[MrFixr55]

Hi Pholks,

I have a Premier (supposedly an 88 but it does not match the published schematic in any manner). I found it at the curb about 50 years ago.  It is built with Loctal tubes including 4 7B5s which are the equivalents to 6K6, and what appears to be government surplus capacitors from ARC5 aircraft receivers and even a few "dog bone" resistors.  The styling of the amp appears to be more 1940s than when it may have actually been made.  The amp case is a clamshell where the speaker is separated from the amp when in use.  The amp face is goldtone or brass plated with volume, treble, base and tremelo.  There is a footswitch jack.  The control panel is separate from the amp chassis.  The single 12" speaker is a Jensen, but with an electromagnet, powered by its own supply instead of being used as a choke in the amp's power supply.  The speaker grille cloth has a "lyre" design.

It appears to be a professional unit, but not from the "Rock" era, maybe from the "Big Band" era.  I will get around to it eventually.  If anyone ever heard of or seen one of these, I would love to get any info that you have.

[TV MAN]

This sounds interesting! I would like to see some pics of this and hope you can bring it back to life! Keep us updated! I recall and amp using a couple 807s I think that I fixed for a customer. When I got it working good, I was surprised at how nice it sounded! It was some kind of guitar amp but may have been a PA amp or something converted. Didn't look that impressive, paint chipped and beat up, but - it sang! It was probably from the 40's or early 50's. Bet yours would sound great too!

[MrFixr55]

Hi TV Man,

Sorry, I did not see this post till now, thanks for the reply. At some point, I need to dig this up and photograph it. It should be my next project, but I have car work to do, a trip from Long Island to suburban Washington DC to attend a funeral and other pressing things. Currently 18 degrees here and is supposed to go down to single digits with snow and ice tonight. Now I know why bears hibernate.

The Premier is definitely a cool looking amp. Not very powerful, the output stage is the equivalent of 4 6K6s in parallel-push-pull. My guess is under 25 watts, but that was pretty big for the time. Back in the day, 2 first gen 6L6s didn't put out much more than about 25 watts. With 6L6GCs, at max plate voltage, you can squeeze out 65 Watts in Class AB2 with fixed bias.

I think that RCA used 807s in some of their theater sound systems. I think that 2 were recently advertised on eBay. There was someone either on the Phorum or on the Antique Radio Forum whose tag line was something like "King of the cold cathode 807". Per the RCA Spec Sheet, if you drive the heck out of a pair of 807ws i Class AB2 with 750V on the plates, you can get 120 watts out of a pair of 807s before they go "cold cathode"