18Watt.com

Hi,

I'm new here. I'm a 23 years old student, and I live in Quebec, Canada. My first language is french, but I'll try to be readeable . I'm not a good guitarist and I don't have much time to play, but occasionnaly, I like to blow my ears off Just like everyone here, nothing sounds better to my ears than a vintage Marshall cranked. I don't have any experience in electronics yet, but I'm very interested and learning. As a full time student, almost all the money I can get during the summer goes to pay the University, so I can't afford a vintage Marshall, and even all those cool parts available here to build a "perfect" clone are out of the question for me, my budget is virtually non-existant. Ok, enough talking, now let's talk about amps...


A couple months ago, a small music store closed. When I asked the owner if he had any old tube amp in non working condition he was not planning to get repaired and would like to sell as is, he went to the backstore and came back with the remains of an old tube amp. As far as he remembered, it was once a combo, but he could not remember the brand. All I have is the chassis and control panel (he was planning to build a head with it but abandonned the project). He sold it to me for about 20-25 USD.

The amp has 7 tubes.

2x EL84
1x EZ81
2x ECC83
1x EF86
1x EC92 (7 pins)

All the tubes except the rectifier are Siemens. The writings on the faceplate looks like german, or german style language.

The amp was suposed to be working, but developping strange noises after warm up, sometimes it could take 1 hour.

I don't know what the impedence is supposed to be, but after reading a couple times that a mismatch could be acceptable if the cab has a higher impedence than the impedence of the amp, I tried it with my 16 ohms Peavey 4x12. The vibrato did'nt work, the guitar imputs did'nt work very well, but the (mic?) imputs were working well.

Unfortunately, 2 weeks ago It stopped working . I hope it's not a tranny, but that would be another thread.

If the trannys are ok, I would like eventually to build a 18 watts with them. But I would also like to keep the "german" amp. Maybe it could be possible to build a 18 watts circuit board, and with a couple switchs, beeing able to switch between the "german" and Marshall circuit (both circuits sharing the same trannys, filter caps and tubes, but separated control panels/pots)?

Anyway, here are the pics

http://pages.infinit.net/tubeamp/UnknownAmp.html


I found a site with information on old german amps, did'nt find an exact match. I'll probably eventually try to contact the webmaster, but my english is not excellent, and his english does'nt look excellent either, so the communication could be difficult. http://www.el-me-se.de/

Any information would be very appreciated. I you know what the brand possibly is, or if you can suggest some european brand names so I can try to make some research, or if you can tell me what is the most likely impedance of the amp etc.... Anything you can tell me is welcome.

Thank you very much for any help!

TOD,

I dunno what it is. Looks very German, though.
Check for any markings on the trannies.
Many caps of that period have date codes that would be helpful, too.

Wannatone,

I forgot to add this information.

On the metal filter cap can (probably original) there is a "6 64" written. I have no idea if it's the manufacturing date, but it's look possible.

I also noticed some writings on the power tranny (they don't appear on the pictures since I noticed it after taking the pics, and I did not take a picture of that side).

The printing is hard to read. It's printed with green ink on the side of the laminations "22 OKT 1963".

"22 OKT 19xx" is pretty readable, the "63" is probably 63, but I cannot affirm it at 100%.

It would make sense though, and the amp could have been made in 1964 of 1965?

Hello -
This amp is certainly German. My best bet is a Hohner combo, or some K+H Telewatt later model. It´s PCB-based, uses lots of parts and "frills" normally found in tube radios of the time (the indicator mechanisms), so it might even be a Lorenz or a Siemens amp (well-known radio mfgs), who knows.

To get a positive ID, I posted your link at a German site that is full to the brim of hardcore tube people - http://www.frihu.com - so you can check progress in a few days or so.

Main page>community>forum>look for thread "Please help ID German tube amp".

Good luck!
/Richard, Sweden

Richard,

Thank you very much!

I really appreciate that. I'll keep an eye on the progress of that thread, and I'll try to find some informations on the brands you suggested!


Also, one thing I forgot to add, there is a small logo on each of the 2 pcb's. It looks like a round "M" or "E" inside a "V". I have no idea if it can be the logo of the manufacturer of the amp or if it's only the logo of the manufacturer of the PCB.

It can be seen righ at the center of the PCB on this picture
http://pages.infinit.net/tubeamp/pictur ... CBback.jpg

Also, the pots were made in Italy.


Thank you very much again!




Jonathan

I made a close up of the logo on the PCB. As I said in my previous post, I have no idea if it's the logo of the brand of the amp itself, or if it can be the logo of the manufacturer of the PCB board only (if PCB manufacturers put their logo on their boards...) If I'm lucky, it may be the logo of the amp.


There have been 2 replies so far on the german forum, but unfortunately, no one seems to know what it is yet (I tried to translate the german text with an online translator wich resulted in a very poor translation, but enough to know the results were negative ). With some luck, maybe someone will know...


I updated the page with the pictures to add the close up of the logo, one as is, and the second one with more contrast to see it better.

Here they are






If anyone think he can provide some information, it would be greatly appreciated.

Also, does anyone know if there is a website with an extensive list of all the vintage european amp manufacturers names?

Thanks