1963 PANaramic 1210 amplifier, Magnatone psychedelia!

This amp was gifted to me by a dear friend in Vermont. I just got it running tonight. It's a somewhat rare PANaramic amp built by Magnatone.

These are the "after" photos. I changed the badly stained grill cloth.... Before:

Gross!

This poor amp sat unused for probably more than 2 decades. It was a part of Indigo Studios vast collection of 400 amps. When it came to me it was DOA. Bad power transformer. So I figured I'd replace it and change the filter cap as well, ground it yadda yadda. The usual.

The part I used was from Triode Electronics, their Classic Tone line:

http://triodeelectronics.com/40-18066.html

My concerns were: I don't feel like drilling any holes. Actually, that was my only concern. I just wanted an easy fix today. The original part, dated 1962, has all wires on one end with the end bell right up against the chassis. Fortunately the replacement part gives you plenty of room to run the wires on the other side of the transformer across and put it all through the chassis hole.

What we are replacing:

On the chassis, Magnatone generously gives you these nice, long, oval holes to fit many sizes of transformers, Good for me as the part I ordered was a bit too big.

With parts installed:

With the bigger transformer I get a B+ of 417VDC, perfect. I imagine the original is less, please correct me if you know. The replacement part is the same as a Deluxe Reverb only with upright bells. My main amp is modeled after a Tweed Deluxe and I use the Deluxe Reverb part for extra juice. I've used that amp for a decade now and haven't had any issues. Good tubes last a long, long time.

In this particular amp I was happy to find it was loaded with Telefunken 12AX7 tubes, the smooth plate variety. There was a missing 12AU7 vibrato oscillator which I replaced with a nice RCA. The power tubes were Sylvania, still good, and I dropped in a Westinghouse 5V4 for the rectifier.

I used a C.E. Manufacturing 525V Quad Cap for the can. Makes for a tidy job and worth the expense.


It still retains the original Oxford speaker:

Still good! No need to replace or re-cone.

Other shots:

I know very little about the PANaramic line. These were built to match Robert Pancottis' PanCordian. Yes, it's an amp for the accordian, once an immensely popular instrument like the Hawaiian lap steel. It's similar to their Troubadour model 213 but with a different preamp layout and an odd "stereo" input. It's a mono amp folks, one speaker, one phase inverter, one transformer.

Here's a bit about Magnatone and their wild market:

http://www.magnatoneamps.com/otherbrands.html#davinci

So how does it sound? I ain't gonna lie. I have a thing for Magnatone amps. You can buy one of these for about a grand, sometimes a bit more, sometimes less. It's still a lot of amp for your money. I would gladly pay that much for one. It's lush yet very clear and that true pitch vibrato? Better than Fenders lovely Brown panel era, better than Vox and their true pitch vibrato as well, which is also quite lovely. It's the sound of Bo Diddley, Johnny Cash's guitar sound on "Walk the Line". I believe Magnatone was the first to get this sound. Straight it's just a great tube amp. More 'creamy' than 'crunchy'. More refined I would say.

I don't know yet if it's a keeper, I have a small place and too many amps right now! I don't like things to compete with each other. But if you read my post about the Magantone A-646, that's the best sounding amp I own. So now that's a keeper. Tracked with it all weekend using a Les Paul. Heaven! Better than a tweed Fender that amp is.

Here's a bit of my roommate playing his electric oud through my PANaramic:

And Bo Diddley in my favorite track:

Johnny Cash:

These are beautiful sounding amps. I also like the fact that all the tubes are quite common and easily sourced. The bigger Magnatone amps are a chore to restore though well worth it. These cute little ones for me, they are where it's at. Cute and compact and easy to enjoy.

JB

Early 40's Oahu Amplifier, beautiful!

Not much to say about this amp except it was a thing of beauty. I bought it dead off a table at the Dallas Guitar Expo, got it home and got it working. Had a bad power cable and it wasn't hooked up to the power switch! Power!

