[Bret L]

This month marks, approximately, the 60th anniversary of the
Williamson amplifier in the United States. It was first described in
Wireless World magazine in the UK in 1947, but little notice was taken
at first by the American hobbyist-or professional. However, requests
by amateurs and pros alike for a factory wound variant of the output
transformer described in the article eventually provoked the American
transformer companies to make a suitable unit, with American style
16/8/4 ohm output taps rather than the British style of multiple
series parallel jumpers, and soon the various poopular magazines were
covering the US versions, each magazine promoting one or another
variant according to, one suspects, which transformer company
advertised the most in that magazine.

The Williamson was a revolution more in thought than in initial
results. American ' fidelity nuts' were building prewar designs
without feedback, primarily, and with triodes of low amplification
factor. Like the first F1 Lotus race car entered at Indianapolis, it
made a mediocre showing-but how it did it precipitated a technical
revolution. The Williamson did away with coupling transformers and
was built from low cost parts, save only the output transformer. It
needed no bias supply which then meant batteries or a tube rectified
affair necessitating a protection relay.

Since Americans generally did not entertain winding their own output
transformers, soon a race was on amongst the manufacturers to make a
more and more suitable unit, and each purported to supply some extra,
magic mojo with their unit. More relevantly, many had various taps on
the secondary not originally intended for ultra-linear operation, but
suitable for it, and soon many Williamsons were operating ultralinear
and with a considerably lower plate load and a beefier power supply,
upping power output in true Yankee mechanic fashion.

The Williamson had many flaws, seen from today's perspective. For its
weight and build cost its power output is unimpressive, and it trades
low distortion for stability. It is not unconditionally stable and
indeed often went into oscillation with electrostatic speakers. Being
cathode biased, it has a relatively high quiescent power draw. Like a
Ferrari with a Lampredi long block V12 or a Westland Lysander, its
ills are fixable but at the cost of its basic nature. A stable fixed-
bias Williamson is hardly a Williamson, and a Lysander with a P&W
under the cowl loses part of its essential charm, as does a
Superamerica with a Columbo short block V12 or a Lampredi with its
water pump cavity blocked off and a Chrysler unit in a Porchev
housing glommed off to the side.

By 1955, the British were no longer competitive in the high fidelity
amplifier business in terms of metrics: the Radford and Kerr-McCosh
had no serious market share at home and none abroad. Marantz,
McIntosh, and Harmon Kardon totally dominated the high end and Dyna
the low, with Fisher and Scott offering consumer friendly upscale
units for the mainstream buyer. The Germans, the Dutch (Philips) , the
Scandinavians and of course the rest of the Anglosphere never even got
to the starting gate. It wasn't until the solid state era that the US
manufacturers lost absolute, unchallenged domination.

[Patrick Turner]

Bret L wrote:

This month marks, approximately, the 60th anniversary of the
Williamson amplifier in the United States. It was first described in
Wireless World magazine in the UK in 1947, but little notice was taken
at first by the American hobbyist-or professional. However, requests
by amateurs and pros alike for a factory wound variant of the output
transformer described in the article eventually provoked the American
transformer companies to make a suitable unit, with American style
16/8/4 ohm output taps rather than the British style of multiple
series parallel jumpers, and soon the various poopular magazines were
covering the US versions, each magazine promoting one or another
variant according to, one suspects, which transformer company
advertised the most in that magazine.

Yeah, the american makers' response to Willy's ideas was "how do we dumb
down this too-hard-to-wind tranny and make a profit?"


The Williamson was a revolution more in thought than in initial
results. American ' fidelity nuts' were building prewar designs
without feedback, primarily, and with triodes of low amplification
factor. Like the first F1 Lotus race car entered at Indianapolis, it
made a mediocre showing-but how it did it precipitated a technical
revolution. The Williamson did away with coupling transformers and
was built from low cost parts, save only the output transformer. It
needed no bias supply which then meant batteries or a tube rectified
affair necessitating a protection relay.

Protection relay?

I never seen any mass made tube amp with a with any active protection
whatsovever.

The audio industry attitude has been and continues to be, "let the
punters blow up their amps soon so they will buy another."

You'd think someone would have invented a nice little circuit using one
IC would indicate if the load value fell below 2 ohms even for an
instant and then turn off the amp completely until somone fixes the
shorted speaker or lead or other problem.



Since Americans generally did not entertain winding their own output
transformers, soon a race was on amongst the manufacturers to make a
more and more suitable unit, and each purported to supply some extra,
magic mojo with their unit. More relevantly, many had various taps on
the secondary not originally intended for ultra-linear operation, but
suitable for it, and soon many Williamsons were operating ultralinear
and with a considerably lower plate load and a beefier power supply,
upping power output in true Yankee mechanic fashion.

More power, more distortion, and generally worse performance in high
class AB with a low class A % were the way the americans travelled.

You couldn't sell low powered amps to the yanks. It was no use trying to
sell a Morris car to a yank.

Yanks liked everything big and preferebly huge, and certainly bigger
than their frinds.



The Williamson had many flaws, seen from today's perspective. For its
weight and build cost its power output is unimpressive, and it trades
low distortion for stability. It is not unconditionally stable and
indeed often went into oscillation with electrostatic speakers. Being
cathode biased, it has a relatively high quiescent power draw. Like a
Ferrari with a Lampredi long block V12 or a Westland Lysander, its
ills are fixable but at the cost of its basic nature. A stable fixed-
bias Williamson is hardly a Williamson, and a Lysander with a P&W
under the cowl loses part of its essential charm, as does a
Superamerica with a Columbo short block V12 or a Lampredi with its
water pump cavity blocked off and a Chrysler unit in a Porchev
housing glommed off to the side.

By 1955, the British were no longer competitive in the high fidelity
amplifier business in terms of metrics: the Radford and Kerr-McCosh
had no serious market share at home and none abroad. Marantz,
McIntosh, and Harmon Kardon totally dominated the high end and Dyna
the low, with Fisher and Scott offering consumer friendly upscale
units for the mainstream buyer. The Germans, the Dutch (Philips) , the
Scandinavians and of course the rest of the Anglosphere never even got
to the starting gate. It wasn't until the solid state era that the US
manufacturers lost absolute, unchallenged domination.

Ah, you forgot trade tarriffs and import barriers.

In Oz, hardly anyone bought anything american because it always was so
damned expensive. Ralf Nader pointed out that american motor vehicles
were no safer than the ones we made here, albeit under companies run as
offshhots to GM in america, such as Holden. Hardly anyone made any money
selling Oz made amps to other Oz ppl because those with any money bought
british brands such as Leak or Quad.

Many audio ppl made their own amps using 807 and 6SN7 from ex-army
surplus stores and OPT, PT and chokes from local makers; A&R in
Melbourne, Fergeson in Sydney. None were Partridge quality, so the
extremely small number of audiophiles in Oz which was a very un-cultured
place in 1955 had trouble making stable tube amplifiers of any kind. The
Mullard 510 and 520 became more popular than Williamsons.

The Williamson was just one of several designs one could build onself,
and AFAIK, there was NEVER a perfectly created commercial replica of the
Willy circuit including the exact details of the OPT with all its
windings which allowed wasteless arrangement of secondaries.

Williamson was the most laughed at bloke in the audio industry. But
never in public of course. Most makers hated having to be forced to make
their products perform better because it always meant increased
production costs, higher shipping weight, and more reluctant customers,
and greater difficulty convincing anyone that the greater weight and
heat of a class A amp with a decent low loss OPT was going to give
better music than some lightweight under-engeneered POS that was the
lowest common denominator which 95% of people always bought.

In this present era, there is preponderance of utter crap in the market
place with a variety of so called high end which mainly consists of
class AB amps with a maximum of class AB with a tiny portion of class A.
None have active protection against a failing tube.
None have an octal plug and socket with two positions to allow two load
matches of 4 and 8 ohms without the wasteful simple taps down a winding.
NFB has been a despicable thing to use in atube amp for about 15 years
now. Unless you were DeParavicini, who used a shirt and trouserload full
of it around a nearly class B amp such as the EAR509 POS.
I think makers don't mind if THD is 5 times what the Willy amp made for
the same SPL. It must be remembered that in 1955, speakers had very
light cones and voicecoils and power handling ability. 95dB/W was
typical. So 16W was plenty for 99% of people who hadn't learnt to become
greedy, and ehose middle class income hadnt climbed high enough to fund
the extravagances of gadgetry as well as fund having the baby boomer
generation to raise. There was no Pill in 1955, and home life meant kids
everywhere. Hi-Fi? most folks wondered WTF that was....

