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Collero Sovereign Valve Tape Deck - Guitar Amp Conversion


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[color=#000000][font=verdana, geneva, lucida,]Hi,[/font][/color]

[color=#000000][font=verdana, geneva, lucida,]Just bought this for £25 - [/font][/color]


[url="http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?campid=5336713463&toolid=10001&mpre=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fitm%2FCOLLARO-SOVEREIGN-reel-reel-tape-VALVE-AMP-EF86-12AX7-EL84-magic-eye-EM-81-%2F221202665191%3Fpt%3DUK_Consumer_VintageAudio_RL%26hash%3Ditem3380b4cee7"]http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/COLLARO-SO...item3380b4cee7[/url]

[color=#000000][font=verdana, geneva, lucida,]The amp has EF86 12AX7 EL84 magic eye EM 81 valves.[/font][/color]

[color=#000000][font=verdana, geneva, lucida,]It is my intention to strip the reel to reel machine and connect up a 10 inch speaker to use this as a valve guitar amplifier.[/font][/color]

[color=#000000][font=verdana, geneva, lucida,]I can find very little information on this unit. Any idea what sort of maximum wattage the amplifier will put out? [/font][/color]

[color=#000000][font=verdana, geneva, lucida,]I have seen a few people make these into guitar amplifiers with great results, just could do with a bit more info to match up watts/ohms for a 10 inch speaker. If I could get the amp to overdrive, that would also be a bonus![/font][/color]
[color=#000000][font=verdana, geneva, lucida,]this one is mono and has a 1/4 jack mic input. I have heard some people just plug in and play and hook it up to a cab and sound amazing, also heard lots of people say you need to mod stuff a lot. [/font][/color]

[color=#000000][font=verdana, geneva, lucida,]Any advice would be greatly appreciated.[/font][/color]

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Back in the mid '60s, this was the 'standard' way to obtain effects pedals, pre-Boss. The i/p modified to take a jack; the o/p taken to the guitar amp and away we go. The tape deck was bigger than the amp (Linear Concord...)..!
As for using directly as an amp: why not..? Overdrive..? No problem; rather the opposite. The pre-amps in there were not conceived for guitar p/ups, so don't expect a 'pure' sound. Basically, there are two routes: plug'n'play, and take what's in there for what it is, warts an' all, or deeply modify the amp, taking it out of the casing altogether, and 'adapting' component values.
Good luck...

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Personally, I'd be tempted to rebuild the chassis into something resembling a classic guitar amp. With an EF86, 12AX7 and a pair of EL84s, you could probably base it on the 60's Vox AC15 normal channel. I've got an old Fidelity reel to reel I'm planning something similar with, though mine is a smaller single ended amp so it'll end up resembling an AC4.
If you don't fancy a full rebuild, you should at least replace the electrolytic capacitors to keep it reliable and safe. Also, what kind of rectifier does it have? If you're lucky, it'll have a valve rectifier, but some of these old tape decks use Selenium rectifiers which have a limited life and give out bad smelling fumes when they go - I'd change that if you have one.

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Hehe. I don't know about the rectifier. Will be getting a modern plug fitted by an amp guy I know. I will ask him and get him to fix it so that it is safe/useable. I think I will see how it sounds as it is and go from there in terms of modding, as I don't know a huge amount about electronics.

Might be able to get an old 10" ELAC speaker and fit it where the tape machine part is. Any idea how many watts this could push out? I don't know how you find this out. Will having a lower Ohm speaker bugger up the amp? Also, would that produce more overdrive?

Thanks!

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I just had a look at the eBay listing, and it looks like you've got a valve rectifier in there, so that's one less thing to change. A push-pull EL84 amp could be good for 15-18 watts depending on the amp design and the output transformer, but I think domestic audio stuff like this didn't run them as hard as instrument amps tend to. With speaker impedances, the usual rule of thumb is that you'll get the most output and least stress to the output transformer using the same impedance speaker as it was designed for, but if you're going to risk a mismatch, a lower impedance speaker is less likely to cause damage than one with higher impedance.

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Make sure it's properly earthed when you've finished modifying. I've had some fairly nasty shocks in the past from old consumer-grade tape recorders when trying to use them in ways that they weren't originally designed be used. Remember that electrical safety regulations have come a long way since these machines were originally made - and so it should have!

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I run my bass through the front end of a nice Ferrograph Series 6 recorder to add some valve grit... the line out into a Pultec valve EQ clone and we've got some lovely Jamerson going on :P

I've thought about tracking one down to use purely as a preamp, they're harder to come by though. In fact I've got a working Brenell Series 2 that I want to convert to a standard valve mic/instrument preamp but it suffers from a low level hum (probably bad caps) and I lack the confidence - anybody in the Bolton/Manc area got the know how?

Back to the topic though, they look great and a lot of 50s/60s British tape recorders already had a sortof 'amp' shape - if you took the preamp panel out and flipped it, stood the whole case on end and covered the gap for the deck with grille cloth - voila :P There's a vid on YouTube of a guy who turned a Ferrograph into a guitar amp like that. I can't comment on that machine but a lot of decks of that era seemed to be about 3 or 4W max output, and the speaker impedance on mine is 15 ohms.

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Yeah. this one is the perfect shape to stand on end. planning to replace the speaker with maybe a 10" or 12" if it will fit, and mount it where the tape deck is now on some baffle with grill cloth like a combo! Maybe a greenback if I can get my hands on one!

I will see how the amp sounds before modding and maybe go from there

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