1966 Silvertone console record player
 

Today, I brought home this 1966 model year Silvertone console record player. It was built by Arvin (132 source code) and uses a BSR record changer. Even though it's from '66, it's a tube unit (50C5 X 2, 12AX7, selenium rectifier); but, it's probably one of the last tube models. It's been my experience that most Sears stuff from the '50's and '60's had either a Warwick or Crescent changer, and the lowest end stuff used a BSR changer.

A couple of things that make me happy is that it has a balance control (I don't really care for those models with separate L and R volume controls) and it uses a driver stage (no 3V cartridge directly driving the output stage).

I fired it up and the changer will need a full overhaul and the amp is only working out of one channel. Based on turning the record by hand and the channel that works, it seems to sound pretty good. One day, I'll give it a full overhaul.

There were also some records with the unit; but, they are your typical budget label instrumentals, gospel, and Reader's Digest records like what most senior citizens of the day listened to. There were also a few 78's with it; but, they are in terrible shape.

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/f...psuonjdj6e.jpg

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/f...psbvon1mff.jpg

There isn't that much to the amplifier; just a small chassis, four speakers and a lot of empty space in the cabinet. Reminds me of the last Zenith console color TVs of the early part of the 21st century, just before Zenith went offshore, with the small master circuit panel that looked like an oversized postage stamp and the large amount of empty space around it. This must have been one of Sears' less expensive consoles; the small amplifier chassis with two tubes and one selenium B+ rectifier practically screams "cheap", and I bet this one didn't sound very "hi-fi" either.

I doubt if this thing was very loud at maximum volume, as the amplifier doesn't look anywhere near big enough to produce any kind of decent audio power output. If I had to guess, I would say this amplifier had no more than five watts of output per channel at best. The speakers don't look big enough to handle much more power than that.

This console was probably meant for people who just wanted a console stereo phonograph without an FM radio tuner and who didn't care beans about high fidelity. I bet the console didn't weigh that much, either, with the small amplifier chassis; most of its weight was probably in the wood (?) cabinet, which probably isn't genuine hardwood or veneers, but particle board with faux woodgrain vinyl over it. Good grief, even the cabinet screams cheap if it is as I just described it.

As for the dead stereo channel, I'd test the tubes first. One of them may be weak or dead, although an open filament in an amplifier such as this one would kill both channels, and the turntable may not run either if its motor is one of those 90-volt jobs that is wired in series with the tube filaments. This was common with the old and very likely cheap one-tube phonographs of the '30s and '40s, in which the filament of the single amplifier tube, usually a 117Z6 2-section amp/rectifier, was wired in series with the phonograph motor. If the tube's filament burned out, the motor would stop. If the tube shorted, the phono motor would probably burn out instantly since the short would put the entire line voltage (105-110 volts in those days) across it.

The 117Z3 or -Z6 tube was used because it operated directly from the AC power line, without the need for dropping resistors. I knew someone years ago who had a small record player with just such a one-tube amplifier. It worked well until the person spilled something into it while it was plugged in and turned on; the liquid got into the amplifier and promptly destroyed it, as evidenced by smoke coming from the ventilation slots in the cabinet. Of course, as I said, the amplifier was destroyed and the phonograph was likely junked.

Man that thing just defines cheap

It's got a simple charm to it! It probably sounds pretty good for what it is--and I'm sure gets plenty loud, if perhaps in more of a shrill way than a rattling way.

I worked on a GE that looked similar, but it was SS and a GE Tonal I changer.
It had the tiny black transistors with thin metal heat sinks on them. The low AC voltage for the amp was taken from a tap on the motor winding. The owner's son, tried connecting extra speakers to improve the sound and blew the O/P transistors. :sigh:

You're thinking of the 117L7/M7GT or maybe a 117N7GT. The 117Z3/6 is a rectifier tube only.
The tubes, normally connected in series with the motor are the 25L6 and it's variants.

Most solid state GE's from that period used speakers with an oddball impedance (in the 24 to 32 ohm range). He likely connected 3.2 to 8 ohm speakers and I don't suspect it would last long like that. I've had stereos come in where people would connect fix speakers in parallel on a single speaker output on the amp, basically placing a short circuit across the output of the amp and killing the output stage.

I have one of these with a AM/FM radio as well as the changer. While definitely a low-end model, it sounds pretty good for what it is.

