Pye Mozart HF S20 valve amp (+Garrard 4HF)

[helma]

I found the mentioned combo in a cabinet for a price I couldn't refuse. No idea yet if any of it works though :) Anyone familiar with the amp? It's a stereophonic unit from around late 50s / early 60s I believe. According to photos I think it is the Pye HF S20 but not sure. It sure looks like one and says "Stereophonic" and "Printed circuit board" alongside the power button. If it's that one, it would be a single ended unit with EL34 tubes, 8W or so per channel. Looks like a quality piece from the looks of it, but haven't yet dislodged it from the cabinet yet to see if it's complete. I'm pretty sure it needs an overhaul. The Garrard seems to be in OK condition mostly (but likewise in dire need of a good clean and relube), but I wanna take it all out of the cabinet and check everything looks OK before I power the thing on. I can post photos later, just wondering what I might have in my hands in here. Information seems pretty scarce, but it looks like the Pye stuff from that era is pretty highly regarded.

When I went to pick it up there was a pile of various hifi kit next to it, all pretty high quality by the looks of it. Regretting a bit I didn't offer to buy the whole lot, there was a Denon cd-player, I think DCD-1420 and couple other black boxes. It was going to be given away for free. I did offer to buy the Onkyo Integra A-8800 in the pile, looked like a high quality amp from the 80s. Upon checking 100W per channel, 14.5kg, built in DAC. I think it went by A-8690 in some markets. Just listening to it now, sounds pretty nice and build quality is rather impressive. The switches despite feeling like high quality seem crappy though. I guess sometimes you get lucky.

[helma]

Well I was mistaken - it seems to be a stereo setup put together from two HF10 mono amps, there was another one hidden inside the cabinet. Just taking it apart, it all looks complete and in pretty good shape under all the dust :)

[Barry]

The Pye MF10 was, if I recall correctly, essentially a single ended version of the Quad II power amp design. They were well made and well regarded in their day. Nice find Kai. :)

Regarding the Garrard 4HF, it was a pretty average design and I wouldn't go to too much trouble with any refurbishment.

[Marco]

Any pics, Kai? I'm a big fan of vintage Pye equipment and would love to see what your lovely amp looks like :)

Marco.

[Marco]

Look at this lovely combo (with Goldring T/T and a superb matching arm), which was for sale on Gumtree a while back: https://www.gumtree.com/p/stereo-systems/pye-mozart-hfs20-amplifier-pre-amp-hft109-fm-tuner.-goldring-lenco-88-transcription-turntable/1144637532

GORGEOUS retro shexiness... :drool:

Now *that* is what you call a 'music centre'! :eyebrows:

Marco.

[helma]

Well from a quick look it seems all the Garrard really needs is some cleaning and oiling. With the original plinth (which I don't have) those seem to be fetching somewhat silly money lately, though I doubt in Finland anyone would pay much for one. Still it's a pretty nice looking vintage piece and I enjoy working on turntables, so I'll get it to spin at some point :)

The real find here is the amps, really lucked on those. The cabinet had been for sale locally for over a week, and there's plenty of people basically watching hifi ads 24/7 (or at least that's the impression I get judging from how fast the good stuff usually goes - and I keep a pretty keen eye on the listings myself!) - surprised it hadn't sold, I know it wasn't because of price... I saw the faceplate and figured it might be something nice in there and it seems I was right :) I got the amps out of the cabinet and to the eye everything seems like it should. I don't have a cap meter but I'll do what I can with a multimeter before powering them up. Also got in touch with someone I know with great deal of valve amp experience for some pointers what I should check out / take into account. I hope all the iron is healthy, everything else seems pretty easily replaceable.

It's two of these wired for stereo, but only one of them has the face plate, the other was hidden inside: http://www.soundup.ru/images/stories/archive/Classic/power-amplifiers/pye-mozart-hf10-mullard-el34-valve-tube-amplifier/pye-mozart-hf10-mullard-el34-valve-tube-amp-9.jpg

[helma]

Any pics, Kai? I'm a big fan of vintage Pye equipment and would love to see what your lovely amp looks like :)

Marco.