The sources for music were also attrociously un-fi in 1955, so there was
no real reason for 0.1% THD at 16W......

Nearly all the people I ever knew in the 1950s might have had a very
crummy radiogram with a lone 6V6 output tube. We rolled on the floor
laughing at the Goon Show, and nobody cared a hoot about hi-fi. There
was 4 kHz of BW, and the people on radio or those who sang had voices
which could be easily understood. No we have hi-fi gear to reproduce the
most appalling speaking or singing voices and much noise masquerading as
music. While most of the world gladly got rid of these early horrid
"lounge-room entertainment gadgets", when TV came in here in 1956, audio
went even further out of people's minds, and when everything went solid
state it got even worse, until the laws on import duties were changed to
allow foreign products in from mainly Japan.
But even in 1964 you could buy a local made stereo radiogram with a pair
of SE EL84 output tubes operationg in pentode mode with only 3 dB of
GNFB.
I still have the chassis from the one my mum bought then. Its now much
modified, and nothing liike as terible and attrocious as the Kriesler it
used to be. I have a few Radiola chassis for mono sound from AM radio
and a crystal mono pu.
The Deluxe radiogram from which the best chassis came from had a
frightful TT which stripped kHz off the BW of any record played each
time you played it. The main audio amp had a pair of 6V6 in PP pentode
in a slightly W style of circuit. The BW in radio was 3kHz only.
It wasn't deluxe at all, but the same old crap the local industry had
been cranking out for the 20 years after 1938.

Nothing designed between 1947 and 1957 for the consuming public
including the Willy amp was really the best way to make something.

I have worked on enough american designed and made amps to know that my
father didn't miss anything by not buying something electronic made in
the USA.

However, in the 1950s he did buy a Willys Jeep Stationwagon which
probably had a Willys Jeep WW2 chassis under what was a large wagon
which could seat 6, and us 3 kids and mum could be all driven to a
holiday destination up in the Blue Mountains for a week in school
holidays.
It was quite primitive compared to today's SUV. But my dad was vet who
would have got paid very well and he knew many local people including
other profesionals who owned the places where we were taken to for
holidays such as the shack up at Oberon on the Duckmaloy river which was
full of trout. So he'd fix a doctor's dog and we'd get the use of the
doctor's shack for a week out of the trout fishing season. He and I
would work fixing the track leading up to the shack as part of the deal.

My father once told us at dinner of a guy whose dog he'd been to visit.
He spoke reverently of the amp the guy had made with a 4 x 807 and for
long playing vinyl records *in stereo*. That guy was the only one I ever
learnt had a hi-fi system. My dad had zero sense of rythym or music
though and his taste was anything but eclectic which was queer because
he'd married my mum who had played the piano very well. There was never
a piano in the house and I don't know why she mainly gave up music. I
often think many people just chuck away one of the best parts of their
personality to marry a good looking but bad tempered and inconsistant
man. But of course often it is that a very imperfect man appeals to a
woman's inner and uncontrolable drive to breed. So it was in 1944 or
therabouts. He took a very dim view when I learnt to play a guitar, and
wanted to spend time with friends to listen to records. Like many
fathers, he had no better suggestions to make in an un-threatening way.
After I left home at 20, I began a good career but it took me 7 years
before I bought a hi-fi system, and it made social life and wooing a
wife easier and more enjoyable. But she had a frightful temper, and
flounced off......and she didn't like hi-fi or musuc much at all.

When people talk of Williamsons, I wonder how many people concieved
progeny with such wondrous melodia in the background?

I wonder too how many divorces were caused by a man bringing a
Williamson into the house?

Patrick Turner.

[John Byrns]

In article ,
Patrick Turner wrote:

Bret L wrote:

This month marks, approximately, the 60th anniversary of the
Williamson amplifier in the United States. It was first described in
Wireless World magazine in the UK in 1947, but little notice was taken
at first by the American hobbyist-or professional. However, requests
by amateurs and pros alike for a factory wound variant of the output
transformer described in the article eventually provoked the American
transformer companies to make a suitable unit, with American style
16/8/4 ohm output taps rather than the British style of multiple
series parallel jumpers, and soon the various poopular magazines were
covering the US versions, each magazine promoting one or another
variant according to, one suspects, which transformer company
advertised the most in that magazine.

Yeah, the american makers' response to Willy's ideas was "how do we dumb
down this too-hard-to-wind tranny and make a profit?"

Looked to me like the British amp makers had pretty much the same
attitude.

The Williamson was a revolution more in thought than in initial
results. American ' fidelity nuts' were building prewar designs
without feedback, primarily, and with triodes of low amplification
factor. Like the first F1 Lotus race car entered at Indianapolis, it
made a mediocre showing-but how it did it precipitated a technical
revolution. The Williamson did away with coupling transformers and
was built from low cost parts, save only the output transformer. It
needed no bias supply which then meant batteries or a tube rectified
affair necessitating a protection relay.

Protection relay?

--
Regards,

John Byrns

Surf my web pages at, http://fmamradios.com/

[John Byrns]

In article ,
Patrick Turner wrote:

Bret L wrote:

This month marks, approximately, the 60th anniversary of the
Williamson amplifier in the United States. It was first described in
Wireless World magazine in the UK in 1947, but little notice was taken
at first by the American hobbyist-or professional. However, requests
by amateurs and pros alike for a factory wound variant of the output
transformer described in the article eventually provoked the American
transformer companies to make a suitable unit, with American style
16/8/4 ohm output taps rather than the British style of multiple
series parallel jumpers, and soon the various poopular magazines were
covering the US versions, each magazine promoting one or another
variant according to, one suspects, which transformer company
advertised the most in that magazine.

Yeah, the american makers' response to Willy's ideas was "how do we dumb
down this too-hard-to-wind tranny and make a profit?"

Looked to me like the British amp makers had pretty much the same
attitude.

The Williamson was a revolution more in thought than in initial
results. American ' fidelity nuts' were building prewar designs
without feedback, primarily, and with triodes of low amplification
factor. Like the first F1 Lotus race car entered at Indianapolis, it
made a mediocre showing-but how it did it precipitated a technical
revolution. The Williamson did away with coupling transformers and
was built from low cost parts, save only the output transformer. It
needed no bias supply which then meant batteries or a tube rectified
affair necessitating a protection relay.

Protection relay?

With bias supplied by batteries or tube rectifiers as specified above a
protection relay is almost a necessity.

I never seen any mass made tube amp with a with any active protection
whatsovever.

"mass made" amplifiers for home use mostly used selenium bias rectifiers
which were relatively reliable eliminating the need for a protection
relay. You will find protection relays used in some higher power audio
amplifiers designed for commercial and industrial applications,
especially those using vacuum tube bias rectifiers.

--
Regards,

John Byrns

Surf my web pages at, http://fmamradios.com/

[Andre Jute[_2_]]

You're wanking away ignorantly as usual, Bratzi. Among other points, I
had a Ferrari briefly before going back to the more reliable Maserati,
and you're as usual dead wrong on all the major points. But that's off-
topic here.

On Jul 5, 1:50*am, Bret L wrote: *

I'll leave the rest of the on-topic stuff, also wrong but snipped for
bandwidth, for those with more patience to straighten out, but this is
pure unadulterated guano:

*By 1955, the British were no longer competitive in the high fidelity
amplifier business in terms of metrics: the Radford and Kerr-McCosh
had no serious market share at home and none abroad. Marantz,
McIntosh, *and Harmon Kardon totally dominated the high end and Dyna
the low, with Fisher and Scott offering consumer friendly upscale
units for the mainstream buyer. The Germans, the Dutch (Philips) , the
Scandinavians and of course the rest of the Anglosphere never even got
to the starting gate. It wasn't until the solid state era that the US
manufacturers lost absolute, unchallenged domination.

Pure vampire bat-****. You want to read a little history before you
try writing it, Ludwig. For instance, Mr Gilbert Briggs of Wharfedale
relates how in 1955 he and Mr Leak and others at the audio show in New
York prepared themselves for life after bankruptcy -- but not because
of anything any American did. They were worried because Mr Peter
Walker chose New York to give the first public demonstration of his
electrostatic speaker, and left everyone under the impression it
wouldn't cost too much more than a big cone driver in a box.

Get the facts first, Bratzi, before you open your mouth, and you won't
be embarrassed every time you open it.

Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Amps at
http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/
"wonderfully well written and reasoned information for the tube audio
constructor"
John Broskie TubeCAD & GlassWare
"an unbelievably comprehensive web site containing vital gems of
wisdom"
Stuart Perry Hi-Fi News & Record Review

[Andre Jute[_2_]]

On Jul 6, 3:32*pm, John Byrns wrote:
In article ,
*Patrick Turner wrote:



Bret L wrote:

*This month marks, approximately, the 60th anniversary of the
Williamson amplifier *in the United States. It was first described in
Wireless World magazine in the UK in 1947, but little notice was taken
at first by the American hobbyist-or professional. However, requests
by amateurs and pros alike for a factory wound variant of the output
transformer described in the article eventually provoked the American
transformer companies to make a suitable unit, with American style
16/8/4 ohm output taps rather than the British style of multiple
series parallel jumpers, and soon the various poopular magazines were
covering the US versions, each magazine promoting one or another
variant according to, one suspects, which transformer company
advertised the most in that magazine.

Yeah, the american makers' response to Willy's ideas was "how do we dumb
down this too-hard-to-wind tranny and make a profit?"

Looked to me like the British amp makers had pretty much the same
attitude.

*The Williamson was a revolution more in thought than in initial
results. American ' fidelity nuts' were building prewar designs
without feedback, primarily, and with triodes of low amplification
factor. Like the first F1 Lotus race car entered at Indianapolis, it
made a mediocre showing-but how it did it precipitated a technical
revolution. *The Williamson did away with coupling transformers and
was built from low cost parts, save only the output transformer. It
needed no bias supply which then meant batteries or a tube rectified
affair necessitating a protection relay.

Protection relay?

--
Regards,

John Byrns

Surf my web pages at, *http://fmamradios.com/

The thing that Patrick wrote that really rang a bell with me was that
real high-fidelity was an even smaller niche then than it is today.

I remember that the first time I heard what was described as "high
fidelity" a huge radiogram about seven feet long was carried into the
school hall and a soulful old boy who was a poet (the heartier
teachers made no secret of keeping their backs to the wall!) gave a
little talk and a demonstration, mostly of stereo effects like
footfalls and a train passing from left to right.

My family didn't have a radiogram; we went to concerts instead and
knew what real music sounded like. This gave me the perspective that
whatever (we now know horrid rubbish) drivers were in the gramophone
demoed in the school hall didn't do too well with the treble. I don't
remember that it fell short on the bass, but overblown bass is a
relatively recent audiophile perversion.

Andre Jute
Visit Andre's books at
http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/THE%20WRITER'S%20HOUSE.html

[Dr. Barry L. Ornitz]

"John Byrns" wrote in message
...
"mass made" amplifiers for home use mostly used selenium bias
rectifiers
which were relatively reliable eliminating the need for a protection
relay.

And besides, selenium rectifiers let you know they were overloaded by
their smell - rotting onions and garlic (odor threshold 0.0002 mg/m^3).
Selenium dioxide is rather toxic too.

[Bret L]

The Williamson was a revolution more in thought than in initial
results. American ' fidelity nuts' were building prewar designs
without feedback, primarily, and with triodes of low amplification
factor. Like the first F1 Lotus race car entered at Indianapolis, it
made a mediocre showing-but how it did it precipitated a technical
revolution. The Williamson did away with coupling transformers and
was built from low cost parts, save only the output transformer. It
needed no bias supply which then meant batteries or a tube rectified
affair necessitating a protection relay.

Protection relay?

I never seen any mass made tube amp with a with any active protection
whatsovever.

The old theater amps that were fixed bias in the 40s had them.

The audio industry attitude has been and continues to be, "let the
punters blow up their amps soon so they will buy another."

You'd think someone would have invented a nice little circuit using one
IC would indicate if the load value fell below 2 ohms even for an
instant and then turn off the amp completely until somone fixes the
shorted speaker or lead or other problem.



Since Americans generally did not entertain winding their own output
transformers, soon a race was on amongst the manufacturers to make a
more and more suitable unit, and each purported to supply some extra,
magic mojo with their unit. More relevantly, many had various taps on
the secondary not originally intended for ultra-linear operation, but
suitable for it, and soon many Williamsons were operating ultralinear
and with a considerably lower plate load and a beefier power supply,
upping power output in true Yankee mechanic fashion.

More power, more distortion, and generally worse performance in high
class AB with a low class A % were the way the americans travelled.

You couldn't sell low powered amps to the yanks. It was no use trying to
sell a Morris car to a yank.

As I write this there is a 50s or 60s Morris Minor, right hand drive,
parked in the parking lot outside the window. Next to it is the
owner's wife's Chevy powered XJ12. What are the ODDS? The downstairs
office is owned by an old Brit car freak. On the other side of the
lot is a new Smart car, about the size of a golf cart.

I just bought a 68 Ford LTD, four door, with a fresh EFI five liter
and AOD. That's my idea of a good car. Gas is the cheapest thing I put
in it.


Yanks liked everything big and preferebly huge, and certainly bigger
than their frinds.





The Williamson had many flaws, seen from today's perspective. For its
weight and build cost its power output is unimpressive, and it trades
low distortion for stability. It is not unconditionally stable and
indeed often went into oscillation with electrostatic speakers. Being
cathode biased, it has a relatively high quiescent power draw. Like a
Ferrari with a Lampredi long block V12 or a Westland Lysander, its
ills are fixable but at the cost of its basic nature. A stable fixed-
bias Williamson is hardly a Williamson, and a Lysander with a P&W
under the cowl loses part of its essential charm, as does a
Superamerica with a Columbo short block V12 or a Lampredi with its
water pump cavity blocked off and a Chrysler unit in a Porchev
housing glommed off to the side.

By 1955, the British were no longer competitive in the high fidelity
amplifier business in terms of metrics: the Radford and Kerr-McCosh
had no serious market share at home and none abroad. Marantz,
McIntosh, and Harmon Kardon totally dominated the high end and Dyna
the low, with Fisher and Scott offering consumer friendly upscale
units for the mainstream buyer. The Germans, the Dutch (Philips) , the
Scandinavians and of course the rest of the Anglosphere never even got
to the starting gate. It wasn't until the solid state era that the US
manufacturers lost absolute, unchallenged domination.

Ah, you forgot trade tarriffs and import barriers.

In Oz, hardly anyone bought anything american because it always was so
damned expensive. Ralf Nader pointed out that american motor vehicles
were no safer than the ones we made here, albeit under companies run as
offshhots to GM in america, such as Holden. Hardly anyone made any money
selling Oz made amps to other Oz ppl because those with any money bought
british brands such as Leak or Quad.


Many audio ppl made their own amps using 807 and 6SN7 from ex-army
surplus stores and OPT, PT and chokes from local makers; A&R in
Melbourne, Fergeson in Sydney. None were Partridge quality, so the
extremely small number of audiophiles in Oz which was a very un-cultured
place in 1955 had trouble making stable tube amplifiers of any kind. The
Mullard 510 and 520 became more popular than Williamsons.

Australia, and New Zealand, DID NOT MATTER, there weren't enough
people in those countries and of those that were they were as you say
yourself were not willing to pay for the good stuff. in the history
of vintage tube audio, only two nations really mattered, although the
Germans and the Dutch (Philips) had some interesting stuff, and even
the Finns had a really interesting design. German audio was not
readily available in the US for various reasons, one of which is that
a real cocksucker named Steven Temmer got the Telefunken franchise in
the US and ****ed the pro market over hard and fast.. Siemens and
Telefunken had some great tech but we never saw it and neither did the
Brits AFAIK. It's a real shame as the EL 156 would have let McIntosh
build an honest 100+ wpc amp with two tubes essentially in the
receiving tube class-no bright filaments, plate caps or really high B
+.

Again, AUSTRALIA DID NOT MATTER and so far STILL DOES NOT. Not for
audio. There is an interesting company making pianos there though.

The Williamson was just one of several designs one could build onself,
and AFAIK, there was NEVER a perfectly created commercial replica of the
Willy circuit including the exact details of the OPT with all its
windings which allowed wasteless arrangement of secondaries.

Both British and American commercial winders built MUCH BETTER
transformers than the Willy paper design. Even backwoods transformer
shops realized that much simpler designs could be better. It's
possible the Germans made excellent ones too but they did not market
them as a standalone product, and no other country mattered. Even
Italy, which had something of an electronics industry, wasn't a
player.

