What to do with my SS '71 receiver...

[Firedome]

As posted a few months ago I found the TOL '71 Magnavox receiver that my late uncle had sitting on his basement workbench for decades, hooked up to 2 full range speakers hanging from the floor joists, that he used for listening to the great big/band/jazz station we used to have here. It's just a bare chassis, missing it's faceplate and original knobs (it has knobs from something else that work and look ok). I have no idea what happened to the rest of the console, or how he got it. I'm kind of doubting that I'll be able to find an original Magnavox cabinet with it's other parts to put it in, and I'd want Early American, if so. Wondering if I should just look for any nice EA console cabinet and try adapt this to it? I think one would also want to duplicate the original speaker complement to optimize performance, but have no idea what speakers it would have had, or where to find them (and the correct crossovers too of course). I would love to make this baby sing again, I remember that even in it's previous sub-optimal installation it sounded very nice.

[William]

It being a six knobber, and push buttons, it was a deluxe model. Does it have a chassis number?

Bill

[TC Chris]

Used wood furniture is available at bargain-basement prices these days. The current notion is that younger folks don't want "brown wood" furniture except maybe the walnut in MCM designs. So good sturdy old walnut, mahogany, oak, and stained maple pieces go for pennies at estate sales, for a few bucks at "antique" stores, and maybe for nothing at curbside. There are lots of pieces that could be converted into a console with a bit of creativity. Check your newspaper or other source for the weekend estate sales and check out a few, or cruise through some antique stores. I used that word in quotes initially because lots of the offerings aren't really antiques, they're just old & used.

Chris Campbell

[Firedome]

The chassis is R231-01-CA.

Yes the furniture part won't be a problem, as you say anything but MCM goes cheap.
And I have 4 or 5 TTs to chose from, they need not be an original as far as sound goes.
The challenge will be finding the correct original speakers, preferably, or I could use a pair
of reasonably efficient "full range" 8 ohm speaker drivers, or a pair of bookshelf speaker systems.
A friend here has offered me a nice pair of 15" AlNiCo woofers that came out of a tube Mag console originally,
but they have no xovers, and don't know what tweeters would have accompanied them. (pic).
Plus finding a faceplate could be a problem, though it would function without it.

[William]

My guess, they were horns. Magnavox pretty much used horns on anything deluxe and you Magnavox unit came from a deluxe console. As far as crossover, Magnavox used to advertise 1000 horns so maybe a crossover cap around that value. Just a thought!

Bill

[Firedome]

Were they still using horns on SS consoles in 1971?
Those woofers came I believe from a tube console circa 1962/63?

[William]

I'm pretty sure the high end units were.

Bill

[TC Chris]

I'm not sure how later Magnavox consoles were configured, but many earlier ones used simple high-pass capacitors in series with the tweeter voice coil. I can't find a schematic showing values right now but I bet others can. You could play around with the value a bit to voice the system.

Chris Campbell

[hermitcrab]

The high end SS units also have 15" woofers ... you can pick up new horns cheap from parts express ... time to get out the table saw and build your own cabinet ...my avatar is my homemade fisher ambassador...

[Firedome]

That Fish Amby is a beaut! - nice work, I wish were that capable ... a shelf or cobbler's bench is about my limit!

"voice the system"... I'm not sure my ears are capable of hearing the subtleties to that extent any more, I'll probably be
safest just copying what the factory did!

I see quite a few Maggie horns on eBay right now, but not sure which would be best matched to the Mag 15" woofers.
I'll see if I can tell from the #s on them what console they were in or when made if possible.

[TC Chris]

I was mostly kidding about voicing, but sometimes when we're guessing, a bit of experimentation can be useful. I'm not very picky either. Out in my shop are two big cheap speakers that I found at curbside. They are three-way "rock'n'roll" (i.e., not very accurate) speakers. I re-foamed the woofers. Some time ago I discovered that one of the mids isn't working, but you know, I didn't notice until I was standing on a stool and had my ear next to it. They're good enough for the shop, where I'm usually paying attention to the job at hand and not to fine nuances of audio performance.

Chris Campbell