NAD: ‘60’s Band Master

[Scout]

I really wanted a vintage tube head and this Band Master came up for cheap and I had to add it to the House of Misfit Amps.
]
Yeah, Japans finest.

It’s got 2 EL34’s and it seemed to be really clean from the auction listing, it was a local estate auction so I took a chance.

Luckily I’m not too squeamish around rodent shit and after a good vacuum there’s not alot of damage. I planned on changing the filter caps anyway, the tubes are cool japanese originals, should be a fun project

[Fiddy]

This must be a Miyuki amp. Very nice, hope that besides vacuuming it, you wipe whatever you can with alcohol.

[MattK]

I believe Dr Tony Balls did a complete overhaul on a massive Royal Super Bunny about 5 years back, he’s a forum member here so worth dropping a line I think.

[Scout]

I just spent the evening wiping them whole thing down with alcohol. It’s untouched aside from 3 new preamp tubes. The mice liked the yellow wires more than the others.

[countertext]

I hope you’ll post more pics as you go. Such a cool amp.

[Scout]

I will update as I go along, it’s a nice case study to get into, I’ll have to fly without a schematic I’m guessing.
It should be a fairly straight copy of some existing amp of the day, I’ve followed electrical drawings my whole
life so I’m confident in that and the layout is very serviceable unlike the hell that is the Epiphone I’m debugging.

I don’t have an EL 34 amp so I’m stoked about that, 2 EL 34’s and 5 12ax7’s.

[N0_Camping4U]

Where do you find online estate sales? Good idea and cool amp. I assumed it was one of those Guyatone amps.

[Scout]

I’m not sure about Texas but here in the northeast there’s alot of estate auctions, to empty a house after someone passes or just to get rid of unused stuff. They used to run just a Saturday auction on site, now they list everything online with pictures and some offer a preview day and some don’t. Its riskier of course to bid on something sight unseen but things tend to go relatively cheaper, I ended up paying $250 for that amp after fees.

I imagine that a similar thing happens all over the country, some places still offer onsite auctions.

[panoramic]

this thing looks really nice, post some clips when you have it all hooked up.

[Scout]

I got my box of goods today so spent some time on the amp.
]
]
There were more chewed wires than I thought, the signal wires are mostly shielded, should be extremely quiet. I never saw this type of tremolo circuit and there were three yellow wires eaten to the bone associated with it but I found this schematic, all is revealed.
]
My lovely wife made this awesome mac and cheese, talk about chewy, it’s the best ever.
]
Couple of more wires and a few caps and ready for start up, I already have a twin 10 Epiphone cabinet from the same era that should be a perfect mate.

[Scout]

I take it back, this amp is a bit of a pita. They put some caps under the eyelet board and they wrapped the leads around the eyelet tags instead of just through the holes.
I’m still thinking it’s gonna sound great but it’s taking a while, that’s the beauty of being your own customer, I can take as long as I want.

[Scout]

I finally got it figured out without blowing anything up.
I’m no Amp Designer but I can swap parts with the best of them, at first glance I thought the mice left me tag ends but there were several places where they chewed right to the solder blob. Several head scratches and 2?red plated output tubes later I realized what the 40 volt tap going through a diode backwards was meant to do.

It sounds unlike any of my other amps, I’ll post a sample after I get it back in the case. Working through this without a schematic was a challenge but satisfying in the end.