Early Brunswick Electric Panatropes?

[gunnarthefeisty]

If it has a solid state preamp, it’s an amateur job.

How would you get past the different amp design? I really dont know a whole lot about these, so I greatly appreciate an explanation of how it works.

[PeterF]

Well, I guess I’d find a machine that was intact and original, and then restore those original components to proper performance.

That’s the only way you would experience its actual sound. The original pickup and amp and speaker have sonic characteristics when acting together that go away when any components are changed.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter, and it’s good that the guy made it work rather than letting it die. If you like how it sounds, buy it. But it’s got very little monetary value to begin with, and less when altered.

Make sure that pickup is rebuilt. Rock hard original rubber bushings will mess your records up very quickly.

[Skihawx]

I purchased a "restored" Sonora A-44 from a guy in western NY. There was a solid state pre amplifier added because who ever did the restoration didn't rebuild the pickup and needed to get more volume with the dried rubber still inside. I didn't even power it up to hear what it sounded like. It is a UX-199 tube. There should be no reason to install a preamp unless you don't have the proper pickup or if it was not rebuilt properly. I'd call it a hack job. So the guy has a fancy name and maybe he knows something about equipment more modern.

[EarlH]

That 10-70 I bought came from up in Minneapolis and it had one of those solid state pre-amps in it as well, and it still had the original amplifier in it so maybe that was something one of the radio guys was doing up there. They added that for the same reason, the pickup head needed to be rebuilt. If you really want one of those things, I'd keep looking. I have that 148-C that I will eventually sell, but I have a couple of things to do on it yet. They are a great deal of work to restore and refinish and it shows how little the dollar is worth these days compared to what you could buy with it 90+ years ago. I think they were $1250 new and about half of that was supposed to be profit to the music store. It seems like the P-11 was about half that.
Most radio guys are not interested in restoring radio/phonographs and after going through some of the machines (I've only refinished a friend of mine did the electric side of them) I can kind of understand why. People don't listen to music much on AM radio these days and they really don't have high expectations on what it should sound like. Phonograph records are a completely different animal, as we kind of know how they should sound. And they should sound quite good when you consider when those things were made. They wouldn't have commanded the money they were selling for if they didn't sound really good to those folks in the late 1920's.

[VanEpsFan1914]

Seconded.

A lot of radio collectors dont realize how to do the work on a phonograph, because outside of this hobby most people believe that 78s are meant to be a scratchy anachronism. About the only similarity between a 1910 Victor batwing and a 1933 scroll-label Orthophonic is both are 10" around, break if you drop them, and have a hole in the middle.

As fun as vacuum tube gear is, wait until you can get one that isn't modified. If you need an old electric that badly come to Connecticut and get the RE-45 out of my living room. The radio works, the induction motor is rebuilt, and the amp works, but the pickup still needs rebuilding. Last servicing was done in 1939 before the machine was hidden away in an old building. Sounds OK for AM--not perfect, but it is easy to tune--and the motor runs smooth & quiet.

[chewy]

I b'cast 78s tomy R-39 bypassing the mechanical stuff and weight of the added RE-45 stuff, with that "over the air" sound added + disc scratch sound decrease

[gunnarthefeisty]

OK, I asked about the different amp, and apparently this one is missing a preamp tube, (since it's for a radio/phono I think it's designed a bit different) so a solid state preamp is there instead. Would there be a different way to remedy this other than finding an original Tomcat amp?

[PeterF]

I see two potential paths:

1. If he can demonstrate that it plays, offer $200 and spend the savings on rebuilding the pickup

2. Find a different machine, which hasn’t been tampered with

[Skihawx]

Post some pictures of what the black Tomcat amplifier looks like.
The "Phonograph Only" models have a shock mount tube assembly to suspend the UX-199 to eliminate the microphonic feedback.
But with a new style 99 or an RCA type 30 you don't need the assembly. And the black shock mount tube carriers are not that hard to find.

[gunnarthefeisty]

I'll get some photos next time I'm over there.