I can take pics later, somewhat stupidly I took none while the stuff was still in the cabinet :doh: I was in too much of a horry to check them out :D Anyway the cabinet is nothing too fancy or well-built. Honestly the amps are not much to look at as is, the pic I linked in my previous post shows one, it's just two of those, the 2nd one without a faceplate. I'm sitting on my hands to keep me from just plugging it all in hoping for the best :D But seems like really nice piece of kit, so I'm gonna stay patient on this one and make sure there won't be any nasty surprises when hitting the power switch. I might ask the valve guy he wants to take a look before I even try. If they are alright, they definitely deserve a nice chassis for them. The faceplate is nice looking with the funky knob design, so in the right enclosure it would be a looker!

And yeah that Goldring Lenco combo is awesome, this was nothing that nice and a lot more compact. The faceplate on the amp seems identical to the one on mine. It seems it even has a phono stage with adjustable gain that can accomodate both 78rpm & LPs either with a ceramic or magnetic cartridge (LP N for the "new" RIAA standard and LP O for the old curve... which would be??? Decca or something?) - honestly I doubt that phono section will be much to write home about, but you never know.

EDIT: btw in the manual for the stereophonic version they advised in stereophonic use the two speakers should sound tonally similar, or even better be identical for the best and most stable stereoimage. Kinda cute :)

[Barry]

Kai,

This might be of interest to you: http://www.valve-radio.co.uk/literature/pye-mozart-hf10-amplifier-service-manual/.

[Firebottle]

Very interesting output stage wiring.

Cracking find Kai :)

I'm sure your valve guy will know but the critical component for no leakage is C3.

[helma]

Thanks Alan, cracking find indeed. I'm stoked :) Totally unexpected too, it's not like I was in the hunt for a rare 50s/60s British valve amplification... I mean this stuff seems pretty rare world wide, yet alone Finland.

I checked the caps as well as I could using only a multimeter and since everything seemed more or less alive, I fired the beasts up... and this is awesome, these things work and actually sound very sweet! And no extra noise, apart from a tiniest bit of mains hum. I completely expected no sound, got REALLY lucky because I already considered myself lucky expecting these were in non-working condition. Surprisingly good bass too. The phono input is not great, it's a bit anemic in the bass region but to be honest I didn't spend all that much time with it. I'm gonna give it another shot at some point.

I need to figure out how to case them and put something together, but maybe that's a project for the summer since the only place where I can do woodwork in the winter is my kitchen...

Here's a messy photo of the very dirty setup I put together... basically I just screwed the amps on a leftover piece of pineboard to be able to move them easily as one unit :) http://i.imgur.com/WGw3HI3.jpg The amp which has the faceplate has stereo pots/switches in the preamp and the second channel of those is wired to the preamp of the 'slave unit'. So it's actually two integrated mono amps. Behind the cheap red RCA plug you can see a pot dangling on a cord, that's the balance control which was originally mounted on the side of the cabinet.

[SPS]

Thats a good find, i have the stereo version of the amp its got a sperate pre amp, ive not used it for a while but its a very nice amp
I had the matching tuner but i swapped that a few years ago, unfortunately

I replaced all the caps in the power amp and the pre, it made a world of difference

Cheers steve

[helma]

Thats a good find, i have the stereo version of the amp its got a sperate pre amp, ive not used it for a while but its a very nice amp
I had the matching tuner but i swapped that a few years ago, unfortunately

I replaced all the caps in the power amp and the pre, it made a world of difference

Cheers steve

Yeah new electrolytics at least is on the to-do list, rather sooner than later. There's not that many of those so should be a fairly straigth forward job. I'm wondering if I should just clip the leads on the current ones and solder the new ones into those - I'm concerned the 70 year old PCB wouldn't take kindly to soldering, but on the other hand those 70 year old solder joints would probably also warrant some attention. It sounds surprisingly good as-is, but I'm sure new caps would be drastic improvement.

Kai

[helma]

I also realized these have been modified, no idea by whom or if it could've even been at manufacture for that specific console, but besides the two ECC83s there's also an EF88 mounted on a box, sticking upwards looking like it doesn't belong... which is how I realized it maybe doesn't... in the picture they are the valves sticking proudly upwards with their shields, when everything else is so neatly and tightly packed. I haven't yet tried to figure out how they fit into the circuit. Maybe someone added a gainstage? I suppose this could be seen as a slight set back or in the best case scenario even an added bonus if it actually improves the preamp.