[Bret L]

On Jul 6, 8:34 pm, Andre Jute wrote:
You're wanking away ignorantly as usual, Bratzi. Among other points, I
had a Ferrari briefly before going back to the more reliable Maserati,
and you're as usual dead wrong on all the major points. But that's off-
topic here.

All the Italian exotics were basically reliable mechanically. It was
the mastic in the bodywork, the useless Italian electrics, and the
sometimes dodgy plumbing that gave trouble mostly. The Lampredi
engine Ferraris had engine troubles internally, but they were very
few-95% of Ferraris had the Colombo engine which was a scaled down
Packard Twin Six lower end with overhead cam heads.

Lampredi originally wanted to go all the way and scale down the
Packard RR Merlin replete with fork and blade rods, but Enzo wasn't
having that. The eventual Lampredi is a mutt-part prewar car Packard,
part PT Packard, and part 1710 Allison.

Pure vampire bat-****. You want to read a little history before you
try writing it, Ludwig. For instance, Mr Gilbert Briggs of Wharfedale
relates how in 1955 he and Mr Leak and others at the audio show in New
York prepared themselves for life after bankruptcy -- but not because
of anything any American did. They were worried because Mr Peter
Walker chose New York to give the first public demonstration of his
electrostatic speaker, and left everyone under the impression it
wouldn't cost too much more than a big cone driver in a box.

The early Quad electrostats were priced well below the top JBL and
Altec home offerings, which then sold well enough.

[Alex]

"Patrick Turner" wrote in message
...
Nearly all the people I ever knew in the 1950s might have had a very
crummy radiogram with a lone 6V6 output tube. We rolled on the floor
laughing at the Goon Show, and nobody cared a hoot about hi-fi. There
was 4 kHz of BW, and the people on radio or those who sang had voices
which could be easily understood. No we have hi-fi gear to reproduce the
most appalling speaking or singing voices and much noise masquerading as
music. While most of the world gladly got rid of these early horrid
"lounge-room entertainment gadgets", when TV came in here in 1956, audio
went even further out of people's minds, and when everything went solid
state it got even worse, until the laws on import duties were changed to
allow foreign products in from mainly Japan.

I am not an expert in the tube amps, but closely observe vintage Oz radios
for sale on the e-bay.
I found that the Oz radios from 30's to early 60's are extremely primitive
and electrically boooooooooooooooring. 6A8G-6U7G-6B8G-6V6G-5Y3 , then
6AN7A-6N8-6N8-6M5-6X4 and later 6BE6-6BA6-6AV6-6AQ5-6X4 was pretty much the
limit of imagination of Oz engineers. Almost none of the Oz radios have a
tuning indicator, very few have an RF stage (6-th valve). Wiring is messy,
STC and Kriesler are the messiest ones.

In comparison, even Russian radios (I am a Russian) of that era were more
advanced. Almost all models had a 6E5G magic eye, 30% of radios had 6L6GT SE
output (5W), some had push-pull ultralinear 2x6L6 stages. Those would have a
separate bass/treble tone control and a dedicated 6SJ7 1-st audio stage, as
well as variable IF bandwidth for distant/local reception. Output
transformers were on average twice heavier than in Oz. Primary resistance
did not normally exceed 250 Ohm with 15...20H, while in Oz radios 350...500
ohm and 8...10H was a norm. (What bass response can be expected from those
undernourished trannies?) Ceramic trimcaps were used, not the wirewound
rubbish common in OZ radios.

Regards,
Alex

[Clyde Slick]

On Jul 7, 3:47*am, Bret L wrote:


*I just bought a 68 Ford LTD, four door, with a fresh EFI five liter
and AOD. That's my idea of a good car. Gas is the cheapest thing I put
in it.


Does that include your MM blow-up doll?

[John Byrns]

In article ,
"Alex" wrote:

In comparison, even Russian radios (I am a Russian) of that era were more
advanced. Almost all models had a 6E5G magic eye, 30% of radios had 6L6GT SE
output (5W), some had push-pull ultralinear 2x6L6 stages. Those would have a
separate bass/treble tone control and a dedicated 6SJ7 1-st audio stage, as
well as variable IF bandwidth for distant/local reception. Output
transformers were on average twice heavier than in Oz. Primary resistance
did not normally exceed 250 Ohm with 15...20H, while in Oz radios 350...500
ohm and 8...10H was a norm. (What bass response can be expected from those
undernourished trannies?) Ceramic trimcaps were used, not the wirewound
rubbish common in OZ radios.

This is at least the second recent mention of "wirewound trimcaps" here
in recent weeks. I never heard of "wirewound trimcaps" before, can
anyone describe them for me, or point me to a picture of one?

--
Regards,

John Byrns

Surf my web pages at, http://fmamradios.com/

[[email protected]]

On Jul 6, 8:45*pm, Andre Jute wrote:

My family didn't have a radiogram; we went to concerts instead and
knew what real music sounded like.

Unlikely. Unless you mean the local band concerts at the park
pavilion. The brute fact of the matter is that unless one was city-
folk (either banker or working class) concerts in the sense as usually
meant were not the norm in South Africa. Well.... perhaps Andre was of
the 'Bankers' Class" but given his general rudeness and absolute
crudeness despite being able to turn a phrase - that is quite
unlikely.

This gave me the perspective that
whatever (we now know horrid rubbish) drivers were in the gramophone
demoed in the school hall didn't do too well with the treble. I don't
remember that it fell short on the bass, but overblown bass is a
relatively recent audiophile perversion.

Actually, speakers even remotely capable of achieving something
resembling the full spectrum of concert-music are relatively recent
phenomena - starting around the 60s or so. And speakers that can do so
without twice their own weight in power to drive them are only a few
amongst those. What they are not, most definitely, are single-
conventional-full-range drivers. Those are entirely incapable of
reasonable bass excepting heroic and extreme measures - and if those
are taken - entirely capable of decent treble. So, what those
advocates spew is the "overblown" bass myth and then designate
actually capable speakers (and electronics) as "perverse".

Andre is nothing else if not perverse in his own right and so perhaps
might be able to recognize it on the hoof. Unlikely but possible.

Peter Wieck
On vacation in Sheboygan, WI

[[email protected]]

On Jul 6, 8:34*pm, Andre Jute wrote:
You're wanking away ignorantly as usual, Bratzi. Among other points, I
had a Ferrari briefly before going back to the more reliable Maserati,

From Hasbro and/or Lindberg Plastics.

Peter Wieck
Vacationing in Sheboygan, WI

[Andre Jute[_2_]]

On Jul 7, 8:57*am, Bret L wrote:
On Jul 6, 8:34 pm, Andre Jute wrote: You're wanking away ignorantly as usual, Bratzi. Among other points, I
had a Ferrari briefly before going back to the more reliable Maserati,
and you're as usual dead wrong on all the major points. But that's off-
topic here.

*All the Italian exotics were basically reliable mechanically.

Which Ferrari did you have, Ludwig, and for how long, and what went
wrong with it in that time?

Below Ludwig claims among other inanities that Ferrari engines are
copies of Packard engines. Ditto for the Merlin engine; Merlin was a
Rolls-Royce design, you blithering moron! I can't be bothered to sort
out the rest of such arrogant American-centric crap from this thick
redneck.

Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Amps at
http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/
"wonderfully well written and reasoned information for the tube audio
constructor"
John Broskie TubeCAD & GlassWare
"an unbelievably comprehensive web site containing vital gems of
wisdom"
Stuart Perry Hi-Fi News & Record Review


It was
the mastic in the bodywork, the useless Italian electrics, *and the
sometimes dodgy plumbing that gave trouble mostly. *
The Lampredi
engine Ferraris had engine troubles internally, but they were very
few-95% of Ferraris had the Colombo engine which was a scaled down
Packard Twin Six lower end with overhead cam heads.

*Lampredi originally wanted to go all the way and scale down the
Packard RR Merlin *replete with fork and blade rods, but Enzo wasn't
having that. *The eventual Lampredi is a mutt-part prewar car Packard,
part PT Packard, and part 1710 Allison.



Pure vampire bat-****. You want to read a little history before you
try writing it, Ludwig. For instance, Mr Gilbert Briggs of Wharfedale
relates how in 1955 he and Mr Leak and others at the audio show in New
York prepared themselves for life after bankruptcy -- but not because
of anything any American did. They were worried because Mr Peter
Walker chose New York to give the first public demonstration of his
electrostatic speaker, and left everyone under the impression it
wouldn't cost too much more than a big cone driver in a box.

*The early Quad electrostats were priced well below the top JBL and
Altec *home offerings, which then sold well enough.

