When I was in the UK around PLASA time I went to my sisters house and got some old slides. These are the first systems I build and designed

 

 

The bass is 2 x 12" reflex. The port is a shelf port at the bottom of the box. Can't remember what the woofers are but they were 30 watts and had a whizzer cone. The 2 bass cabs were driven of a Selmer 100 watt valve amp. The amp had a 5 band graphic eq and I put all the mid and top sliders all the way down and the lowest fader all the way up. The driver in the tea chest is a 12" Celestion guitar speaker. Above that is by first attempt at a HF horn. The cab sides are made from 12 mm pine and the top and bottom are made from 3 mm hardboard. The horn was made from really thin sheet metal that I cut with tin snips. Driver was a Celestion comp driver, not sure which one. I put a cap inline as the crossover. The cab above that is a 10" speaker that used to be used in schools. Not sure about the power, but could not have been more than 15 watts. The tea chest and school speaker were driven from the amp that was used in the school to power the 10" cabs. It was valve and had 70v line out and also a 8 and 4 ohm tap. Must have been around 40 to 50 watts. It had bass and treble, so I cut all the bass and turn the treble flat out. The comp drivers were driven from a pye amp. Again it was valve and looked a lot like what old taxi company radio transmitters looked like. Again tuned the bass down and treble right up.

 

I don't have an exact date for this system, but its mid to late 1970's. Maybe 76 or 77. I thought it sounded great, but then we all do at that age. I used it for discos around the village halls near to where I lived, which was close to Glastonbury at that time.

 

 

This is my first system I built for the first company I had. The company was called Sound Faclities. Bass was 18" Fane classic 275 watt woofers in really massive reflex cabs. They look like horns but the horn was so short it did nothing, but I thought it made it look good so went with it. These were driven from a Studiomaster 800 B or C, can't remember and its not in this pic. Upper bass were w bins loaded with powercell 250's. What a driven that was for its day. The W's were powered by a MM Electonics AP360. The cabs above which look like philles were 2 x 10" on a short horn. Bit like a phille but all wood and no fibreglass. These were driven from a 250 watt per channel amp that I built from modules and put in a case. Can't remember the make But it wasn't maplin or the MXF ones as neither of those compaines were trading then I don't think. The HF horns were built from wood and were a bit like Altec mantaray horns. The compression driver was the same one from the system before, which was a Celestion. HF amp was another module kit type thing and was 100 watts per side. The crossover was an RSD (early studiomaster) 3 way and you had variable crossover points. Can't remeber the crossover points but the 2 x 10" and HF horns were driven from the same outputs. I made a simple active crossver circuit that went before the HF amp to filter the mid from the comp driver. Mixer was a 12 channel Soundtracs. Like an early CM 4400 but smaller. Still love Soundtracs consoles to this day. I had some outboard, I think there was a analogue delay line and a spring reverb.

 

I used this setup for discos and bands. Again hard to say when I first put it together but I think it was around 1984/1985, maybe earlier.

 

I wanted to get the pics I took when I used to mix stage 2 (1986/7) at Glastonbury festival for you Ian as we used loads of Martin 215 mk 2's and philles, but had to leave my sisters house before I could find them. I will get her to scan them for me as I think she knows where they are.

 

Hope you've all had a laugh at these systems, I know I have.

 

Best whises,

 

Rog.

i thought it was compulsary for disco's to have it. 

 Here is a photo (hope u can see this Rog!) of one of the early stacks...home made plywood W-bin with 15"JBL K140 driver, Altec 816c cab with Altec 421-8h driver,HH radial horns (the mk11 variety)..12" mid flared cab with JBL K120 guitar speaker,and topped with a pair of peizos.....the Sound City 4x12s were used for a spot of"in fill"....worth noting that all the drivers (apart from the peizos) were alnico magnet,and the system had a lovely punch to it,albeit with nothing going on below 60hz!.....bear in mind this was 1978,and most peoples home hi-fi was about 25 watts,so 1kw of proper speakers certainly got some favourable comments...this system,although basic by todays standards,was better than a lot of club installs back then,and would still sound nice today..far better than Peavy Hi-sys!..not bad for almost 30 years old!

love to see the photos of your later Martin system.

 

 

indeed, when JBLman had that rig back in 1978 i was only one year old

 

 

tops were loaded with a 10" PylePro PPA10 with a Piezo for highs, the sub was a 12" Digital Max ADF-292, the sub i still have have.

