suddenly it was time to go back inside for another 2 hours till it was time to go home. every second felt like a eternaty! -i hate finding a really good lunchbreak score and having to wait hours to play with it *devil* i work in a very busy strip mall and i saw the console threw the front window between the cracks of the blinds, siting under the overhang infront of the office, and in those two hours it got alot of curious lookie loos walking past it, some slowing down looking at it smiling, a few even stopping to examine it. one guy even whipped out his I-phone and snapped a pic of it. i wasnt too worried about anyone hurting it cause it was so beat up and fugly, i was more intrested in trying to find some lunch cause by 6:00pm and having not eaten anything but a single frozen waffle since 9:30am i was absolutly starving, the guy sitting next to me was chowing down on a box of churches chicken inbetween phone calls, and i lloked at him with "poor child starving in africa eyes" and he tossed me 2 pieces of fried chicken, i munched them down in seconds. anyway after what seemed like forever it was FINALLY time to go home and check this thing out. john agreed to drive me and the console home since i only live 2 blocks from the office. -figures the one day i walk to work and not drive my grand cherokee to work i find a big ass console stereo in the trash. *grin* so we loaded the console back into the truck and went to my place. i gave him $15 for gas and his time, sat the console on the patio infront of my apartment and decended into the unknown. my neighbors were outside when i got home and were out smoking blunts and drinking by the pool. -must be nice to not have to work. anyways they are younger like me and are always curious about the strange crap i drag home so they all got out of the pool blunts and beers in hand "whoa dog thats the oldest shit we seen yet" "that shit looks antique! they all said, they all grabbed lawn chairs and sat down to hear about the thing and hear it play, (this is kind of becoming a tradition now. everytime i bring something new home they are home when i do, they all run over like facinated children to a campfire to roast marshmellows and tell ghost stories), and they bring out there CDs and wanna hear there music come out of something old and wierd they never saw or heard of before., so i ran inside and grabbed one of my 5 variacs and a cd player to hook into it, as well as a screwdriver to get inside of the thing. as im hooking up the console to the variac and slowly turning the voltage up they are in the backround making loud buzzing and zapping sounds trying to scare me. "oh shit dawg that bitch is on fire!!" rudy said, chuckling. i got the voltage to 110 and the lights and tubes came on and the console started crackiling to life! they all sat there quiet just waiting to some epic terrible thing to happen, like smoke, flames, blowing caps, terrible electrical sounds, etc. -yes thats happened a few times *grin* and nothing. it seemed stable so i tossed a screwdriver to my buddy george and me and him pulled the back panel off -seems to be another tradition, george is always the one that wants to see whats inside and wants to be the first one to see it. we pulled the panel off and fond alot of dust, a few bugs, and very dusty tubes smelling like a heater being turned on for the first time in the fall. -that moment is always special to me, when a tube piece comes to life for the first time in decades! the smells the sounds it makes, the 10 minutes of suspence hoping nothing inside the unit fails and it freaking out. it must have not been used in many many years. the cord is still and brittle, it has ALL of its original tubes etc..
turntable with the iconic cobra arm, missing cartrige and styli, but with the paper tag still on it?
tubes lighting for the first time..
there was alot of static in the controls at first but working them back and forth it went away somewhat, -ill shoot it with de-oxit tomorrow. the tuner is screwed up, it pulls in stations fine but with the volume wide open it sounds like a wisper, the turntable is perfect mechaniclly, it was locked up tighter than a drum but i hit the shaft with some 3-in-one and now comes right on and goes threw its cycles great. i just need to get a cart and styli for it. witch i have but its on another cobra-matic changer i have that dosent work in storage up north. -fooey! anyways, moving on to the tape input or aux. i clicked to that selection and noticed a soft 60-cycle hum. -it obviouslly needs caps. and hoked the cd player to it.
it gets loud and is very clean sounding, actually suprisingly crisp and not scratchy at all like how most tube consoles of this vintage behave when i attach a digital scorce to them and blast rap music threw them. unfortunatly the second i start to increse the bass the sound quality deteriates quickly and sounds terrible. -maybe it needs fresh output tubes? the first selecton of the evening was bone thugz thug world order album. followed by some rick ross and jeezy (very popular down here right now) and they were impressed with just how screamingly loud the thing got even though distorted and not very good sounding. i think with some work this could be a really sweet console. it is full blown tube type without a single transistor or solid state device anyware in sight. nice big 5U4 rec. tube, 4 12ax7 preamp tubes and a quad of 6BQ5s. it has nice long throw bass reflex 12" woofers with large coils and magnets, and decent metal horns that are almost JBLish looking. the cabinet needs some work. the white paint is peeling and the veneer undernieth is peeling, and there is evidence of water damage with green mold here and there and the brass speaker gards being corroded green and rusty in spots. its gunna take some work to get it right but its probubly worth it! the nice graphic display for the tone controls is cool enough alone. along with the cobra-matic changer it could be a real class act if restored. one of the chrome dials for tone (the midrange one called presence in this model) has fallin off and is laying in the bottom of the dialglass, but it should be a easy fix. these old consoles are far from audiophile sounding but ive always enjoyed them and have alot of fun working on them. they almost remind me of working on a classic car. -i dont know why but they do.