I had a VM SS small stereo built in about 1969. This one one speaker per side. 45 ohms impedance. Seemed strange, as most were as you stated.

That's all fine and good; but, when the speaker needs to be replaced, you're going to have a hard time finding a speaker with that impedance. I suppose about the only thing you could do is connect a resistor in series with a standard speaker, to give you the right ohms rating.

A better move would be to replace one original speaker at say 24 ohms with 3 8 ohm units in series...That way ALL the energy of the amp's output is converted into sound.

Do you ever resell these old phonos after they're fixed up?

Sometimes, I try to sell them; but, I usually end up getting frustrated because where I live, it's not a hot bed for selling vintage electronics. I have lots of people claim they want an old record player; but, they often expect to get a perfect one for a yard sale price and they don't realize (or even care) what all is needed to properly restore one. As much as I'd love to sell these things for $5 or $10, parts are too expensive in today's world and I don't enjoy losing my butt. So, most of what I get either stays here are is given to close friends.

No worry about that, I scrapped the stereo. It was a freebee and all I wanted was the changer.
If someone needs 45 ohm, 5 1/4 inch speakers, PM me. :scratch2:

Cosmetically, this set has a photofinish that isn't in the best of shape (the cabinet looks to be made of real wood). On the top, there are a couple of nasty round circles where it looks like someone sat something wet on it. I tried darkening the circles where the finish was gone; but, it still does not look good at all.

I'm not a fan of painting these things; but, this one might look better painted. A friend did that with a little GE console that was photofinished and he wanted to fix it up for his young daughter. The photofinish was rough; so, he sanded down the cabinet, primed it, and painted it with decent paint. I'll probably do something similar with this one; but, I don't want it looking like the typical sloppy paint job that some of these flea market vendors do, in order to make a quick dollar.

I've painted furniture before, and been happy with the result. A good job for me takes multiple coats and tons of work, and of courSe fully stripping the unit down. I think you could do a nice job with a little elbow grease in the preparation stage. Think of it like painting a car, the result depends 100% on attention to detail. If it's worth the effort or not is another question - I for one don't like those BSR changers, or their cartridges, and that 4" speaker in parallel with the big one on that big resonant Masonite front panel is going to give a nasty double peak in the bass region. I think at the time this was sold one would have been far better off spending the same money on a portable record player of somewhat higher quality, from a performance standpoint.

In the early 60's, a friend and I went to Sears, with his parents. They wanted to look at the $88.00 stereo, such as the one shown. Naturally, they were not impressed with the sound quality. They ended buying one for around three times the money. Actually a great unit, Warwick built.
Maybe, the one shown, might've been bought from the catalogue, instead of the retail store. :scratch2:

When it comes to putting $$ in, look before you leap. I offer a different Sears as an example. Pardon the thread creep but I believe this is german:D to the discussion, IMHO.

First the console:
This Sears came from a yard sale last summer for $20. It was grimy but dry and complete with ALL the hang tags, service manual, parts list and schematic. Model 6066/528.63560, a 1965 Warwick-built SS chassis with Crescent changer/EV150 cartridge. It has a rear connection and slide switch for connecting 8-ohm remote speakers. The 10" speakers are 16 ohm with NP cap to 16 ohm 5" and 30 ohm 3" cone tweets. If you move the slider to use both internal and external speakers, a 22 ohm resistor is placed in series with the ext spkr screws AND an 8-ohm is then placed in series with the internal speakers.

The condition. I saw no evidence of any servicing after removing 20+ screws hold the back cover. I dutifully cleaned the selector and pots with DeOxit.

The receiver barely made sound and only when tuned to the usual strong stations, I figured the electrolytic coupling caps needed replacement so I got right to work and replaced the 4-3mf and two 150mf output coupling caps. Little improvement was noted and voltages on the drivers-outputs were consistent with the schematic. I got healthy hum when putting my fingers on the phono preamp input.:scratch2:
It sounded just like two bad speakers, so I pull one of the 10 inchers - the cone, compliance and voice coil was in great condition and not rubbing. It even passed Reece's patented thump test, when I smacked the magnet with my palm, it was met with a solid "thunk". :yes:OK....
Was the radio and discriminator/mpx demod section at fault? So I bridged new caps and checked voltages there - nothing improved :thumbsdn:

OK, now lets assume this unit has a receiver problem and serious bench time with signal generators are required:smoke: Next!

