spongebob
19th February 2009, 12:59
Williamson Amplifier;
I post this in a hope that some of you radio men may confirm my memories about this one time so called wonder amplifier.
After the war when musical recordings became readily available again Dad started to collect Classical 78 rpm records which meant buying a new electric turn table and playing them through the old console radio but as the old steel needles were still the norm, just before the advent of sapphire tips, he went ‘up-market’ by using fibre needles to avoid damage to the new recordings. These needles were in fact made from slithers of bamboo and were shaped and sharpened after every play by fitting them into a small chuck and stropping them in a machine rather like the old ‘Rolls’ Razor system.
This produced scratch free sound but the old radio was not up to the quality of amplification that he wanted so the next step was a ‘Williamson’ amplifier. This post war design amplifier/receiver was apparently acknowledged as one of the world’s best in its time, a huge contraption by today’s standards and boasting about 18 valves in its circuitry. An order was duly placed at cost of perhaps thousands of dollars by today’s values and when it arrived as a bare aluminium chassis and protruding bunch of valves it was quickly placed in an old apple case as a temporary measure to protect children and others from heat and shock and fired up. It was too powerful for the small speaker in the old radio so the next purchase was a 12 inch iron frame base speaker at further great expense.
The assembly certainly produced flawless musical reproduction by the standards of the day and once this was achieved the amplifier was sat in its box on the sideboard, the turntable in its temporary housing next to it and the big speaker perched on a temporary shelf in the corner. There it remained until it was obsolete or another development took his fancy
Bob
I post this in a hope that some of you radio men may confirm my memories about this one time so called wonder amplifier.
After the war when musical recordings became readily available again Dad started to collect Classical 78 rpm records which meant buying a new electric turn table and playing them through the old console radio but as the old steel needles were still the norm, just before the advent of sapphire tips, he went ‘up-market’ by using fibre needles to avoid damage to the new recordings. These needles were in fact made from slithers of bamboo and were shaped and sharpened after every play by fitting them into a small chuck and stropping them in a machine rather like the old ‘Rolls’ Razor system.
This produced scratch free sound but the old radio was not up to the quality of amplification that he wanted so the next step was a ‘Williamson’ amplifier. This post war design amplifier/receiver was apparently acknowledged as one of the world’s best in its time, a huge contraption by today’s standards and boasting about 18 valves in its circuitry. An order was duly placed at cost of perhaps thousands of dollars by today’s values and when it arrived as a bare aluminium chassis and protruding bunch of valves it was quickly placed in an old apple case as a temporary measure to protect children and others from heat and shock and fired up. It was too powerful for the small speaker in the old radio so the next purchase was a 12 inch iron frame base speaker at further great expense.
The assembly certainly produced flawless musical reproduction by the standards of the day and once this was achieved the amplifier was sat in its box on the sideboard, the turntable in its temporary housing next to it and the big speaker perched on a temporary shelf in the corner. There it remained until it was obsolete or another development took his fancy
Bob