New to Scott

[Joe Miller]

Hi everyone,

Just bought a Philharmonic (pointer dial) and a McMurdo Silver 15-17. 

I collect Zeniths and have several nice ones but am now interested in Scott's and other more interesting sets. I restore all my own sets and have some questions on these two new ones.  I hope its okay to ask such fundamental questions here:

1.  Where might I find schematics for both the Philly and the 15-17? I can't find the 15-17 anywhere and the Rider version for the Philly is nearly illegible.

2.  The Philly came with a 15 inch pendestal speaker (Model Y2F318, Part 2553) and two tweeters (Q8PC3330).  The tweeters are hard wired to the pedestal speaker (there is no connector for them) and I noticed two power resistors installed in the base of the pedestal--I assume to accommodate the tweeters, but not sure yet).  The pedestal is not mounted on a board like others are.  Will this speaker work with my Philly and any idea on what was done with this hookup for the tweeters?

 

Thanks for any help you can give me.

Joe

[Norman S Braithwaite]

Can you post photos of the Philharmonic speakers and wiring?  It sounds like someone may have wired a pair of tweeters extracted from Scott 800B speakers (Q8P) in place of the optional original tweeters.

Norman

[Joe Miller]

Norm,

Here are the pix.

Thanks,

Joe

 

[Kent King]

Joe -

Interesting...the speaker and tweeters do look right, however the 15in speaker is a bit different from what we usually see. There is normally a plug in on the base for the tweeters. The tweeters you have also look right, I have typically seen these with a crossover network in a set...but the crossovers came with flange mount speakers, not pedestal. So its mostly good....will it work? You'll need to really double check the wiring and connections to see. It appears that the previous owner had some idea what they were doing, so it probably will work.

Regarding schematics...can you tell me which Philharmonic set you have? Some questions: is there a pointer on the dial, or is it a "beam of light" set? Is it and FM set (old band)? How many control shafts does it have? also, a serial number will help. I can email you PDF files of everything for the Philly. I can probably locate a 15-17 diagram too...send me the answers to the questions and your email and I'll get this right out to you.

Kent

[Kent King]

Eh. I see you already said its a pointer dial...if I could keep one thought in my head for more than 10 seconds....send me your email and I can get you info on the set...I would still appreciate the serial number for our database. Thanks!

[Norman S Braithwaite]

Thanks for posting the high quality pictures.  It appears to me that you have a Magnavox permanent magnet pedestal woofer that had been salvaged from some other application (such as a Leslie 31 "tall boy" organ speaker cabinet), painted silver, and finished with a reproduction decal.  The resistors have been included to replace the 925-ohm field coil that would have been on an original speaker.  I also believe that the tweeters have been salvaged from Scott 800B speakers.  Some late Philharmonic receivers equipped with the optional Jensen 4-unit speaker system had very similar tweeters but they had metal magnet covers painted black, not fiber covers painted dark bluish green.  Also, the original early Philharmonic tweeters had plugs mounted directly to the tweeter for connection of  a "Y" cable to the base of the woofer pedestal.  The Scott 800B tweeters had the pair of wires that you can see coming from the tweeters on your set and the wires were only long enough to reach the basket mounted terminal strip on the 800B woofer, just about the exact same length of the wires on the tweeters of your set before they were extended.  Someone went to a lot of effort to build up a Philharmonic speaker set for that receiver.  If represented as working, they probably constructed it in a manner that is electrically correct.

Norman

[Joe Miller]

Does this mean these speakers are really "not worthy" of the Philly?

Thanks for the info,  I guess I should have kept the non-pedestal speaker rather than accept this "upgrade"?

Joe

[Norman S Braithwaite]

No.  They should perform as well as an original speaker set and better than the single speaker.  This set of speakers is as close as you will be able get from parts designed for other applications.  Nevertheless, the speaker set does appear to be non original and that may affect the value some.

Norman

[Thomas Day]

Norman:

This 15" would not have come from a 31 series Leslie. All used either Jensen or Magnavox field coil speakers. We have a pair of the 31 series, one with Jensen and one with Magnavox.

Thom

Norman S Braithwaite said:

Thanks for posting the high quality pictures.  It appears to me that you have a Magnavox permanent magnet pedestal woofer that had been salvaged from some other application (such as a Leslie 31 "tall boy" organ speaker cabinet), painted silver, and finished with a reproduction decal.  The resistors have been included to replace the 925-ohm field coil that would have been on an original speaker.  I also believe that the tweeters have been salvaged from Scott 800B speakers.  Some late Philharmonic receivers equipped with the optional Jensen 4-unit speaker system had very similar tweeters but they had metal magnet covers painted black, not fiber covers painted dark bluish green.  Also, the original early Philharmonic tweeters had plugs mounted directly to the tweeter for connection of  a "Y" cable to the base of the woofer pedestal.  The Scott 800B tweeters had the pair of wires that you can see coming from the tweeters on your set and the wires were only long enough to reach the basket mounted terminal strip on the 800B woofer, just about the exact same length of the wires on the tweeters of your set before they were extended.  Someone went to a lot of effort to build up a Philharmonic speaker set for that receiver.  If represented as working, they probably constructed it in a manner that is electrically correct.

Norman

[Joe Miller]

I think it may be a Scott speaker that was used as a second, external speaker.  In that application a permanent magnet speaker would be needed since the primary speaker would contain the field coil/power supply choke.  Could that be the case?

I guess I can make the modified PM work, but probably won't since it is so "one off" and I'm concerned about the heat generated by the power resistors in the base.  I shouldn't have traded "up" by swapping this pedestal PM for the 15 inch flange mount speaker that came with it.

Joe