What if we just do the record changer restoration and it comes alive??? OK but that is more work.
Then I looked at the cart and the stylus and pickup bridge was gone, yet it made noise when rubbing around where it would be. I just happened to have used cartridge and bracket that would work, an Astatic 710 (Euphonics style) with flat connectors just like the OEM E-V cart. I refused to rob any of my 3 or 4 Magnavox Micromatics that have a EV-150/158, those consoles might just be less of a PITA than this one has been.

The idler pulley is a small tire- big tire type, no flat spots or nicks. Cleaned up with rubber renu, and put back on. The platter started to spin but with lots of noise. Now what??? Looking very closely at the platter then the aluminum drive turret on the motor answered that one, the ":wedding cake" was worn down at each step such that the pulley could not make solid flat contact on both 45 and 33 rpm. More parts needed:sigh:of course.. then I spun a good record anyway and it sounded just like the radio:grumpy:

OK, REALLY what can I expect from a worn out cart/stylus and anyway.
The last straw came when I connected a small portable CD player to the phono input and IT sounded as crappy as both the record and the radio.... back to square one. The amp IS the main problem after all this mucking about, let alone issues with the Crescent changer which are also present in a portable Sears I just bout a new Astatic 275d cart for.

If someone wants to refit this console with another record changer and receiver chassis, they can have at it for a song. It also has a factory schematic but the 5-year warranty on the transistors has passed and I suspect that IS the real problem. Anyway, where can you get good cheap germanium replacement transistors anyway?. The only thing this console is good for is the MCM walnut cabinet, still dirty - at least I'm smart enough after all these years to clean-refinish and detail ONLY if I can listen to it play nicely while doing so.

But I have too many more promising and frankly interesting units (think RCA-Magnavox-Motorola- Philco) to restore, plus paying jobs to occupy my limited time and finance the parts Ill need.:wave:
Besides, nobody is beating down my shop door to buy these old ceramic cart units anyway:boring

New germanium transistors can be had on eBay from Russia for decent prices, but are not direct fits. If you're a YouTube fan shango066 has a couple videos dealing with replacing germanium transistors with silicon or Russian substitutes which are pretty interesting.

I agree though, repaired junk is still junk. I've had similar luck (or lack thereof) with low quality equipment. I restored a console with the same horrible bsr as that silvertone -$: two 50EH5s for outputs - and even worse speakers. It was definitely not worth the work, it just sucks!

On this topic, americanradiohistory is a website with a huge archive of old magazines. One of the is "RCA Engineer". Some articles are about designing console stereos. Once you see how much thought was put into the good ones (like RCA) it is very obvious why they are better than the bad ones!

I'm really reluctant to work on early solid state, because of the germanium transistors. They seem to get weak, like a vacuum tube.
Many years back, I was having trouble with an Emerson 888 transistor radio. I went to the Emerson distributor for a replacement oscillator transistor. The technician said, it probably didn't need one. Just heat up the transistor with a soldering iron and it'll come back to life. Sure enough, it did. :thmbsp:
What say, fellow VKers. :scratch2:

Neat, I'll remember that trick.

I'll fire up the iron and hit the amp transistors once Dave, its worth one last shot.

This console is a good candidate for a retrofitting and I have a spare Magnavox Astrosonic and Micromatic - http://vintagehifi.net/index.php/topic,1476.0.html

I dug into the record player; and, unfortunately, the primary on one of the output transformers is open. It's also unfortunate that it's not a regular AA5-style output transformer. This one has a separate secondary feedback winding and who knows where I'll find one of those. This is a model 6051 and it's not in the Sam's index.

Did you look under the 132 chassis numbers. Also look at the numbers around the 6051 listings. It might listed under 6050,6052 etc. Cabinet differences!
I check Beitmans first, that is look at the schematics listed under Sears, Arvin.

Could always do some re-engineering. Some RCA amplifiers took feedback directly from the primary winding of the output transformer, this could be made to work in your case with a normal AA5 transformer and some small circuit changes.

That's what I plan on doing - just taking the feedback from the plate of the output tube.

Here's a crude schematic I drew. It's odd that the tone controls are in the cathode circuit of the 12AX7 and one of the leads from the extra winding on the transformer goes back to the tone control. If this was a handwired amp, it would be much easier to modify it. However, since it's a PC board, it's going to be harder to deal with. Leave it to Sears to come up with some goofy circuit design.

