Vintage Asylum Classic gear from yesteryear; vintage audio standing the test of time.

---

[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] Thread: [ Display  All  Email ] [ Vintage Asylum ]

---

[ Alert Moderator ]

---

RE: The Monster Amp

Posted by Sherwood Forest (A) on November 1, 2014 at 22:06:27

In Reply to: OK, here is a pic of the belly... posted by gkargreen on November 1, 2014 at 21:16:59:

Wow, that's umm... Interesting....

Good news is that most of the amp is in terrific shape from the looks of it.

Other than just the obvious, the oddball transformer and the e-tape connections, one thing stands out like a sore thumb: Where the hell is the bias rectifier? Stock S-5000 has a selenium rectifier on the other side of the amp, and the wires to it pass through the eye hole you see on the upper right hand corner of the picture. It feeds into the cap near that hole, which provides both the bias voltage and the DC filament supply. At least from this picture, I don't see how the hell that is even being powered. Are there diodes hidden in that big ol' wad of e-tape?

Anyhow, I sent an email to my buddy who has a lot of my Sherwood stuff in storage. He said he'd go check out the transformer this weekend, measure it to see if it's dead, and pull it out.

I guess the thing to do, if you want to see if this transformer in there has any hope of working, is to figure out what the various taps are and if they are even close the the proper arrangement. Apart from having a HV secondary that is good and high, as well as a bias tap that properly powers the DC filaments and still results in the correct bias voltage to the balance pot, well... It's a tough proposition frankly.

At the end of the day, this amp looks really good, though I'd like to see more of it! I don't see any evidence of rust or hackery beyond the obvious power transformer issue. A proper tranny and some power supply caps ought to make this amp sing.

Also, how did you fare on the tube compliment? Did you manage to get any of the original set?

Cheers!

-SF

Edits: 11/01/14

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Kimber Kable

---

[ Top of Page ] [ Contact Us ] [ Support/Wish List ] [ Copyright © 2024, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]

---

[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]

---