Vintage tube find and questions

opus

Hey guys I ran into what I think is a great deal/find today and have no idea what I have or what to do next.

A short story first. I worked at this guys house 2 years ago and we talked about stereo gear a little and he told me about a set of speaks that his dad buillt and he has kept in the gargage since he died. Well we got busy and I forgot to look at them. Fast forward to today and we were back doing more work. I asked him if he still had the set and he said " Yea, do you want them" We went out to the garage and he showed me the set. They were a pair of homemade speakers with cheap cabinets and a Wharfsdale driver and crossover.(more on the speakers later). So he looks at me and says "If you want the speakers you can have them and why don't you also get rid of those tubes and junk sitting over there in the corner." :eek: Exccccccuse me.
Thats right, over in the corner was a stack of the gear that is pictured below. Well I walked out of his house with a stack of tubes and a promise from him to go over to his other house and get more:)

So here are my questions.

What the hell do I do first?
Is this stuff worth messing with?
What the hell do I do second?

This is early 50's stuff with the manuals for the Fisher. The tuner, amp and preamp are Heathkit. The other two amps have no discernible name.

Thanks for your help and comments.

I'll apologize in advance for the photos as I'm sure I will screw up posting them.

opus

OK. pics now work. Let me know if you want more.

kevin

cmy330go

Not sure about the tubes and gear. But I would definitely consider upgrading that Bud Light.:D

RuSsMaN

A variac on any of the amplifiers, unless you want to let the blue smoke out. The Williamson 4 amp has some pretty desireable iron. I'd write down the numbers on the power tranny, output tranny, and choke - and find a second one on ebay. My friend Jim from fmtunerinfo.com runs a pair of W4's highly modded in his reference system.

The Fisher preamp has some cool factor, and should bring a little coin, the Heathkit mono tuna and preamp are less disireable, but neat peices nontheless. The Heathkit pre should have decent 12AX7's (3) to pull and use in something else.

Can't help on the other two peices, the rear peice in the box looks like Dynaco MKIII iron, but I can't be sure from the picture.

Cool stuff, rock on.

Cheers,
Russ

danger boy

one man's junk is another mans vintage tube gear. cool stuff.... that was probably at one time.. pretty hi fi in their day.

opus

Thanks for the replies. I guess I need to learn a little bit about tubes. I wouldn't feel right selling anything as I got it for free.
Should be an interesting journey.

organ

Be careful, when the tube bug bites, it's gonna hurt:). Congrats on finding those treasures. Bring the amp to a techie so he could slowly bring it up on a variac and do a check up. Some parts, especially the caps may need to be replaced but you'll get killer sound for not much money there.

opus

Well I just got back from the local tube gurus. It seems that everything is mono. Oh well. So I guess I'll keep the amp and look for another.:)

That leaves the Heathkit tuner and preamp(both mono) for anybody that wants it. I'll probably keep the Fisher because it looks so cool but could be talked out of it if someone really wants it. The other two bent and broken amps stayed at the hifi shop.

Tube Karma I guess. Might make someone happy.


reply here and there yours

kevin

cmy330go

Looks like they might be yours to keep.:)

audiobliss

That looks like a neat find! Well, except for it being mono, I guess. But, I could definitely make use of the tuner, if you're sure you wanna let go of it. And if noone says they want the preamp, I could play around with it, too. I guess they both probably have the stock tubes in them?

RuSsMaN

You need the power amp, to power the preamp - it doesn't have it's own power supply.

If no one wants it, I'll put it in the mono room with the rest of the old school stuff.

Cheers,
Russ

audiobliss

Well, then I guess I'm out for the preamp. But I'm still interested in the tuner. Russ, won't it hook up to a regular system just fine?

RuSsMaN

The tuner will, yes. You'll need a y splitter to run 2ch mono.

opus

Looks like Audiobliss for the tuner and Russ for the preamp. PM me your address fellas and its headed your way.

kevin:cool: