[Harry Lavo]

"Audio Empire" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 26 Mar 2011 12:56:28 -0700, Harry Lavo wrote
(in article ):


snip


I could happily live with them as my main system if
coupled to a decent pair of high-efficiency speakers. My friend plays
them
through a pair of recently acquired Warfedale W60Ds with a vintage
Thorens
TD-150 turntable/arm and a Sumiko Blue-Point Special cartridge. I'll bet
the
combo sounds marvelous. I almost envy him.

Ah, memories! This was the first kit amp I built, and the one that got
me
through my last year of high school and four years of college. In those
days it drove at first an EV SP-15 in a bass reflex cabinet and later a
Jensen 15" Tri-Ax in a corner horn (both cabinets hand built). Coupled
with
an Eico FM Tuner and a Garrad changer with an (exotic) Norelco mono
cartridge, it was a pretty decent beginning to my audio involvement.


Yes, it would have been. What model Garrard turntable did you have? Mine
was
a "Type A" with a Pickering Cartridge. I also had an Eico FM tuner
(HFT-90)
and it was an excellent performer as I recall. It didn't have AFC, and yet
it
didn't drift appreciably. I didn't need really high sensitivity because I
lived in the "prime reception" area in the Virginia suburbs of Washington
DC.
And because FM stations were much further apart geographically then than
they
are now (and there weren't so many of them), selectivity wasn't of great
importance either. But I do recall that the thing had very wide bandwidth
(designed for SCA) so that when stereo FM came along in '62, the addition
of
a Knight-Kit stereo demodulator kit gave excellent stereo performance.
That
tuner and Multiplex "adaptor" lasted me through high-school, college and I
probably used it up until long after I had moved to CA and started my
career
( I replaced it with a Pioneer TX-9500 IIRC) . I especially remember this
tiny little vacuum tube that rode on the dial string carriage and moved
across the dial when the tuning knob was turned. It's green glow was the
station 'pointer' and it contracted from a line to an exclamation point
(!)
when you were tuned right on the station. I always thought that was
clever.

That's the tuner, for sure. I sold mine and bought a Sherwood when stereo
came out and I had moved to Chicago for graduate school. In the area
outside of Cleveland where I went to school, the little Eico did fine. And
the Model 20 amplifier was a dandy. Later on I built a 35wpc Eico as my
first stereo amp, just after graduating from school. My first wife teases
me that I built that kit on our honeymoon (not quite, but perhaps within a
few weeks afterward. :-( ).

As for the Garrard....the A wasn't out yet....this was the much less
expensive AT-6. But it had a much better arm than the previous Garrards. I
still have it sitting somewhere on a shelf in the basement. Doubt it still
runs. However, the Norelco cartridge was a marvel, and much better than the
mono GE reluctance cartridges that were the mainstream at the time.