave the volume controls in place. Switching directly into the amp would work but you would need something with a volume control to make it useful.


I'm guessing you've already heard the standard bits about replacing caps in the amp and speakers and all that to make it work right, so I'll save the spiel

Concerning an AUX input, on this unit, it appears that the table is always "at-the-ready" and turning it on turns the amp on too. I'll have to investigate that some more, but if that's the case, will I have to run the table in order to use outside inputs or is there some kind of workaround?

As for the caps, I think this one will be in need: It sounded darn right AWFUL for about a minute until the amp warmed up. My first tube amp, so IDK if that is normal or not.

 

[wa2ise]

That looks like a 8601 style single ended pentode amp, and those sound really good once restored.

 

[thaxman]

Haven't made any progress yet....
was wondering if I could use a little 2 or 3-source mixer could be used between the phono and the tuner/preamp. I still can't visualize how to switch the unit on to receive an outside input without turning the turntable on. Any ideas? I suppose it will be possibly a switch somewhere between the tuner and the turntable that will send signal back without actually turning the table??

 

[cademan]

The turntable switch itself turns the tuner and amp on when in the phono position.

Look at your 5th picture of the wiring diagram. The two green & black wires coming from the tuner to the turntable are the RCA jacks where you would pull them out and plug them directly into a tape deck or CD player.

The next wire is the power cord which supplies the power to the turntable's motor and also powers up the amp & tuner. This will usually be a 3 or 4 wire connector which also connects directly to the OFF/ON/REJ selector switch on the turntable itself.

What you need to do is to find the schematic (I know they are floating around here somewhere), and it will show you which two wires you would need to connect together to get the tuner and amplifier to power up in the phono position. This would then allow you to power up the unit without using the turntable.

It's easy for me to figure out which wires are needed to be connected together but its not easy to explain it over the internet especially if you are a novice in this sort of thing.

The reason they designed the turntable to turn everything on when in the phono position is to act like a sort of sleep timer. You would stack records on the spindle, turn on the record player and it would play through the entire stack, and then it would automatically turn everything off.

Hope some of this helps.

 

[thaxman]

No prob cademan, that makes sense. Would it be logical to conclude that those 2 wires: hot + return, can be switched then? Maybe then even run into a switched outlet that can be used to turn on the <insert preamp receiver of choice here> unit so that it doesn't need to be powered on manually in order to run a CD or digital media device such as an iPod or PC input?
I dug in there over the weekend, but found that the RCA inputs into the tuner were not accessible from the back of the unit unless I was Plasticman, but I later realized I could just unplug them from the turntable to test out the digital media input idea and run a double-female interconnect to I could still use a 1/8" jack. Maybe I'll get to that soon, but I am making progress on my SS Maggie modernization so this has been sidelined.

 

[thaxman]

Well, I decided to go a different path. I would like to take the Astro-Sonic and Imperial Micromatic and put them in this cabinet and sell it off while the whole MCM thing is still hot.
My last image up above shows the speakers that this unit came with. Will they be compatible with a SS amp and what I expect is higher output?