After that changed all caps as they were all dead. Really pretty sounding amp delicate. Not your little rage box, more mature. Perfect for clear slide.

Amp had a little water damage and the cabinet needed gluing. When all said and done, these are very cool rare amps. It's now living with a serious collector in New York.

Beautiful Rola field coil speaker:

Of course, Western Electric patented circuit!

JB

1966 Ampeg B15, your studio requires one.

Simple job today, just re-cap the power supply. Amp was running quiet but now it just sounds better with a stronger low end. It will be mated with a beautiful P-Bass soon and ready to cut phat tracks. You have a studio? It's not a serious studio without a real B15!

Stick o' dynamite cap, 30uf@600v, replace with a C.E. Manufacturing 25uf@800v stick:

Also replace the big can with a C.E. triple 40uf@525 volt can.....

I left the audio circuit alone. I like these green .02 Cornell Dubilier capacitors. They're still good and the amp sounds great! Ampeg in those days didn't skimp on small parts. They are built to last.

My client and I bought this amp from a new shop in Brooklyn called Rock N' Roll Supplies. Great place and they have a great tech working there. Give them a visit! Some mighty nice amps hanging out there and reasonably priced!

http://www.rockandrollsupplies.com/cm/

https://reverb.com/shop/rock-and-roll-supplies-inc

JB

Early 50's Magnatone A-646. Perfect tiny amp!

Just finished this one, a very rare Magnatone A-646 amp from about 1951. This one us a real gem and is visually striking as well.

I bought this amp by mistake on Reverb this winter. I put an offer on a Varsity that I wanted as a backup to my main one and the owner declined. It wasn't a bad price and I love those early Varsity amps and it was pretty enough that I was willing to pay his price anyway. This one came up in my feed and I was curious so I put an offer on it. The owner said he would think about it. First amp wound up coming through at my price so I bought it then.......so did this one!

This one arrived first. It was noisy, had some really poor tech work done to it so I got it going. I wasn't all that impressed with it though and even after re-capping the power supply it had a considerable amount of hum. I even added another filter stage. I knew there were other solutions, maybe filament, maybe ground loop but I shelved it. If it's mine I tend to just put it away and forget about it.

So today I did a better re-cap, with a nice expensive C.E. can, an additional filter stage and while it got better and was certainly tidier, still hummed at an unacceptable level. So I disconnected the center tap of the 6.3v filament and added a hum balance: 2x 100 ohm resistors, one on each side of the filament, the other sides both going to the cathode bias resistor on the 6V6 tube. Looks like this:

When I brought this up on my Variac I thought "dammit! I killed my amp! Time for more troubleshooting!" I just wanted to be done with it. But reality is, the amp is just so quiet now! Hum free with only a little bit of noise when it's turned all the way up.

This amp I believe is the precursor to the Varsity Deluxe I reviewed here. Similar circuit, 40's style box, single 6V6 and 5Y3 but driven by the darker more euphonic 6SL7 tube rather than the snappier 12Ax7. It has a single 8" Alnico 5 Jensen speaker.

More pics:

How does it sound? Like the early version of the Tweed Fender Princeton. It's a similar circuit, but this plays cleaner and more articulate. It has a big sound for such a small box, warm but not fuzzy. Ideal Wes Montgomery or Charlie Christian sound. I'm a big fan of the Magnatone amplifier, especially the early ones. They are a bargain. I may sell this one but not for cheap! I like it a little too much.

The only drawback is the 6SL7 tube can be microphonic. If you turn both the volume and tone all the way up it may sing a song. The 12AX7 is a better tube for guitar amps. You could simply use a 6SL7 to 12AX7 adapter available on EBay, or you can just roll a little bit of the tone control back and enjoy that big warm sound.

If you like something different, give one of these a try! They are lovely little amps!