[[email protected]]

On Jul 7, 6:39*pm, Andre Jute wrote:
Ludwig claims among other inanities that Ferrari engines are
copies of Packard engines. Ditto for the Merlin engine; Merlin
was a Rolls-Royce design...

Yes it was, based on the Schneider Cup-winning engine. But RR
did eventually license the Merlin to Packard, who manufactured
the engine to power the P51 Mustang.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

[Andre Jute[_2_]]

On Jul 8, 12:13*am, wrote:
On Jul 7, 6:39*pm, Andre Jute wrote:

Ludwig claims among other inanities that Ferrari engines are
copies of Packard engines. Ditto for the Merlin engine; Merlin
was a Rolls-Royce design...

Yes it was, based on the Schneider Cup-winning engine. But RR
did eventually license the Merlin to Packard, who manufactured
the engine to power the P51 Mustang.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

Yes, I know all that, John. But that Rolls-Royce licensed the engine
to Packard doesn't make it a "Packard design" as Ludwig tries to
claim; it remains forever a Rolls-Royce design. Ludwig, besides making
rather large claims of this ludicrous nature, is a copyright thief who
in the past has claimed that my copyright material belonged to him by
right of repeated theft. He is a perfect stranger to logic.

Andre Jute
Visit Andre's books at
http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/THE%20WRITER'S%20HOUSE.html

[Alex]

On Jul 8, 5:18*am, John Byrns wrote:
In article ,

*"Alex" wrote:
In comparison, even Russian radios (I am a Russian) of that era were more
advanced. Almost all models had a 6E5G magic eye, 30% of radios had 6L6GT SE
output (5W), some had push-pull ultralinear 2x6L6 stages. Those would have a
separate bass/treble tone control and a dedicated 6SJ7 1-st audio stage, as
well as variable IF bandwidth for distant/local reception. Output
transformers were on average twice heavier than in Oz. Primary resistance
did not normally exceed 250 Ohm with 15...20H, while in Oz radios 350....500
ohm and 8...10H was a norm. (What bass response can be expected from those
undernourished trannies?) Ceramic trimcaps were used, not the wirewound
rubbish common in OZ radios.

This is at least the second recent mention of "wirewound trimcaps" here
in recent weeks. *I never heard of "wirewound trimcaps" before, can
anyone describe them for me, or point me to a picture of one?

--
Regards,

John Byrns

Wirewound trimcap is like that:
On a straight piece of enamelled wire of about 200mm long and 1.5mm in
diameter, a layer of 0.2mm wire is wound. Obviously, there is
capacitance between the core wire (which is "hot", connected to a LC
tank) and the outer layer (which is "cold", typically grounded). By
carefully unwinding the outer layer, turn by turn, you progressively
reduce the capacitance, thus trimming your LC tank.
When you reach a desired tuning, you should stop unwinding and then
cut the excess of the unwound thin wire.
But what if you want to go back and increase capacitance? It is
extremely awkward, because wounding back the loose wire will not be
neat, and the capacitance will not be stable. If you have cut the
wire, then going back is impossible at all.

Such wirewound trimcaps were extremely cheap and basically one-time-
trimmable rubbish. In Oz radios such were commonplace, especially in
STC brand.

More respectable manufacturers, such as Philips used "concentric
tubes" air type ( I do not know a better term to describe them),
others used ceramic or, on rare occasions, mica compression trimcaps.
With those you can realign your radio as many times as you wish.

Regards,
Alex

[Alex]

On Jul 8, 10:11*am, Alex wrote:
On Jul 8, 5:18*am, John Byrns wrote:

Wirewound trimcap is like that:
On a straight piece of enamelled wire of about 200mm long and 1.5mm in
diameter, a layer of 0.2mm wire is wound.

CORRECTION:

20mm long

[KeithR]

Andre Jute wrote:
On Jul 8, 12:13 am, wrote:
On Jul 7, 6:39 pm, Andre Jute wrote:

Ludwig claims among other inanities that Ferrari engines are
copies of Packard engines. Ditto for the Merlin engine; Merlin
was a Rolls-Royce design...
Yes it was, based on the Schneider Cup-winning engine. But RR
did eventually license the Merlin to Packard, who manufactured
the engine to power the P51 Mustang.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

Yes, I know all that, John. But that Rolls-Royce licensed the engine
to Packard doesn't make it a "Packard design" as Ludwig tries to
claim; it remains forever a Rolls-Royce design. Ludwig, besides making
rather large claims of this ludicrous nature, is a copyright thief who
in the past has claimed that my copyright material belonged to him by
right of repeated theft. He is a perfect stranger to logic.

Andre Jute
Visit Andre's books at
http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/THE%20WRITER'S%20HOUSE.html

The P51 was originally developed to an RAF requirement. It was fitted
with a Packard engine which gave so-so performance especially at high
altitude. The British fitted a Merlin in place of the Packard and
immediately got another 50mph out of it and improved high altitude
performance. Later, when the USAAF ordered the P51, Packard licenced the
Merlin from Rolls Royce and this engine was fitted to all subsequent
models.

[Bret L]

Below Ludwig claims among other inanities that Ferrari engines are
copies of Packard engines. Ditto for the Merlin engine; Merlin was a
Rolls-Royce design, you blithering moron! I can't be bothered to sort
out the rest of such arrogant American-centric crap from this thick
redneck.

Dumber than a fence post, you are.

The RR Merlin was indeed a Rolls Royce and therefore British design,
as were a long line of engines before and a few (piston) designs
thereafter. BUT as every knowledgeable person knows, the early and
late Marks of Merlin were as different as a 1955 small block Chevy is
from an LS-1, even more so. The early Merlin was very troublesome and
its design had several quirks that did things like gas out the pilots
of Spitfires with glycol vapors, plus it was very labor intensive to
make. Packard in the US was licensed to build it and instead of
copying it built a much BETTER version that had far reduced build time
and was more reliable. RR incorporated Packard features and vice versa
as the war went on, and the last Merlins RR built were arguably the
best of all, but those were postwar.

Packard vastly improved their engines and those of Rolls, as any
expert will tell you.

How did RR pay Packard back for the development which Packard shared
with RR unstintingly and for free? Well, when the US government sought
to order a run of 600 or so more Merlins, RR pulled Packard's license.
This may well not have been the doing of RR, because a socialist
government in at that time had imposed the export-or-die mantra on
British manufacturers, and it was thought the US Government would just
buy them from RR directly. Well, what happened was that they went
with a ******* engine-a 1710 Allison with a Merlin blower-which they
bought new despite the availablity of thousands of Merlins and
Allisons in crates and on assorted airframes which had a cash value of
just over their weight in scrap.

Packard was told that the US Government would simply allow them to
build them without license but packard refused as they felt this waa
improper. Losing the Merlin contract meant, though, that Packard was
out of the running for any further defense work-which was a serious
blow and contributed to their demise.

Jute, you are really quite ignorant of any history whatever, and it
shows more and more. You should learn to quit when you are ahead.

[Bret L]

On Jul 7, 6:13 pm, wrote:
On Jul 7, 6:39 pm, Andre Jute wrote:

Ludwig claims among other inanities that Ferrari engines are
copies of Packard engines. Ditto for the Merlin engine; Merlin
was a Rolls-Royce design...

Yes it was, based on the Schneider Cup-winning engine. But RR
did eventually license the Merlin to Packard, who manufactured
the engine to power the P51 Mustang.


The Schneider Cup engine-the "R"- was a methanol burning, castor oil
lubricated engine of 36 liters-6" bore by 6.6" stroke which was
much more similar to the later Griffon than the Merlin. RR also built
a fair number of other V12 aero engines, plus, such oddities as the
Exe. They were beautifully built, all of them, but the
productionizing (irrelevant with the R engine but very much so with
the Merlin) was poor. Actually, that was the case with most of
Britain's war materiel, excellent quality but made at a fearful
price of time and effort. What both the Germans and the AMericans
were better at was being able to make something to be built in high
volume and with minimal labor. The Germans were addicted to
workmanship requirements and further their factories were destroyed
relentlessly. What the US had was a lot of factories and personnel of
reasonable basic ability,, not really worried about being bombed, and
a fairly long tradition of engineer-to-build without the classically
trained tradesmen German and British products had.

