[Harry]

Just finished restoring a Maggie Regency Symphony, have it all back together and am somewhat disappointed in the lack of Bass response. I like lots playing pop organ records, etc. Anybody have any ideas of how to increase?? The amp uses four 6V6's in push pull with a pair of 5Y3 rectifiers. Pretty much all of the caps have been replaced, and it does sound like everything is working okay. Sounds great, other than lack of Bass. Has a pair of 12" field coil speakers in parrallel I think and they are perfect, no cracks, tears, etc. Wondering if there is a way to tweak the output circuit or tone controls to improve this. I'm using a brand new ceramic cartridge, stereo paralleled for mono on the Webcor changer.
Thanks for any help or ideas. Maybe these things are just inherently weak on the bass end, but I have some portables with a just a couple or tubes that produce more bass.

[codefox1]

Depends on what type of cartridge was originally there. I can recall having adaptors to use ceramic cartridge output to preamps designed for magnetic cartridges, but that was a long time ago. Probably some info on web or here on how to do that. I trust the bass is OK on AM.

[w4rtc]

Hi
I have a 1946 Maggie, it has p- p 6L6's with two electro mag speakers, I am disappointed in the bass. It has a lot of volume and it is clear, but the bass is light. I have a 1947 Philco that runs rings around the Maggie (phono or Am or Fm) I have the FM tuner. I have studied the tone control but did not come up with a better way. The bass tone control is sorta weird to me.
Joe

[Harry]

The bass seems to be same whether AM or phono. It also has shortwave, but that is really no good for bass anyway. Not sure what original cartridge was, but not magnetic, as there is no additional preamp stage built in to this receiver/preamp chassis. And, I would like to keep this as original as possible, but with MORE bass!

[Ron Ramirez]

So I am not the only one disappointed in the lack of bass in these models.

I'm afraid I don't have a solution (yet), but my Regency Symphony also suffers from a lack of bass response. I have to crank the bass control to max to get any bass out of it, and then it isn't much.

I've been thinking about changing the volume control to a tapped control and adapting a Philco-type bass tone control circuit to it, but I hate to modify this set.

The W-C 256 changer in my Regency has a Power Point cartridge adapted to the W-C's tonearm. Works well.

[Harry]

Thanks for your comment Ron. Thought maybe I was a little picky or had bad ears! You know I'm not positive, but I think my Maggy has a volume control with a tap - but - the tap is not used!!! Not shown on PF schematics either. Wonder what goes there. I could be mistaken and am confusing with another set I was working on. But wouldn't this only affect things at a lower volume setting?? I know V of M used this type of setup on lots of their stuff and had something they called it but can't remember. I might try and change the cartridge to one of those Astatic 89T types. I have several new ones that are very good. Only problem is that the arm is set up for one of those turnover styles and it would be a chore to re-rig it for a standard 1/2" mount.

[w4rtc]

Harry
I think I have a tone arm for your (if it is a w-c changer) w-c changer and it has the standard pickup mount that you could experiment with. It's yours if you want it. Let me know and I will hunt it up.
Joe

[Harry]

Joe,
My Maggy is using a Webcor model "B" changer (I think). Not sure the arm you have would work or not. This Webcor arm has, at the back, two hex head screws that go thru two rubber isolation grommets into the top back of the arm. It comes off very easily, and is typical of the way most of the later arms were mounted. Maroon with a Webcor engraved style name plate. Thanks for your offer though. It is good to find so many helpful people on this site.
Harry. I may eventually get around to posting a couple of pics of this.

[PhilcoMike]

Could it be the low end frequency response of the output transformer?

Thanks,

Mike

[w4rtc]

Hi Harry
here is a picture of the tone arm. The cart mount is a standard 1/2 inch.
Joe


[Image: http://i927.photobucket.com/albums/ad118...C03656.jpg]

[Jayce]

I should try out my Windsor Imperial Maggie again. It has a 14-15 inch main speaker and originally had a multicell tweater in it. Sadly, someone took the tweeter years ago and it currently has a five inch Zenith tweeter in it. I remember loving the sound of that set though.

[Harry]

Have you seen the YouTube video of the Windsor Imperial Maggie? Quite amazing sound and the guy talks about the $2000. tweeter that's in it. He has quite a collection of big stuff. Really hard to tell what the bass is like via YouTube, however. The receiver on mine is quite sensitive on the shortwave band and pulls in a number of stations with just the single wire antenna in the cabinet. Am really anxious to get am FM tuner hooked up to my Symphony model to see how that sounds. Nothing wrong with good old mono. In fact, where I live a Bose Wave Radio is no good because it does not have a stereo/mono switch so with marginal reception stereo I get a lot of noise and static. Whereas, a cheap Sony boombox turned to mono works fine. I've called Bose on this and they don't seem to care.

[Jayce]

$2000, just for a tweeter? Excuse me, I feel faint. Oy!

[Ron Ramirez]

The McMurdo Silver Masterpiece V uses an 18 inch Jensen Super Giant speaker. That speaker alone is going for $4000+ due to the audiophools using them in custom stereo speaker setups. It's causing some of those great Masterpiece sets to be parted out for the speakers, just like with the Maggie Windsors and their tweeters.

Harry, I have an aftermarket FM tuner in my Regency (with many thanks to Bob "Joybird"), and it does sound good on FM even with what certainly seems to be lack of bass. I also have an original Magnavox FM tuner thanks to Doug Houston, but I have not yet recapped it for use in the Regency.

[Harry]

It makes my skin crawl when I see all this stuff being parted out because no one seems to want the consoles. I want them, but don't have the room and they always seem to be for sale at least 1000 miles from my location. Most of these old magnificent consoles had components matched to the cabinets and were fine sounding and a unit, but taking individual components out is just wrong! I know, the stuff seems to be worth more this way. Another thing that really bugs me is when I see "harp amplifier". What the H**l is that? Juice harp, Lyon and Healy Harp, Mouth organ??? Don't these turkeys know there are speaker/amps made just for that purpose? There are tons of them for sale every day.

I think I've pretty much decided to leave my Maggy alone, just as it is and accept the bass for what it is. I'm also waiting for an original Maggy FM tuner to install. Wondering how good it will be on sensitivity. I'm in kind of a fringe area for the good stations.