very clean collection!! I forgot I have a few mono tubers in the basement, now I need to go try to dig them out!!
Mono - can we talk mono?
- Thread starter jobrewer1983
- Start date
very clean collection!! I forgot I have a few mono tubers in the basement, now I need to go try to dig them out!!
Oh yea, I’ve been looking into various guitar and also organ amps as well. A few I’ve been considering trying and converting them into little mono rigs. They are a lot of fun!
model300
pretty good to 15 khz
I'm enjoying this thread while listening to the Eico HF-22 and HF-65 that my dad put together way back when in high school. In the many decades since it had become a corroded, chewed on mess. Now thanks to an amp builder friend here in Corvallis it has fresh / NOS tubes installed, a thorough cleaning and repaint, and capacitors replaced as needed. I love the way it looks and plays and it also turns out to run much quieter than I expected -- I would almost call it silent. Main thing for now is that the preamp needs some feet!
I had been thinking that a single, older and more efficient speaker would probably work the best. The jukebox sound, but a bit more hi-fi or whatever. However after hooking up my pair of Boston Acoustics A200s on the same 4 ohm lug and seeing from this thread that others do the same, I'd say that as far as pleasant listening goes the pair of 80s speakers does just fine.
Not that I have anything against stereo but for all the reasons already articulated it really is interesting to try a change. Mono is the great leveller and it definitely makes me more interested in my older records and 45s. I do see that I will need the independent stereo couplers with resistors before summing channels from tape and CD which fortunately I haven't yet.
A recommendation for where to find a mono stylus that would fit one or another of my Shure cartridges would certainly be appreciated. I have the m75, m91, and v15ii bodies so perhaps the same stylus (n75-1?) would fit all three. Not a heavy stylus for 78s but 1-3 grams for "microgroove" era LPs. As far as what the difference would be sonically I would just be curious to hear it.
I had been thinking that a single, older and more efficient speaker would probably work the best. The jukebox sound, but a bit more hi-fi or whatever. However after hooking up my pair of Boston Acoustics A200s on the same 4 ohm lug and seeing from this thread that others do the same, I'd say that as far as pleasant listening goes the pair of 80s speakers does just fine.
Not that I have anything against stereo but for all the reasons already articulated it really is interesting to try a change. Mono is the great leveller and it definitely makes me more interested in my older records and 45s. I do see that I will need the independent stereo couplers with resistors before summing channels from tape and CD which fortunately I haven't yet.
A recommendation for where to find a mono stylus that would fit one or another of my Shure cartridges would certainly be appreciated. I have the m75, m91, and v15ii bodies so perhaps the same stylus (n75-1?) would fit all three. Not a heavy stylus for 78s but 1-3 grams for "microgroove" era LPs. As far as what the difference would be sonically I would just be curious to hear it.
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You need a mono cartridge, not stylus. GE VRII are inexpensive and great, a good place to start...
model300
pretty good to 15 khz
GE VRII pulls up some great sounding systems on youtube... that would be the real deal all right. But it would probably want an older turntable/tonearm, not that I wouldn't enjoy owning one. For now I have the Dual 721, 1229 and a Thorens TD-147 to work with. That makes sense that it's the mono cartridge that makes the difference versus just bridging the two stereo channels together, and the "mono stylus" is just whatever stylus goes with it. Aside from on a school record player I don't think I've ever heard one. Thanks for the info, more reading yet to do.
jeb98
Well-Known Member
Super cool Newcomb! Is it actually a stereo unit? Does it have two output transformers? My Califone is not stereo but you can also attach two speakers to it, that might explain why the stereo cartridge didn't sound it's best? But the GE VRII has many fans too. I had one Califone unit which had the GE VR1 I believe.
Thanks, Jeb. Mine is a mono unit, the TR-1640M. TR = Transcription, 16 = capable of playing 16" transcription records, 40 = peak watts, and M = magnetic cartridge. Newcomb did make a stereo model in the same era as mine, the TR-1656M. The Pickering 380, though a sweet sounding cartridge, just didn't have the punch of the GE-VRll on this particular unit, most likely due to it's lower output voltage. The GE puts out about 22 mv where the Pickering puts out about 15mv.
setup1
Super Member
DIY mono preamp, SE46 amp > GE A1-400 co-ax speakers
Got the HF-14 going, needed to jump pin 6&7. Fired right up. Sounds really nice as well. Gonna clean it up install a new power cable and a new RCA Jack.
Next one up for some little upgrades
Was able to set the voltage to 120, and swapped in a new power cable.
Was able to power it up for a few hours yesterday. Had it connected to a speaker but didn’t play any music through it yet. The volume pot was really dirty, needed some F-100, needs another spray. Still has some static in it.
need to install the RCA Jack, and some speaker terminals. After that some new caps and a nice cleaning and mounting some large solid aluminum feet on this bad boy.
This unit needs new pots, they are shot to hell. I also drilled through one trying to get it open. Was able to get some spray in it but I think someone over cranked them at one point in time, they arrived super crunchy. Found the specs of the original pots, I can find replacements so should be a simple fix only need 2 pots.
as is it’s playing music, just has a lot of static when the pots are adjusted. SQ is nice though, I also have the cage for it. Rather happy to have this one, they are kinda rare.
Patrician? Imperial?