JB


8/29. After tracking with a Les Paul all weekend I've decided this is my best sounding amp. Bigger tone than a tweed Champ, smoother top, goes to tape beautifully! It's a keeper! Do look out for one of these. I did some reading about the hum and one tech mentions he struggled with his as well. he resorted to installing a big ass choke and extra filter stage. That should do the trick but try the hum balance first along with adding one filter stage. Quite happy with the results here. JB

Always wanted a copper '53 Esquire, so I rolled my own!

Here's my main guitar. I built it on my rooftop when I lived in Williamsburg Brooklyn 3 years ago:

Photo by Starina Catchitoorian:

Beach gig!

I started out a Jimi freak when I was 14 years old. So naturally I played a '69 Maple cap Stratocaster ($750 in 1990!) for years. Trouble with a Strat, something Dave Navarro said to me: "Trouble with a Strat is you wind up playing Strat things on it...." They do have a way of commanding you to play certain things. So during the grunge scare of '92 I bought my first Jazzmaster, a beat to death 1964 model(100% original, $750 in 1992!). I played that guitar for years. Best part was I didn't know how to play a Jazzmaster so I really feel like I started to find myself on that guitar. It wasn't until '99 at a guitar show in Portland that I bought my first Telecaster, a refinished black 1966 maple cap model ($750! Notice a trend??) that was light as a feather and trust me, I really didn't know how to play that guitar. I sold it in 2003 and doubled my money. It gets played in church now. I've bought and sold a lot of guitars over the years and that is the only one I regret selling. I had the bridge pickup rewound by Fralin to make it hot like an early 50's model. That was a great guitar. Rent and debt! Bah!

But the guitar I've always wanted is the Fender Esquire, namely ones made in the early 50's. They cost a lotta dough now. I have played some that were not to my liking at all and priced about $15k, and played some that if cost were no object I'd just pay whatever it takes.

To find one in Copper? There may not be any. There are only a handful of copper Telecasters in existence. I'm not too keen on the new Fender product, the relic or reissue series. Good stuff but I'm way too picky.

And really I'm totally happy with this one that I built. I have about $400 into it! It gets played every day.

The neck is just an Allparts V. They're great. I may upgrade to a Musikraft cause they are better and I can afford it now but like I said, this guitar keeps me really satisfied as is.

The body is pine, bought from Clearfork Designs on EBay. His EBay name is Ohlar. It's super light, about 3 pounds and a few ounces. I met the guy who makes them at the Dallas Guitar Expo. He's just a great guy. Super warm and friendly. You can tell when that kind of vibe goes into something one builds. I bought another body from him there that I am going to do something with next year. It's lightweight ash.

So I used Guitar Re-Ranch products to do the finish. Desert sand undercoat, copper then clear. They make great stuff. My only error was not doing a sanding sealer. Oops! Well, the grain shows through now. Fender wouldn't let that happen, but I'm not Leo!

After 3 years it's getting pretty worn!

No need for relic stuff, these are my scars and this is my story. I did the silly dowel holes as well, just details:

Finishing I did the lazy susan nail hole method Fender used to use. It's already developing that 'Fuller Tan' visible when you remove the control plate:

I went with Fender hardware and a Mojotone 50's pickup.

I really like Mojo pickups. This is the heart of the Esquire. That simple 1 pickup design forces me to play for real and extract what I want out of the guitar buy using my hands creatively. If I want mellow I need to find mellow. Gnarly is less of a challenge!

I used all CTS pots and CRL switch, the knobs are Daka Ware from the 40's, bakelite and oxblood colored. I like the way they look with the copper body. The switch tip is Daka Ware as well, oxblood too!

The pickguard is bakelite, did the whole lacquer paint circle thing cause I can! The decal I bought from some European vendor. It's pretty accurate!

So this is my baby now. My main guitar. I think it's the simplicity of the Esquire that I like the most. It forces me to find melody, be creative in my playing since I'm not fiddling with tremolo arms and pickups. I just play the thing!

A bit of the guitar in action in a 110 degree room!

