Junk project: Grundig tube record player

[Joe Bee]

Fellow junk connoisseurs,
I recently spotted this stereo tape recorder on eBay and bid a few euros, not expecting to actually win the auction, but I did...
http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?...m=190171167741

I later found some more information here
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/2356/gru3.html
realizing that it is actually only a mono power amp, so here goes my original plan of making a small "high-end"-ish stereo amplifier as an x-mas gift for my old man from it.

Still, it seems ideally suited for a small practice guitar amp, right? I've always wanted to experiment with pentodes in the preamp to get out of that Marshall-Fender-Everyone-and-his-dog ECC83 swamp. And I don't mind the slightest bit that the power amp is just a cheesy 5W single ended EL95 pentode, heck, even my Ecc81 power amp is too loud to turn it up fully in my flat.

Any thoughts on this? Maybe you guys want to place bets if this project actually turns out and makes an acceptable guitar amp?

[Steve Conner]

Well, I think you could make something pretty sweet sounding out of EF86s and 12AT7s. For a long time I was using just that, an EF86 and a 12AT7, as the dirty channel of an experimental amp.

I originally had stuck an EF86 onto the front of one channel of a Selmer T'n'B 50, and later I replaced the 12AX7/ECC83 that was originally there with a 12AT7 to tame the gain down somewhat. I found that a 12AU7 worked too, giving some very thick semi-distorted tones. Putting a booster pedal in front of it made it freak out in a very gratifying way.

I dismantled the whole thing because a lot of components went bad, and I'm currently rebuilding it inside a 5E3 tweed cabinet with spring reverb. Except I've just managed to break the reverb driver transformer

I heard that new production EF86s are hopelessly microphonic, but since you have some originals I guess there's no need to worry

[dai h.]

how about the Ritchie Blackmore tape recorder as preamp-booster-thingie (as another possible use)?