 

i didn't know much more then size, wattage and ohm rate at that time haha

my system in September 2005: Chipboard piezo box's, a pair of laney 100watt speakers, a pair of custom sound 200watt speakers loaded with carlsbro and eminence drivers and to finish off a pair of 300watt max skytec subs, all powered by a dynamix pa amp and a c-audio sr606(Which I still use know, but am upgrading soon, due to its weight) hehe

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TORNADO-ST-3-300W-FLOOR-STANDING-SPEAKERS_W0QQitemZ290039846938QQihZ019QQcategoryZ69967QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem - http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TORNADO-ST-3-300W-FLOOR-STANDING-SPEAKERS_W0QQitemZ290039846938QQihZ019QQcategoryZ69967QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

These were exactly the same piece of sh*te I had. Except mine hit the dust bin a month after using them for parties.

No pics as digital hadn't happened and it's anyones guess where me old school photos are at nowadays. They looked wicked though..and at age 15, (with no knowledge of the negative effects of the folding on midrange frequencies) of course they sounded awesome too.

The scoops were built specificaly for my friends 18th birthday party, that's him in the photo.

 

They all got sold a while ago, but they are still out there being used, which is good.

 

 

The gay one?

 

 

http://www.freewebs.com/jskpa/PA220002.JPG

 

 

 

 

 

Haven't hear one for years so can't coment on how they sound compared with modern stuff, but should hold up its own still.

 

The construction is tank like and almost bomb proof. The only problem might be that as your amp could be almost 30 years old, most of the caps will need replacing soon. It could also be hard to get the output transistors or other components if they go wrong. I know many of the transistors in the H&H V900 are obsolete now.

 

I love the way the amp clips, or dosen't seem to. You just keep pushing it and the sound gets a bit warmer. Thats the way an amp should clip. Rauch DVT's used to do the same thing. I powerd a lot of the first acid house parties from Rauch DVT 250's and its the only amp I've ever seen that you can run from the start of the night to the end with all the clips lights on at full brightness. And they never took out any drivers.

 

Rog.

MM AP360(jacks)......£180

MM AP360(XLRs).......£190

HH S500d..................£432

HH V800....................£470

RSD 800B/800C.........£440

Amcron DC300a.........£630 (american)

       The remarkable thing to note about these MM,is that despite being a budget amplifier,after 30 years,it is still working fine...these British amps from this era were beautifully engineered and built....i doubt if some of the modern budget amps like the Behringer 2500 will last even a quarter of that time.So much for progress.

 

But I'm trying to.

 

Its why the series 2 Infinite amps are taking a bit longer than expected. I really want the new infinites to be built like the MM AP360 and the H&H V800. In the new Infinites If the design needs a 20 amp rectifier I've used a 30 amp one. If each cap has to be 15,000 uf I've used 25,000 uf. And I've speced the transformer 1KVa higer than is needed. The output transistors are the best I could find from Motorola, much better than the Toshiba everyone else uses these days. I wanted to go back to the metal T03 package transistor, but its so hard incorporating them to the heatsink.

 

I've had enough of the cheap import that lasts 1 year. The whole industry is starting to except things to go wrong and not care about it. Take the ultradrive and its frying egg problem. You buy one even though you know it might get the problem and fixes have come about that can show you how to put it right. We don't even blame the company that makes it anymore, we just look up on the internet how to fix it or get another one. Disposable world or what.

 

Rog.

 

Was that Steart beach?

 

Transistors can come from Japan are will be reliable, but other things may come from the other far eastern countries even if you buy from a well know UK manufacturer. Its making everything unreliable as the far eastern components are not the same standard as the UK parts used to be. It all roots back to the source. If a componet is made up of 8 different materials then its likely that the source componets could have probelms. So you now have a componet built of materials all with there own probelms and a final product bulit of componets that could have problems. Its not enough that everyone did the best they could during the manufacturing stages if the source materials are at fault.

 

I think the whole world is going to become a far more unreliable place as more and more compaines turn to the far east for everything. It would be a pity to let that happen and I'm trying my hardest to stop it. Even though I live in the far east. And I think its going to get a lot worse before it gets any better.

 

Rog.

even there stainless steel goes rusty

 

 

if i think your gonna do what i think your gonna do then i wont give you your train spotting diaries back

and your cloggs from morris dancing at corrination gardens

 

 

 

sorry for the many post's but i like this thread

 

young man there are lot's of product's that are not built in China

 

Hopefully the builders section will be set up soon.  I think once admin set up the new section (i don't think us mods can do that) we can set up a locked thread that the mods can add to as needed.

 

Cleaning 2 pots in the MM amp might not be cost effective compared to replacing the pots right away...

 

If I remember it right those pots arent even PCB mounted, so its just as easy stopping by Maplins and getting a pair of 1£ pots and sticking them in..

 

One thing to try if they are PCB mounted and you are afraid of solderwork is Cailube MCL - expensive but works wonders on worn pots

 

/peter

Ben Wells, thought I would hit you up with this from all the way back in 2006.