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/f...psy5yzizov.jpg

I'd look at the good half of the amp. Is the amplitude of the feedback winding is the same or lower than the speaker winding? Is there significant DC voltage across the feedback winding? If both answers are yes, then just use a single secondary spare and use the one secondary to drive feedback and speaker at once. If only the second is no, then use a large capacitance value to couple the voice coil winding to the feedback circuit so you are not sending tons of DC through the speaker. If it works decently on one channel you may want to do it for both so there is not a tonal mismatch between channels.

To find out the transformer ratio, apply about 400Hz at the amplifier input, and measure the AC voltages at the primary, secondary, and feedback windings of the good transformer with a VTVM.

I like Electonic M's idea of using the speaker voice coil winding for feedback. No significant DC will make it through the tone control so no need for a blocking cap. If it was off the plate that would be another story.

Anyway once you know the transformer ratio, you will know if you need to change anything to use the speaker winding. If it's significantly different, you can change the value of the 680 ohm reaistor up in value to increase the amount of feedback, and down to reduce it. For example if the feedback winding puts out more voltage than the speaker voice coil winding, you would want to increase the value of the 680 ohm reaistor, and vice
Versa.

In a perfect world this should be accompanied by a change in the 3.3k cathode bias reaistor to keep overall current the same.

If you hook it up and it oscillates, swap the voice coil winding leads. Also make sure the voice coil windings are not grounded anywhere.

I wonder if this chassis was also used in a model with one mono woofer and two separate mid/tweeters. If it was that would explain why the feedback winding was separate in the first place. This thing doesn't look less cheap after analyzing the circuit, but I am happy to see it used negative feedback! (That ought to help control the response of those speakers a bit)

It wasn't Sears, that came up with the design, it was Arvin.
Evidently, they had some pretty sharp engineers, to go to that extent to design an inexpensive product. You don't even see that in the higher-end makes, Zenith et al.
I have an Arvin sourced, Silvertone table radio with twin speakers and push-pull output. Zenith never did that! :sigh:

Also, radiotvnut described this type of console earlier on on his YouTube videos. This is the original style "Jimmy Swaggart" console. Cheapie amplifier and speakers, cheapie BSR changer, and phono finish cabinet. Most of the lowest income, lowest educated buyers tended to purchase these units. Still better than a modern Crosley!

In this case, this console was a "Reader's Digest boxed set" playback device because that's the type of records that were under the lid. Most of the ones that I find with religious records and tapes under the lid are those horrible plastic and particleboard models from the '70's.

I read the entry and I'm trying to figure out the "Jimmy Swaggart" statement.
The way, I interpreted it was a comparison with fake, phony, etc. The thing isn't that bad. :D

I like some of those RD boxed sets of the original Big Band, Swing and other vintage recordings. I usually get them at the thrifts. I can imagine, they were rather pricey when new, as they were re-recorded by RCA.

Agreed, I have one of the red big band box sets and it's surprisingly good, certainly worthy of high quality playback equipment.

:yes:That seems to fit my experience too. We are right on the border as evidenced by CL listings that come up here - upper Appalachia to the north and west, affluent suburbs down in Northern MD-DC and to the East in Philly-NJ.

That means that the horrible consoles of the 70's, namely Capehart, Morse-Electrophonic and store brands are listed up north (usually with exxagerated prices), mid and upper level Zeniths, RCAs and Magnavox locally (sometimes at reasonable prices), and the really interesting ones far enough away and at the expected big-city prices of course:sigh:.Its just not worth a 2-3 hour trip just to drool.

The "Jimmy Swaggart Playback Device" phrase is a result of me finding so many such records inside the cheaper consoles that I'd find. By the mid-'70's, the main people buying consoles was likely older people and as long as it worked good enough to play their Jimmy Swaggart record, their "no name" 8-track that they bought of a group who performed at the local gospel singing, and the once a year playing of the "Firestone Christmas Album"; then, that's all that mattered. Usually, when the people got bored with their limited supply of records and tapes, the console became a place to sit pictures of the grandchildren. When the owner passed away, 30 years later, someone would come in and discover that the BSR record changer was frozen, the belt had melted on the 8-track player, and the pots were so dirty that they wouldn't even work. At that point, it was donated to the thrift store and then they dumped it in the e-waste pile.