Members Tomm Williams Posted September 13, 2016 Members Share Posted September 13, 2016 I found one of these locally with the factory 2-12" cab in what appears to be fine shape. Never even heard of this brand ??? It's apparently from the 60's and sounds something like a Marshall according to the extremely limited info out there. What's the deal with these ? Junk ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DeepEnd Posted September 14, 2016 Members Share Posted September 14, 2016 Never heard of them but, again, you find the weirdest stuff. A quick web search says they were German made so maybe not bad if it's in decent condition? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted September 19, 2016 Members Share Posted September 19, 2016 I've heard of them because they make a DAW echoplex plugin that emulates their vintage tape echo. Their tape echo machines were fairly well known in studios. https://reverb.com/item/331757-klemt-echolette-ng51-1960s-all-tube-tape-echo-delay-dynacord-vintage They are an old German manufacturer that dates back to pre war 1930's. I've never seen the real deal though, just read about them. They were more popular overseas then in the US. I think they ran on 220V and would need to have the transformers replaced to work in the US. Between that and import costs, they just didn't make it over here in large quantities. Fender wound up taking the business here anyway with the same amp designs. They were eventually sold to Dynacord in the 1980's, another fairly obscure company. http://www.dynacord.com/en/ From what thy say the Beatles used their amps when they played in Germany and likely brought them back from there. They are supposed to have some decent tones. Wiki: The original amplifier had so called DIN plugs (1958) as inputs, after 1960 they changed to jacks. The Beatles used this amp, rated at only 40W. Maybe they brought it with them when playing in Germany on the Reeperbahn? Sounds much like an old Fender, just not as sought after. According to some it was based on the same reference amplifier (found in a tube manufacturers handbook) as a Fender that was sold 2 years later. I used to repair allot of vintage German gear back in the day and they used some really cool and unusual designs to do things. I had one radio that instead of adjusting a big air capacitor like US radios to tune stations you had these cables attached to the knob and when you turned stations the coil cores would be inserted or retracted to tune in different stations. Same formulas except you vary inductance instead of capacitance in an oscillator circuit. Other things they had were some of the first graphic EQ's. The pots made a rubberized thread flex in the front screen so you had a graphic display of how you were shaping the frequencies at a glance. We do the same thing in DAW programs today 80 years later. Quality of the builds were very good in most cases. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Tomm Williams Posted September 19, 2016 Author Members Share Posted September 19, 2016 I'll post some pics shortly, Photobucket isn't cooperating at the moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Tomm Williams Posted September 19, 2016 Author Members Share Posted September 19, 2016 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Tomm Williams Posted September 19, 2016 Author Members Share Posted September 19, 2016 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Tomm Williams Posted September 19, 2016 Author Members Share Posted September 19, 2016 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Tomm Williams Posted September 19, 2016 Author Members Share Posted September 19, 2016 Man this was painful !!!!!!!!!! Photobucket was a pain today Anyway.................Here are some pics of the entire unit. The speakers are 12" Isophon's that sound quite good. The amp needs a tune up as it's a bit noisy. Also the seller did not have the original power cord and was using a standard PC cord kinda forced onto the prongs. I'm taking it down to Fargen Amps and have Ben put on a 3-prong cord and give the whole thing a check up. As you can see in the pics, it has a built in voltage selector for most any application. The choices in impedance are kinda odd.......5 or 20 ohms ? It's supposed to be a '62 model as the seller bought it from the original owner. EL34 power tubes and EC808 pre's. It's a LOUD little booger with impressive bass response, I think it may have been marketed as a bass amp? It has different voicings per channel which seem obviously Marshall and Fender-ish. Cool amp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Tomm Williams Posted September 19, 2016 Author Members Share Posted September 19, 2016 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted September 20, 2016 Members Share Posted September 20, 2016 That power cap looks original. So do the other caps. Those would be the items I'd target to replace. If you do make sure he brings the voltage up slowly with a variac after replacing them. Aluminum can power caps aren't used as much as they used to. A replacement may be NOS and you have to charge them up gradually. Your speaker impedances are close enough to 4 and 16 ohms to work with standard speakers if needed. That amp dates back to an era before they had standard speaker impedances and essentially wound transformers to match the speakers they wanted to use or vice versa. Pretty cool amp though. German predecessor to the British Marshall, even down to its 4 inputs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mr.Grumpy Posted September 21, 2016 Members Share Posted September 21, 2016 Thanks for sharing these pictures of this unusual guitar (or bass or whatever) amplifier. Very interesting! It's in great shape for it's age and it's an interesting build - horizontal power tubes and having the transformers mounted to the ends of the chassis. Also notable for it's combination of PC board and point-to-point wiring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted September 21, 2016 Members Share Posted September 21, 2016 Looks to be a Bakelite PCB boards and not fiberglass too. They are more fragile and less resistant to cracking if the head took a blow but the design has been good enough to last 50+ years. It should last another 50+. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Tomm Williams Posted September 22, 2016 Author Members Share Posted September 22, 2016 The board also seemed thicker than others I've seen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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