General Electric RP-1590-C stereo

[electra225]

This is the parts set for Don's RP-1590 that I redid for him in 2014. The bottom line is that this is a really ugly stereo. Any color you want as long as it is gunmetal gray and white. Some of the piping is gold, some silver. The grille cloth in the console is a different color than that in the wing speakers. None of the "General Electric" decals are the same size. Decals in the lid are silver on white. I would probably consider this unit a consolette, truth be told. There are legs you can attach so it sets on the floor. This stereo still has its legs. I'm supposed to have two 45 adapters for it, but I have misplaced them, or used them elsewhere. I have a spare set of knobs. The changer is a 1200 series VM and it works well, although it needs a needle in its GE C100 ceramic cartridge. This will be my next project while I wait on parts for my Stereo Theater TV project. The plan is to rebuilt it electronically, then redo the Tolex in black, silver, red and white. I want to make the GE decals all larger and in gawdier contrasting colors. I am going to hotrod the cabinet. I found several examples of red grille cloth and I think AES has the silver piping that will work. It has four tubes, transformer power supply and is coded 1963. Single-ended 7189 output tubes. Four six-inch speakers. It has the original external speaker plugs, typically found changed to 1/4" guitar jacks. These both appear to be good and usable. And, to add to the deluxe flavor of this stereo, it has "expanded stereo" for what that is worth.

[electra225]

I started out by tinkering while Western Red was on. I ended up taking this thing almost totally apart. I can't do much more until I document hardware locations and get it over to the decal guy to get the decals ordered. I am going to use some "poetic license" with this thing. It uses those obnoxious, but admittedly effective, rivets to hold the hardware on. I went to great pains to bury hardware in the cabinet when I did the Magnavox cabinet. I used wood screws in the Truetone. I think I'll do something completely different with this one. I'm going to make the "General Electric" decals bigger. I may paint the motor board "plinth" red. It is beat up and needs paint, so why not give it some "wow"? The main cabinet will probably end up black and silver with red and white interior. The external speakers will be silver, trimmed in black and red. Both will have red grille cloth with silver piping, provided I can find the piping. It appears that the external speakers were not original to the main cabinet. I took some pictures, mostly for documentation purposes, and I will share them here if there is interest.

This stereo uses 90uf @ 25volt NP "crossover" caps. These caps have something to do with the "extended stereo" feature, that I'm still not 100% sure I understand the need for.

[electra225]

I'll post this pictures, after which this topic will probably be more appropriate on the Grille Cloth board. I have the electronics done for the time being. I'll do the final test when I get everything back into the cabinet. I have cleaned up the messy filter caps shown here. I kluged this mess together for test. The original filter caps were severely leaky, typical of GE equipment. There are no dust covers on the voice coils on the speakers. GE didn't spend a dime more than they needed to on speakers. They are coded 918. I need to look that up.

[TC Chris]

I see what look like crossover caps by the blue speakers, but no tweeters. Were they concentric as Maggie did, or are the caps something else? And in another photo I se some foil--some grounding system or shield?

Chris Campbell

[William]

918 is Oaktron, which is a new one to me.

Bill

[maxidyne]

The two capacitors pictured are apparently for the expanded stereo feature. 90uf at 25 VDC. One end of capacitors connect to the expanded stereo switch the other end connects to the external speakers.

[Dr. Radio]

Oaktron is actually a very respectable speaker builder.

They made the vast majority of speakers for Zenith table radios in the 1950s and 1960s.

Seems GE wanted a better quality speaker than their in-house "specials" for the Hi-Fi and record stuff.

My GE RP-2040 has Oaktron speakers in it as well, only they look exactly identical to the color/style found in Zenith products, only difference is they don't say "Zenith" and they have the little Oaktron "oak leaf" symbol printed on the back of the magnet.

 

[William]

Thanks, Doc, I learned something today.

Bill