Antique Acousticon Tube Valve Amplifier?

[Acousticon]

Hi, I am interested in buying a vintage valve amplifier that is listed on UK Ebay but as I am a novice in this area I was wondering if anyone can telling me a little about it so that I may decide whether to make the purchase. The amp is an Acousticon made by General Acoustics Ltd, 44Z Oxford Street, London, W1. This is about all I know. I've tried conducting some research online but it leads to nowhere. It certainly looks like it is fifties or earlier, but then my knowledge of this area is very limited. The listing can be seen on Ebay UK if anyone wants to have a look at the photographs… I've asked the seller a few questions but he doesn't know much about it. A search for Antique Acousticon Tube Valve Amplifier should result in the page.

Thanks for your help and looking forward to your reply.

K.

[Steve Conner]

Looks interesting. It almost certainly won't be in a safe condition to use as it is, though, it'll need restoration.

[Acousticon]

More Info

I asked the seller if he could tell me anything about the tubes contained therein and he responded earlier today:

"I’ve have carefully removed the back panel to investigate the amplifiers innards. I can reveal that the tube valves are labelled as Mullard EL33 “pentone”, Mullard EF37 “pentone”, and a third that has a very worn Marconi label on it although I cannot see any model number. Also contained within is a fold-out circuit diagram that shows the amplifier was made in 11-5-1943, checked in 16-12-1946 and serviced in 11-12-1962! Hope this helps."

It does sound interesting. What would I need to do to get this running again?

Thanks.

[Steve Conner]

Probably fit a 3-core mains lead, and find and replace any leaky capacitors.

Then again you could be lucky, if it was serviced as recently as 1962 it might still work!

If it has one EL33, it's probably good for about 3 watts. The Marconi tube would be some sort of rectifier.

It's mono of course. I guess you could turn it into a guitar amp similar to a Fender Champ, or maybe it's already similar enough to a Champ that you could just plug a guitar and loudspeaker in and rock out.