My New Orthophonic SHF-3D

[back-2-mono]

She sure is puurty...

[electra225]

Very nice! I see you can post pictures and have found the RCA board. We're glad you are here.

[back-2-mono]

piece of cake.
Thanks again for a fabulous forum.

[electra225]

Thank you for your kind words and for your support! We hope to see LOTS more of your projects in the future.

[William]

That is a beautiful RCA, Gary. The cabinet looks like brand new, did you find it in that condition?

Bill

[back-2-mono]

Hi Bill.
Yes, the unit was in this condition. It was owned by an elderly couple who had passed back in 2000 and their grand daughter finally decided to sell it May of this year.
I did a complete overhaul of the changer and electronics. I also decided to fan cool the chassis compartment since it ran so darn hot! Lots of out of spec resistors as well as a couple of open plate load ones feeding the tuner and amp af stage. I replaced all of the old electrolytics and wax caps too.
She really rocks!

[William]

That is a beautiful piece and I'm glad it found a new home with you. Sometimes we can get lucky and find a unit that has had tender loving care, and sometimes that is not the case. Most of what I have the cabinets have been in pretty good shape. My Motorola 3 channel in the Drexel cabinet was not the case. I looks like a truck ran over it. The good thing, I only paid 10 bucks for it.

Bill

[hermitcrab]

I really like the styling on that one ... very elegant ...

[Firedome]

A pretty formal design, in beautiful shape. What's the speaker complement (pix?).
I'm appreciating better mono consoles more and more, the mid-50s ones seem quite advanced over earlier ('40s, very early '50s) ones imo. Fisher also made some very nice monos in the mid-late '50s, my best friend's parents had a gorgeous blonde "The Fisher" in their LR in the late '50s, first one I ever saw, probably a Fisher 500 receiver.

[back-2-mono]

A pair of 12 inch woofers wired in parallel and a pair of 3.5 inch cone tweeters mounted on angled horns also parallel wired.
The amp is a pp design with 6V6GT finals. It really rocks with that big old fat vintage tubey sound.
I love it..back to mono!

[Firedome]

Nice! Similar to my coming and similar vintage Zenith Rhapsody w/ 2 woofers and inthis case electorstat tweeters. I'm also re-discovering mono as of late!

[back-2-mono]

Excellent. I've been going nuts as of late buying up clean, used mono copies of my favorite lp's to play on my 3 RCA New Orthos!

[William]

I can only imagine how it sounds and hope to one day hear one in person.

Bill

[electra225]

What if you replaced the cartridge with a stereo cartridge, bridged for mono, so you could play stereo records? Truth be told, I find many mono records that were recorded in stereo sometimes sound better than their stereo counterparts played on a stereo instrument.

[back-2-mono]

I replaced the original Sonotone 3T with a stereo Sonotone 65T, bridged for mono.
I like the sound of that cart so much that I bought ten of them from Gary Stork. That allowed me a few spares to keep on hand.

[electra225]

I'm not familiar with that cartridge. Is is ceramic or crystal?

[back-2-mono]

Ceramic

[pickelman]

I have the same one I inherited from my grandmother. I wish I knew what year this one was made I love it!

[William]

If I were to guess, I would say 1957-58 It's stereo compatible and may have the stereo switchable amp. Could you please provide the model number on the back, or maybe a photo of the back side so we can see the amp/tuner?? That series from RCA was in their deluxe series and were great performers. I can see why you would love it.

Bill

[19&41]

Here's Radiomuseum's assessment.

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/rca_shf3d ... 1168b.html