And me and my friend Starina....she plays a copper Danelectro. These go together well!

Hope you got something from this post! JB

Bad Cat 5R, adding a tube rectifier and making it sing like a bird

So a client of mine has this amp for his office use. It's a Bad Cat 5R. Don't know much about them but have heard they are related somehow to Matchless. This is my first venture into a Bad Cat and having worked on many Matchless amps I can say they certainly are similar.

The job: Modify the crap out of this amp!

My client has recently become hooked on old amps, Marshall, Tweed Fender, Supro, 50's Gibson, Ampeg. This amp just isn't doing it for him any longer. It's stiff and rather dull.

Now, it's a very simple circuit with only 2 tubes. A 6V6 driven by (interesting choice that I like!) a 6SL7. There is only so much modifying one can do. When I fired it up the first thing I noticed was what a lack of distortion there was. I like my little amps, distortion (Gibson GA5 from the 50's) or no distortion (Magnatone Varsity) to have a warm singing quality to them. My client is into warmth more than over the top blast so the goal is to get it to do both. I found the amp to lack warmth.

I have a back to front approach with amps whether I'm trouble shooting or modifying. Example: first thing to look at with a dead or dull sounding amp is the speaker and/or the power supply. So I started there. First thing: Why use a Celestion Vintage 30 on a 5 watt amp? If you want to go for cleaner tones that's great and I'm not objecting their speaker choice, it's purely subjective. But for this project we went with a 20 watt Weber 12A125A the one that says "woody and reedy".

https://www.tedweber.com/12a125-a

I love this speaker. My favorite amp that I built uses a 30 watt version. A bit on the darker/warmer side of the spectrum, nice smooth breakup.

The second thing is the power supply. Stock it uses 2 1N4007 diodes loading into a 100uf 450V capacitor. I decided if it's an easy fix to add a tube rectifier let's go for it. I like my little amps to compress! You can see diodes right under that blue power resistor.

So once I looked around I noticed 2 things right away that made me happy. Chassis is pre-punched for more octal sockets and there are 2 yellow wires coming off the power transformer. That means there is a 5 volt filament tap! YES! This job just got easier.

So I took out the plastic socket plug and installed a socket. Removed the 2 diodes, put the red wires to pins 4&6, the yellow to pins 2&8 and replaced the 100uf with a 47uf cap. Why replace that cap? The 5 volt filament line is at risk with anything too high. With diodes the sky is the limit, but with a tube rectifier you don't want to go too much above 50uf.

I opted to use a 5V4 for the rectifier. For squishiest results go with a 5Y3. I figured this would be a dramatic shift as is and didn't care to go too dramatic. Fun thing is, they are interchangeable and my client likes to fiddle with tubes.

The circuit itself:

I won't go too much into detail on the circuit mods cause I encourage you to use your own creativity. What I did start with was the cathode resistor on the output tube. It's a 270 ohm. I replaced it with a 500 ohm. It's just more loose. I also replaced all those horrible brick drop polypropylene caps with warmer sounding Mojo Dijon caps and any resistors in the signal path with carbon composition. Also the first gain stage cathode cap is a 6.8k. I just copied Fender and used a 1.5k bypassed by a 22uf cap. The whole amp seemed to come to life in a good vintage fun way.

So now this amp sings at any volume. It has a master volume which didn't really serve too much of a purpose before but now you can bring it down and blast the preamp. With my S.G. it's like a mini AC/DC concert.

I think these are good amps even stock. Very well made and built to last. The reverb is transistor driven but that doesn't offend me, it's quiet and sounds nice. But if you aren't opposed to making your Bad Cat a Badder Cat, try some of these fun mods, use your creativity and you can tailor it to suit your needs.

Disclaimer: if you are a novice, don't try this at home. Pay someone like me to do this kind of work. Tube amps are no joke inside, they can kill you with the amount of juice running around in there! So tell your favorite tech what you hear in your head and let the magician work his or her magic.

Thanks! JB