From a human cost effort the British war production effort was
probably more heroic, more remarkable than that of the US, because of
the considerable advantages of not being bombed, having unlimited
materials (most of them), and so forth. The Brits made a lot of
Spitfires, Mosquitoes, and heavy bombers and they involved a lot of
labor. But in terms of numbers the US totally dominated: we were
cranking them out faster than they could be shot down and on a
radically more time effective basis. I think a Mustang took roughly a
third of the man (or woman) hours a Spitfire did, and the Mustang was
as fast on a -9A Packard Merlin as a Spitfire was on a Griffon, also
carried more ordnance further .

The Brits elected a socialist government and endured half a decade of
drab misery, whereas the US had its greatest material success in that
same time period. Today, multiculturalism and diversity and self-
abasement have pretty well destroyed both countries: Britain being
ahead of us in the long dark slide, and, if the recent success of
Messrs. Griffin and Co. are any indication, maybe ahead of us in the
fix as well.

[Bret L]

On Jul 7, 6:36 pm, Andre Jute wrote:
On Jul 8, 12:13 am, wrote:

On Jul 7, 6:39 pm, Andre Jute wrote:

Ludwig claims among other inanities that Ferrari engines are
copies of Packard engines. Ditto for the Merlin engine; Merlin
was a Rolls-Royce design...

Yes it was, based on the Schneider Cup-winning engine. But RR
did eventually license the Merlin to Packard, who manufactured
the engine to power the P51 Mustang.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

Yes, I know all that, John. But that Rolls-Royce licensed the engine
to Packard doesn't make it a "Packard design" as Ludwig tries to
claim; it remains forever a Rolls-Royce design. Ludwig, besides making
rather large claims of this ludicrous nature, is a copyright thief who
in the past has claimed that my copyright material belonged to him by
right of repeated theft. He is a perfect stranger to logic.

Packard took the basic design and reengineered the whole thing from a
tooling and construction standpoint, and made many things
interchangeable that had been fit-on-assembly previously. They made
their own patterns and core boxes from scratch and changed materials
and harmonized many dimensions. What had taken dozens of fitters days
to tweak and cobble now went together in minutes without stoning or
filing. In the field it meant that individual parts could be swapped
where before RR had had complete assemblies rotated and shipped to
depots.

Packard had built their own aero engines and marine engines as well
as luxury car engines-the V-12 PT boat engine had originally been
intended for dirigibles. They were a first class engineering firm in
their own right but they agreed to build someone else's engine for
patriotic reasons only. RR incorporated a great deal of Packard back
into their engines, which is why late RR Merlins have much
interchangeability with Packard engines. This is all well
documented .

The last word is to be had here by builders of Unlimited air racing
aircraft engines. The preferred combination today is a mix of Packard
and late, postwar RR transport engine parts-they are making roughly
three and a half times the power the WWII engines did, on gasoline,
and at a RPM not that much higher . The propeller and its gearing
enforce the RPM limit and the lower ends are taking a beating far
beyond what the designers would have thought possible. By contrast,
in auto racing, the huge increase in specific power has come with
large RPM increases as well. Even in the 70s, a DFV Cosworth-an engine
of whose size would have been thought capable of perhaps 6500 rpm in
WWII-was turning, what, 10,500 rpm?

[KeithR]

Bret L wrote:
On Jul 7, 6:13 pm, wrote:
On Jul 7, 6:39 pm, Andre Jute wrote:

Ludwig claims among other inanities that Ferrari engines are
copies of Packard engines. Ditto for the Merlin engine; Merlin
was a Rolls-Royce design...
Yes it was, based on the Schneider Cup-winning engine. But RR
did eventually license the Merlin to Packard, who manufactured
the engine to power the P51 Mustang.


The Schneider Cup engine-the "R"- was a methanol burning, castor oil
lubricated engine of 36 liters-6" bore by 6.6" stroke which was
much more similar to the later Griffon than the Merlin. RR also built
a fair number of other V12 aero engines, plus, such oddities as the
Exe. They were beautifully built, all of them, but the
productionizing (irrelevant with the R engine but very much so with
the Merlin) was poor. Actually, that was the case with most of
Britain's war materiel, excellent quality but made at a fearful
price of time and effort. What both the Germans and the AMericans
were better at was being able to make something to be built in high
volume and with minimal labor. The Germans were addicted to
workmanship requirements and further their factories were destroyed
relentlessly. What the US had was a lot of factories and personnel of
reasonable basic ability,, not really worried about being bombed, and
a fairly long tradition of engineer-to-build without the classically
trained tradesmen German and British products had.

The Packard is a form fit and function equivalent to the Merlin. At
least that is what I was told by the guys at the Hamilton War Birds
Museum in Canada who restored one of the only two flying Lancasters
left. They used Packards due to lower cost and higher availability, and
didn't consider it diminished the authenticity of the restoration.

Interesting discussion but not particularly relevant to tube audio though

[Arny Krueger]

"Bret L" wrote in message

On Jul 7, 6:36 pm, Andre Jute wrote:
On Jul 8, 12:13 am, wrote:

On Jul 7, 6:39 pm, Andre Jute
wrote:

Ludwig claims among other inanities that Ferrari
engines are copies of Packard engines. Ditto for the
Merlin engine; Merlin was a Rolls-Royce design...

Yes it was, based on the Schneider Cup-winning engine.
But RR did eventually license the Merlin to Packard,
who manufactured the engine to power the P51 Mustang.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

Yes, I know all that, John. But that Rolls-Royce
licensed the engine to Packard doesn't make it a
"Packard design" as Ludwig tries to claim; it remains
forever a Rolls-Royce design. Ludwig, besides making
rather large claims of this ludicrous nature, is a
copyright thief who in the past has claimed that my
copyright material belonged to him by right of repeated
theft. He is a perfect stranger to logic.

Packard took the basic design and reengineered the whole
thing from a tooling and construction standpoint, and
made many things interchangeable that had been
fit-on-assembly previously. They made their own patterns
and core boxes from scratch and changed materials and
harmonized many dimensions. What had taken dozens of
fitters days to tweak and cobble now went together in
minutes without stoning or filing. In the field it meant
that individual parts could be swapped where before RR
had had complete assemblies rotated and shipped to
depots.

My father was part of the Packard effort to reproduce the Rolls-Royce Merlin
engine in the US. His accounts of how it was done agree with Mr. Ludwig's
statements, above. They started with RR blue prints of just the engine, and
re-engineered the design, tolerances and production methods in accordance
with U.S engineering practice, which was more advanced when it came to
volume production of precision engines.

[Arny Krueger]

"Bret L" wrote in message

On Jul 7, 6:13 pm, wrote:


What both the Germans and the Americans were
better at was being able to make something to be built
in high volume and with minimal labor. The Germans were
addicted to workmanship requirements and further their
factories were destroyed relentlessly.

Germans in particular had an undesirable tendency towards hypercriticalism
and unecessary craftsmanship for the sake of craftsmanship. This reduced
their productivity and caused them to take even good ideas well beyond the
point of diminishing returns.

What the US had
was a lot of factories and personnel of reasonable basic
ability,, not really worried about being bombed, and a
fairly long tradition of engineer-to-build without the
classically trained tradesmen German and British products
had.

The U.S. had large numbers of classically trained tradesmen and engineers
from Germany and Great Britain and the rest of Europe, who emigrated to the
US to escape the mess that Europe had long been, both before the 2 world
wars, and after.

The persecution of Jews in Europe including Great Britain worked to the
advantage of the US.

Furthermore, the absence of an iron-clad class structure in the US allowed
many undereducated and underemployed people who were farmers and common
laborers in Europe, to exploit their potential in the US and become highly
productive craftsman and professionals.

[Arny Krueger]

"keithr" wrote in message


Interesting discussion but not particularly relevant to
tube audio though

Actually, the WW2 era was the heyday of the tube, and it has pretty much
been downhill for tubes since no later than about 10 years after the second
war.

[KeithR]

Arny Krueger wrote:
"keithr" wrote in message


Interesting discussion but not particularly relevant to
tube audio though

Actually, the WW2 era was the heyday of the tube, and it has pretty much
been downhill for tubes since no later than about 10 years after the second
war.


Quite true but somewhat irrelevant, AFAIK the Merlin aero-engine had no
vacuum tubes in it (it did have valves, in fact quite a lot of them) and
I speak from some experience as the air cadet squadron that I was in as
a teenager had it's very own Merlin nicely sectioned so that you could
see all the insides.

[KeithR]

Arny Krueger wrote:
"Bret L" wrote in message

On Jul 7, 6:13 pm, wrote:


What both the Germans and the Americans were
better at was being able to make something to be built
in high volume and with minimal labor. The Germans were
addicted to workmanship requirements and further their
factories were destroyed relentlessly.

