Welcome to my view for the past week and a half! I’ve been balancing my time quite a bit this past week or so. Every spare minute is spent continuing the recap to the RCA 76 console. After moving and settling in, I finally had the chance last week to set up my work shop. So far, I’ve been able to complete work on the relay mounting plate module, the transformer mounting plate module, the monitor amp module, and the preamp module. I’ll have the program amp module completed tonight and then it’s on to the power supply. It's been tricky fitting some of the new caps in. Space is limited on the modules and I'm taking extra precautions to insulate any exposed leads. As I go along, I'm finding a lot of damaged wiring and poorly executed modifications done by the previous owner(s). RCA used cloth covered wiring because it was all that was available back then. The cloth is crumbling when you touch it and the insulation underneath is cracking as well. I have to be very careful replacing the caps. I've also taken liberties to move many of the electrolytics closer to their source and this requires a bit of reverse engineering and layout work. You can see in the larger picture what a mess it is inside this thing. And the last tech who replaced the electrolytics mounted the new ones RIGHT ONTO the old ones! I'm hoping this didn't cause any damage that I'll discover down the road in testing... If all goes according to plan, I’ll have all 50 new caps in by Saturday morning and then it’ll be ready for a different set of eyes to go over it before I power it up. I suspect that as I get to testing it, I’ll find some bad resistors I missed, switches/pots that need to be cleaned, and wires that have corroded and need to be replaced. The goal is to make it making music by the end of Oct!
As mentioned in the last post, I took apart and rewired one of our EV666 microphones. I found some 60 year old 26 gauge wiring in really poor condition and crumbling as I pulled the transformer out. After replacing a lot of it, it sounds much better now, although it’s still a little week in the low end compared to another one we have in better condition. With both mics wired for 250ohm output, the one I went over is still HPF’d around 80hz. I’m chalking it up to difference in age and loss of magnetism to the magnet. It’ll make a fine guitar amp mic.
Also as mentioned earlier, the restoration work on the EMT 140 is done. It’s been moved into the studio, a permanent spot has been selected, and we should have the time to install it soon!
I’m hoping to have a new post within a few days! Stay tuned!