The 1962 Premier Twin 8 amp arrived with mismatched non-original speakers. So, I searched around and found some cool replacements.
The speaker on the left is a Cleveland speaker manufactured in the 33rd week of 1969. It was likely pulled from an organ. I've read some great reviews about the tone of these old Clevelands.
The speaker on the right is one of a pair of speakers I found that are claimed to be original from a Premier Twin 8 identical to mine. It is a Fischer speaker manufactured in the 44th week of 1962. Both had been re-coned at some point, but only one still worked. I took the bad speaker to National Speaker in Denver to be re-coned.
Multivox, the company that built Premier amps and others, was notorious for using various components, probably from the lowest bidder. The little Marvel amp I have is also from Multivox and has a Curtis Mathis speaker. The Fischer speakers may be originally from a Premier, or maybe not. But based on the fact they are identical and have a period correct date code (and the claims of the seller) I'll believe it is likely they originated in a Premier Twin 8 amp.
I'm heading to Mission Amps today to have Bruce Collins check out the circuits. I don't think the old tone caps are leaking because the amp does not hum. But it needs a grounded power cord and a general checkup.
Have you looked at the vintage Weber stuff...didn't they have some low efficiency thing they came out with? How does the recone effect things? Is it safe to assume they won't sound like the original?
Mike, I've spoken to vintage amp guys who swear by re-coned original speakers. I considered new speakers for this project but I decided to go for some authenticity.
Too bad I didn't catch you before now Rick. Spotted these on the bay yesterday. I'm tempted to bid on them myself. They'd go well in the 4X8 cabinet I'm planning to build.
No, as I said I am trying to stick to the original tone philosophy of the Premier amp, and that means vintage alnico speakers. I am very familiar with the difference in tone between alnico and ceramic speakers.
yeah, go ahead and bid on those ceramic speakers. I have no use for them. The Premier needs two 4-ohm speakers wired in series, and it is the only amp I have that uses 8-inch speakers.
So, Bruce and I downloaded a total of seven schematics for the Premier Twin 8 amp from 1959 to 1964. None of them were the same, and my amp did not match any of them. It shared some components and design elements with all the schems, but also differed from them all. It most closely resembles a 1961 schem but with a different rectifier. It might have been a "transitional" design, but I suspect all the amps built by Multivox were transitional in some way.
Several things were wrong. One speaker was 4 ohms and the other was 8. (The 8-ohm speaker was a real vintage Jensen P8RS.) The power supply was low and the amp was delivering only about 2.5 watts at clipping. The values of some of the components seemed way off. Bruce got the power up to 6 watts and changed two tone caps to make it a bit more harp friendly.
We tested several speakers, and the combination I liked best was the Cleveland and one of the speakers that came in the amp. Not sure what it is; speaker code is 581.
One cool thing: The tranny has taps for both 4 and 8 ohms, so that means I can use two 8-ohm speakers wired in parallel.
I played it only a few minutes and it sounded very good. I'll thrash it out tomorrow or over the weekend and put up a video. Fun stuff!
It has a very cool green jewel for the pilot lamp.
Bruce was amazed that it handles low 60Hz tones with almost no distortion when the amp is dimed. We saw this on the scope when using a tone generator.
When I did this comparison video of the two Multivox amps yesterday I was really impressed with the little Marvel amp. It is ratty and trebly and has a little 6-inch Curtis Mathis speaker but it sounds Good, and it is quite loud for such a little bugger. That was $50 well spent! It's a keeper.
The Twin 8 continues to impress. I don't really have it dialed in yet... In this comparison I had the tone up kind of high because I wanted it to sound similar to the Marvel, which has no tone control. I'll try various speaker combinations in the Twin 8 to see what happens.
I can see why it was such a hit with harp players. Of the small 5-watt amps of the day it had a warmer tone, and the dual speakers are fun. It's a Mini Twin.
Is it me or does that Marvel sound better since your first video? The Premier sounds great, very warm, deep, I can see why its the choice of those looking for a 5 watt amp.
6SN7, no you're right. It does sound better. It sounds pretty awesome. The settings might have been a little different, but the only setting on the amp is volume...
