“Standard Brand“, “Rad-Tel“, “Atomic“, “Cosmic” — what kind of brands are these? I found an interesting tube-related article in the Dec-1955-Jan-1956 issue of NATIONAL RADIO-TV NEWS. The article exposed a supply-chain problem during the 1950s where unscrupulous vendors would buy “pull-outs” (duds or near-end-of-life tubes) from repair shops, then manipulate the tubes in a manner […]
the Reprocessed Tube Racket Read More »
I find it exciting to discover a nice audiophile amp from a nondescript brand. In this article, I chronicle my rebuilding of a PACO preamp-amplifier model SA-50. PACO is the Precision Apparatus Company, best known for building quality test equipment such as tube testers, signal generators, and oscilloscopes. The “PACO” branded gear (as opposed to
PACO SA-50 Tube Amp Rebuild Read More »
My neighbor was thrilled to find someone local who could repair has Phase Linear audiophile gear. One of his friends was also a Phase fan, and his gear had been sitting for a longtime in disrepair. So now I had 4 more Phase Linear units to repair: a Phase Linear 2000 preamp (series 1), Phase
Phase Linear 400-I, 200-I, 2000-I, 5100-II Read More »
Here is something that I don’t see everyday… Phase Linear audiophile gear! In fact, this was my first opportunity to use, repair, and evaluate any Phase Linear gear. While I only use tube audio gear, it is hard to argue with the exceptional quality of a premium audiophile solid-state amplifier such as this Phase Linear
Phase Linear 700-II amp and 4000-II preamp Read More »
Recently my longtime trusted Eico 1030 regulated high voltage DC power supply succumbed to a catastrophic failure — a shorted transformer winding. The power transformer has a separate winding that supplies screen voltage to the 6L6 pass tubes. This is a half-wave circuit that was rectified by one original 1N4006 silicon diode. Unfortunately, this old
Transformers can blow in the blink of an eye Read More »
