what can I make with this[TELEFUNKIN TUBE POWERED STEREO}?

[donald stringer]

My mother in law has this stereo console, Telefunkin Damiante is the name on the back. It looks like it must of been pretty good equipment back in the late 50 or early 60. The tubes are el 84, and I believe it is still in working order. Sounds like it might have the trappings of a tube amp! It has been laying in her basement since she bought the house but it has escaped my attention up till now. It has the left and right speaker outs / powers a turntable and the radio is of the shortwave land sea air etc.There has got to be some usable guitar stuff in this thing. Does anyone know how I go about converting it?

[cd]

Read the article on converting old hifi amps to guitar amps at geofex.com.  Oh, and BE CAREFUL!!  Tube amps have high voltages inside them which can kill/badly shock you, even when they're turned off.

[donald stringer]

Thanks cd I will do it. I have an electronics friend that will show me how to drain the capacitors[ this much I know]  He can maybe help me brainstorm on some ideas.

[petemoore]

My mother in law has this stereo console, Telefunkin Damiante is the name on the back. It looks like it must of been pretty good equipment back in the late 50 or early 60. The tubes are el 84, and I believe it is still in working order. Sounds like it might have the trappings of a tube amp! It has been laying in her basement since she bought the house but it has escaped my attention up till now. It has the left and right speaker outs / powers a turntable and the radio is of the shortwave land sea air etc.There has got to be some usable guitar stuff in this thing. Does anyone know how I go about converting it?

>>> You can see if it has external phono inputs, if so try them, somehow you'll want to bridge them. [Or run them stereo requires 2 speakers.
 If it has no phono inputs jacks, you can trace from the needle wires to where it hooks up, often there are rca jacks to connect the phonograph needle to the amp...whatever you can do to externally connect to phono, that's the input you want to use. others will sound less loud and are not matched to giutar pickups/
 Hopefully you won't even need to open the amp where the Potentiall Lethal Voltages are. Not recommended...
 Should make a nice guitar amp, when connected to good speakers, watch the ohmage matching.
 I've done this before, if you 'lean harder' [load] on an amp more than it was intended to handle...well you get to see what gives in it...don't try to push it louder than it wants to go, IMO they start to sound worse anyway when I push hard on a clean-ish little amp.
 Good Luck My Friend !!

[Mike Burgundy]

If it starts to sound crappy when pushed, that might suggest a smallish output tranny.
This (TelefunkEn, btw) can be a brilliant guitar amp (two, even) just make sure it's not a real collectors item. I've butchered a few with succes but one, well, I'd like to take that back. It turned out to be a rather rare radio... Oops.

[donald stringer]

Trace back from the needle inputs[ I have read about that somewhere. This looks like a prime peice of german technology in its day and oh yes it will work. I am going to get the power amp section this weekend and be careful to get any wires coming from it. It also had a bagful of tubes stored in the back of it 12au7 and a bunch of others.

[cd]

If it starts to sound crappy when pushed, that might suggest a smallish output tranny.

Actually the opposite may be true - if the tranny is full bandwidth (say 5W, 20-20kHz) a guitar signal will have a tough time saturating it.

[Regan]

Sounds like time to hit ax84.
Regan

[GFR]

I have a schematic of a Telefunken "Dominante", that maybe like what you're talking about. My grandmother had one.

It's got EL84's. It's biamped! There are two small L and R output transformers for mids+highs and a bigger mono bass output. The power transformer is very big. The speakers are 3.2 ohm.

The phono is not RIAA, it's got a ceramic pickup. Try connecting a CD (or a better phono with a nice RIAA preamp) and listen to it. I think it's a gorgeous tone, even if it's not "so" hi-fi or very collectable. You can also connect a guitar at this point, maybe you'll need a small pre.

BTW, if I had the space I'd keep it as a hi-fi (only modding for an aux/CD input).

[petemoore]

I absolutely love these old tube amps.
 It doesn't matter if it's 2w 20w or 100w. They Get Tone !!!
 I've got a little RCA uses EL84's, a Heathkit needs work and a Dyna ST70. The ST70 got a Vox AC30 preamp treatment, it is about one of the the best sounding...no fancy nameplate or tolex...I suppose I could make a nicer cabinet for it, I like the 'Science Project' look anywya though.
 Bottom line...Speakers
 Next Up...Amp
 IMO...
 Get these going 'good' and everything else comes easier.
  My tube amps are great 'guitar tutors' !!! They teach electric guitar playing techniques, and changed my style instantly!!!

[AL]

It sounds like a good oppurtunity to get a great sounding, not too pricey, tube amp and gain some valuable experience. I've got two old Stromburg-Carlson amps  that have been converted to guitar amps (not by me) and they scream.

AL

[birt]

here's what i made with a broken pioneer amp:

but i'll have to change the power trafo, it goes crazy under a load and works well if i test it without anything attached... that's a bad thing because all the rest of that amp is perfectly correct :lol:
(the thing in front is an lpb2)

[donald stringer]

Hey birt, is that a bonbon I can see that your using as a switcher.Thats a nice job on the amp btw. Necessity is truly the mother of invention.

[birt]

Hey birt, is that a bonbon I can see that your using as a switcher.Thats a nice job on the amp btw. Necessity is truly the mother of invention.

the great thing about it, it's really small: it measures 12,5cm x 12,5cm x 45cm
if only i had a good tranny
here's an inside pic:
http://users.pandora.be/vandijckheffen/bert/18watt/wholething.gif

[guitarhacknoise]

hey donald,
If that thing has short wave capabilities................
you could get some crazy F/i (old midwest exp. noise band) noise action goin'!
If you're into that sort of thing.
-matthias

[runmikeyrun]

yeah i would definitely check ebay first (completed auctions) to see if any are selling on there.  Like someone else said, you might be sitting on a gold mine.

Other than that, if you can get those schematics and you have some experience with tube amps you might get a rockin' little amp.  It will probably be very clean even if pushed with a booster.  I have an old webcor amp that i can't get to distort even when it's turned all the way up (briefly i might add!) but it has a really nice dark clean tone and sounds good and warm when i use a fuzz pedal.

You might also use it for home use.  I use a small single ended Olson tube amp for my computer speakers.  sure makes my mp3s sound better!  It's only 2 watts but it gets loud enough for me.  You could really jam out with an el84 computer amp!

[donald stringer]

I was going to just get the amp portion and leave the rest setting in her basement but my motherinlaw caught me at the door and told me to take all of it or nothing. So I am going to have wait until I get a truck to get the console home. In the mean time my first thoughts on this project are this.I plugged the unit in and got the tubes to glow. This is good. Once I get this in my garage I am stripping the amp out of it #1 This powers a left and right bass and a left and right mid or tweeter. I can put the amp portion in a cab and buy new tweeters and two bass [useing as an acoustic amp or even install a switch to switch between stereo sep.bi-amp to one mono out for electric. For simplicity sake I am thinking of the later. The stereo console has some solid wood to it so I will use what I can to make a cabinet for it.#2 I am going to follow the suggestions on the post that I have recieved use the phono cartridge for guitar input. This is a start and bare bones at that but right now I just want get a sound out of it. It has two el 84 power tubes and  two pre-amp tubes I know that this thing has got to work but I dont want to get myself killed in the process so any suggestions on this would be appreciated. I am thinking that I might ought to take this project to an amp forum.