Germans in particular had an undesirable tendency towards hypercriticalism
and unecessary craftsmanship for the sake of craftsmanship. This reduced
their productivity and caused them to take even good ideas well beyond the
point of diminishing returns.

What the US had
was a lot of factories and personnel of reasonable basic
ability,, not really worried about being bombed, and a
fairly long tradition of engineer-to-build without the
classically trained tradesmen German and British products
had.

The U.S. had large numbers of classically trained tradesmen and engineers
from Germany and Great Britain and the rest of Europe, who emigrated to the
US to escape the mess that Europe had long been, both before the 2 world
wars, and after.

The persecution of Jews in Europe including Great Britain worked to the
advantage of the US.

Furthermore, the absence of an iron-clad class structure in the US allowed
many undereducated and underemployed people who were farmers and common
laborers in Europe, to exploit their potential in the US and become highly
productive craftsman and professionals.

If you want to look at the production of rough and ready but usable
armaments in WWII then Russia beat the US hands down.

[John Byrns]

In article
,
Alex wrote:

On Jul 8, 10:11*am, Alex wrote:
On Jul 8, 5:18*am, John Byrns wrote:

Wirewound trimcap is like that:
On a straight piece of enamelled wire of about 200mm long and 1.5mm in
diameter, a layer of 0.2mm wire is wound.

CORRECTION:

20mm long

I thought 8" seemed a little long, I was trying to visualize a radio
with several 8" wire wound trim caps in it.

--
Regards,

John Byrns

Surf my web pages at, http://fmamradios.com/

[John Byrns]

In article
,
" wrote:

On Jul 6, 8:34*pm, Andre Jute wrote:
You're wanking away ignorantly as usual, Bratzi. Among other points, I
had a Ferrari briefly before going back to the more reliable Maserati,

From Hasbro and/or Lindberg Plastics.

Peter Wieck
Vacationing in Sheboygan, WI

Hi Peter,

I was vacationing in Sheboygan, WI over the holiday weekend, where were
you staying? If I knew you were around I would have invited you down to
the cabin.

--
Regards,

John Byrns

Surf my web pages at, http://fmamradios.com/

[Bret L]

On Jul 8, 8:01*am, keithr wrote:
Arny Krueger wrote:
"Bret L" wrote in message

On Jul 7, 6:13 pm, wrote:

What both the Germans and the Americans were
better at was being able to make something to be built
in high volume and with minimal labor. The Germans were
addicted to workmanship requirements and further their
factories were destroyed relentlessly.

Germans in particular had an undesirable tendency towards hypercriticalism
and unecessary craftsmanship for the sake of craftsmanship. This reduced
their productivity and caused them to take even good ideas well beyond the
point of diminishing returns.

What the US had
was a lot of factories and personnel of reasonable basic
ability,, not really worried about being bombed, and a
fairly long tradition of engineer-to-build without the
classically trained tradesmen German and British products
had.

The U.S. had large numbers of *classically trained tradesmen and engineers
from Germany and Great Britain and the rest of Europe, who emigrated to the
US to escape the mess that Europe had long been, both before the 2 world
wars, and after.

The persecution of Jews in Europe including Great Britain worked to the
advantage of the US.

Furthermore, the absence of an iron-clad class structure in the US allowed
many undereducated and underemployed people who were farmers and common
laborers in Europe, to exploit their potential in the US and become highly
productive craftsman and professionals.

If you want to look at the production of rough and ready but usable
armaments in WWII then Russia beat the US hands down.

Yes, but they were nasty. I personally had the duty about twenty
years ago of destroying about half of a container load of Russian/
Soviet WWII weapons which a gun dealer had ordered. Those rifles which
were so badly made or 'repaired' they couldn't be reworked and sold,
along with a large number of illegal Title II "Stalin Guitars" they
had neither asked nor paid for, had to be dismantled and cut up with
an oxyacetylene torch. I didn't shed any tears over it. I did however
keep a few of the barrels, which a friend made into muzzleloading
squirrel rifles.

[Bret L]

On Jul 8, 7:20*am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"keithr" wrote in message



Interesting discussion but not particularly relevant to
tube audio though

Actually, the WW2 era was the heyday of the tube, and it has pretty much
been downhill for tubes since no later than about 10 years after the second
war.

The heyday of the tube was probably the postwar period until about
1965, because that's when the really interesting types were developed.
Solid state didn't do everything the tube did functionally until the
end of the sixties, Tek was still building tube scopes until almost
the end of the 60s, and aircraft radars and DMEs still had tubes until
the 70s.

Of course transistors started showing up here and there around 1955
and by 1963 or so it was clear that the long term future for the
vacuum tube as a mass market item was dim. But in 1945, a first rate
tube designer still had another twenty years of safe career, as did a
grid lathe mechanic or a glass sealing machine setup person.

[Bret L]

Quite true but somewhat irrelevant, AFAIK the Merlin aero-engine had no
vacuum tubes in it (it did have valves, in fact quite a lot of them)

48 of them to be exact.

[Bret L]

On Jul 8, 7:19*am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Bret L" wrote in message



On Jul 7, 6:13 pm, wrote:
What both the Germans and the Americans were
better at was being able to make something to be built
in high volume and with minimal labor. The Germans were
addicted to workmanship requirements and further their
factories were destroyed relentlessly.

Germans in particular had an undesirable tendency towards hypercriticalism
and unecessary craftsmanship for the sake of craftsmanship. This reduced
their productivity and caused them to take even good ideas well beyond the
point of diminishing returns.

Yes. Their mines used a case hardened weight that stuck in place and
caused the mine not to detonate, and Brit bomb experts realized that
had they left it alone it would have worked flawlessly. The DB601
engine used a diesel style direct injection system that was ruinously
expensive to build (and Mercedes used it in their cars later also
quite unnecessarily, except arguably in the W 196) and there are many
other examples that can be found.

The Luger pistol, mechanically fascinating but not terribly reliable
in a firefight, is another obvious example. Even the Poles were smart
enough to simply copy what worked best, their Radom being a 9mm M1911
clone.

What the US had
was a lot of factories and personnel of reasonable basic
ability,, not really worried about being bombed, and a
fairly long tradition of engineer-to-build without the
classically trained tradesmen German and British products
had.

The U.S. had large numbers of *classically trained tradesmen and engineers
from Germany and Great Britain and the rest of Europe, who emigrated to the
US to escape the mess that Europe had long been, both before the 2 world
wars, and after.

Yes. It's equally true that many of those people abandoned their
trade for small business or went to work on the assembly line when
they got here.

One of my old phart cronies, now long deceased, was the son of a
British immigrant who had been a journeyman toolmaker in Britain. At
that time it was a five year apprenticeship. When he came over he was
offered a job for more money working for the water company as what we
would call a meter reader than the machine shops would pay, and he
spent 40 years with the utility without ever picking up his tools. He
ordered his son to take his tool chest to a pawn shop and trade it for
a radio in the 40s. From the son's description of the tool set it
would be worth a fortune even today.

My own grandfather was a German trained gunmaker who went to work for
National Cash Register as a mere assembler and left to start an
insurance agency after ten years. He never touched a tool or a gun in
this country. He forbade my father from having anything to do with
metalwork, guns, or learning German-there was no future in that at
all.

The persecution of Jews in Europe including Great Britain worked to the
advantage of the US.

As Henry Kissinger said, any people which is persecuted for centuries
is doing something wrong.
Or, being persecuted is part and parcel of their group strategy.


Furthermore, the absence of an iron-clad class structure in the US allowed
many undereducated and underemployed people who were farmers and common
laborers in Europe, to exploit their potential in the US and become highly
productive craftsman and professionals.

Partly true. What the US allowed was a shuffling of the class order.
No society can function without a clear pecking order, it's just that
in Europe the old one had become ossified so that the top had decayed
and some of the then underclass had evolved upward. A shuffling was
needed, as it is today in the US. Steve Sailer writes of this a lot,
and correctly. The elites in America today are the Wall Street types
and they have become stupid, a reshuffling is inevitable.

[Bret L]

On Jul 7, 11:29*pm, keithr wrote:
Andre Jute wrote:
On Jul 8, 12:13 am, wrote:
On Jul 7, 6:39 pm, Andre Jute wrote:

Ludwig claims among other inanities that Ferrari engines are
copies of Packard engines. Ditto for the Merlin engine; Merlin
was a Rolls-Royce design...
Yes it was, based on the Schneider Cup-winning engine. But RR
did eventually license the Merlin to Packard, who manufactured
the engine to power the P51 Mustang.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

Yes, I know all that, John. But that Rolls-Royce licensed the engine
to Packard doesn't make it a "Packard design" as Ludwig tries to
claim; it remains forever a Rolls-Royce design. Ludwig, besides making
rather large claims of this ludicrous nature, is a copyright thief who
in the past has claimed that my copyright material belonged to him by
right of repeated theft. He is a perfect stranger to logic.

Andre Jute
*Visit Andre's books at
*http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/THE%20WRITER'S%20HOUSE.html

The P51 was originally developed to an RAF requirement. It was fitted
with a Packard engine which gave so-so performance especially at high
altitude.

No, it was an Allison. The Allison had a much simpler supercharger,
because it was intended to be used in conjunction with a turbo. The
ONLY advantage RR had over Allison was a more sophisticated two stage
two speed supercharger. RR doctrine was that turbos were bad because
the energy they used was better employed as thrust from the engine
gases. While they did get some thrust recovery, the P-51 got even more
thrust from the radiator heat. OTOH the Mustang suffered what was then
a total loss damage from being landed gear up whereas the Spitfire was
flying (albeit with a different engine and prop) the next day.

A Mustang took about the same materials cost and about half the
manufacturing labor to build as did a Spitfire. Arguably the Spitfire
was prettier.

[Bret L]

On Jul 8, 7:10*am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Bret L" wrote in message





On Jul 7, 6:36 pm, Andre Jute wrote:
On Jul 8, 12:13 am, wrote:

On Jul 7, 6:39 pm, Andre Jute
wrote:

Ludwig claims among other inanities that Ferrari
engines are copies of Packard engines. Ditto for the
Merlin engine; Merlin was a Rolls-Royce design...

Yes it was, based on the Schneider Cup-winning engine.
But RR did eventually license the Merlin to Packard,
who manufactured the engine to power the P51 Mustang.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

Yes, I know all that, John. But that Rolls-Royce
licensed the engine to Packard doesn't make it a
"Packard design" as Ludwig tries to claim; it remains
forever a Rolls-Royce design. Ludwig, besides making
rather large claims of this ludicrous nature, is a
copyright thief who in the past has claimed that my
copyright material belonged to him by right of repeated
theft. He is a perfect stranger to logic.

Packard took the basic design and reengineered the whole
thing from a tooling *and construction standpoint, and
made many things interchangeable that had been
fit-on-assembly previously. *They made their own patterns
and core boxes from scratch and changed materials and
harmonized many dimensions. *What had taken dozens of
fitters days to tweak and cobble now went together in
minutes without stoning or filing. *In the field it meant
that individual parts could be swapped where before RR
had had complete assemblies rotated and shipped to
depots.

My father was part of the Packard effort to reproduce the Rolls-Royce Merlin
engine in the US. *His accounts of how it was done agree with Mr. Ludwig's
statements, above. *They started with RR blue prints of just the engine, and
re-engineered the design, tolerances and production methods in accordance
with U.S engineering practice, which was more advanced when it came to
volume production of precision engines.

Packard was a first rate company with a superior engineering nd
manufacturing force. And the Merlin effort was really their finest
hour, because it's harder to do that with someone else's design than
to design your own in most cases. RR was also first rate, but volume
production was not their thing at all.

[[email protected]]

On Jul 8, 2:17*pm, Bret L wrote:
*A Mustang took about the same materials cost and about *half the
manufacturing labor to build as did a Spitfire. Arguably the Spitfire
was prettier.

It's worth reading Len Deighton's novel "Fighter," in
which he goes into the different manufacturing costs
in detail. He laments the phasing out of the Republic
P47 in favor of the very much cheaper Mustang,
which had a significantly worse record of killing pilots
in accidents.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

[sortech]

Alex wrote:
"Patrick Turner" wrote in message
...
Nearly all the people I ever knew in the 1950s might have had a very
crummy radiogram with a lone 6V6 output tube. We rolled on the floor
laughing at the Goon Show, and nobody cared a hoot about hi-fi. There
was 4 kHz of BW, and the people on radio or those who sang had voices
which could be easily understood. No we have hi-fi gear to reproduce the
most appalling speaking or singing voices and much noise masquerading as
music. While most of the world gladly got rid of these early horrid
"lounge-room entertainment gadgets", when TV came in here in 1956, audio
went even further out of people's minds, and when everything went solid
state it got even worse, until the laws on import duties were changed to
allow foreign products in from mainly Japan.

I am not an expert in the tube amps, but closely observe vintage Oz radios
for sale on the e-bay.
I found that the Oz radios from 30's to early 60's are extremely primitive
and electrically boooooooooooooooring. 6A8G-6U7G-6B8G-6V6G-5Y3 , then
6AN7A-6N8-6N8-6M5-6X4 and later 6BE6-6BA6-6AV6-6AQ5-6X4 was pretty much the
limit of imagination of Oz engineers. Almost none of the Oz radios have a
tuning indicator, very few have an RF stage (6-th valve). Wiring is messy,
STC and Kriesler are the messiest ones.

In comparison, even Russian radios (I am a Russian) of that era were more
advanced. Almost all models had a 6E5G magic eye, 30% of radios had 6L6GT SE
output (5W), some had push-pull ultralinear 2x6L6 stages. Those would have a
separate bass/treble tone control and a dedicated 6SJ7 1-st audio stage, as
well as variable IF bandwidth for distant/local reception. Output
transformers were on average twice heavier than in Oz. Primary resistance
did not normally exceed 250 Ohm with 15...20H, while in Oz radios 350...500
ohm and 8...10H was a norm. (What bass response can be expected from those
undernourished trannies?) Ceramic trimcaps were used, not the wirewound
rubbish common in OZ radios.

Regards,
Alex


These old Russian radios sound most advanced indeed. Does this mean that
the 6L6GC tube I got with an amp recently, labeled made in the USSR, are
great tubes?

Cheers
Eric

[Arny Krueger]

"Alex" wrote in message


I am not an expert in the tube amps, but closely observe
vintage Oz radios for sale on the e-bay.
I found that the Oz radios from 30's to early 60's are
extremely primitive and electrically
boooooooooooooooring. 6A8G-6U7G-6B8G-6V6G-5Y3 , then
6AN7A-6N8-6N8-6M5-6X4 and later 6BE6-6BA6-6AV6-6AQ5-6X4
was pretty much the limit of imagination of Oz engineers.
Almost none of the Oz radios have a tuning indicator,
very few have an RF stage (6-th valve). Wiring is messy,
STC and Kriesler are the messiest ones.

In comparison, even Russian radios (I am a Russian) of
that era were more advanced. Almost all models had a 6E5G
magic eye, 30% of radios had 6L6GT SE output (5W), some
had push-pull ultralinear 2x6L6 stages. Those would have
a separate bass/treble tone control and a dedicated 6SJ7
1-st audio stage, as well as variable IF bandwidth for
distant/local reception. Output transformers were on
average twice heavier than in Oz. Primary resistance did
not normally exceed 250 Ohm with 15...20H, while in Oz
radios 350...500 ohm and 8...10H was a norm. (What bass
response can be expected from those undernourished
trannies?) Ceramic trimcaps were used, not the wirewound
rubbish common in OZ radios.

All of the above sounds very high tech compared to the usual USA AM radio
receiver of those days.

The rule were radios composed of the "All-American 5", being first the
late-1930s octal-tubed:

12SA7 (a pentagrid converter, or heptode, combining oscillator and mixer
functions)
12SK7 (pentode, IF amplifier)
12SQ7 (triode and dual diode, used for detection and first audio amplifier)
50L6 (beam pentode, power output)
35Z5 (half-wave rectifier for B+ supply)

and then the eraly-1950s minature tube version:

12BE6 (pentagrid converter)
12BA6 (pentode, IF amplifier)
12AV6 (triode and dual diode, used for detection and first audio amplifier)
50C5 (beam pentode, power output)
35W4 (half-wave rectifier for B+ supply

The B+ was half-wave rectified from the power line (thus limiting B+ to
about 150 volts) , and one side of the chassis was randomly connected to
either the hot or neutral side of the power line since the power plug was
not polarized. The output transformer was miniscule, and the 4" speaker was
egregious. Needless to say, there was no tuning indicator.

When FM became popular, a few more tubes were added, but the basic recipie
was essentially unchanged. Eventually, even most B&W and then color TV sets
were based on this kind of cheap-and-dirty technology.