Ooops! Wrong again!
Eckmiller W86 - refurb and makeup amplifier options
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Wow. Thanks for sharing so much knowledge !
You are making me rethink my whole approach here. Should I go IC instead of transformers and Class A … I don’t know how I can achieve 20 ohms and 200 ohms without transformers. I’ll look into it.
BTW, your EQs are 86a, which are inductor based. Mine are 86, they are RC.
You have a lovely setup !! I am jealous haha
You are making me rethink my whole approach here. Should I go IC instead of transformers and Class A … I don’t know how I can achieve 20 ohms and 200 ohms without transformers. I’ll look into it.
BTW, your EQs are 86a, which are inductor based. Mine are 86, they are RC.
You have a lovely setup !! I am jealous haha
You could evolve it into a two step program.
Step 1: Try the W86 in a quick but correct op-amp environmet and see if the Eckmillers are working as they should.
Step 2: Build a transformer coupled high brow amp later.
I may be completely wrong, but it reminds me of a power amp that is driving an speaker. Every speaker has its resonant frequency an when you hit it you get coloration but you will have the physical mass of the cone performing unwanted oscillation as well, like a pendulum that resonates at its own resonant frequency. So what to do about that?
Well, your amp has to be powerful enough to force the cone´s mass to perform exactly the movements it ought to an not to resonate as it wants to.
Same thing with your W86: It has its own resonances and you have to supress them by driving it with a powerful source and as well by making it drive the correct load.
Here´s what I would do as "Strep 1":
The correct load is easy enough to achieve: Every mic-input on every mixer has an input impedance of 2 kOhms and thus provides you with the correct load automaticly ... and it´s symmetrical as well ... and it gives you your 34 dB too - bingo!
As for the driver: To provide 1,55 V with an source impedance of 20 Ohms you need 0,12 Watts, so with two TDA2822 on opposing phases you ought to be on the save side. You might try these:
https://www.ebay.de/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2332490.m570.l1313&_nkw=TDA2822M&_sacat=0
... or something similar
That shouldn´t take more than one evenings work should it? And it would give you good results on how well or not your Eckmillers are.
best wishes from Bremen,
Wulf
Step 1: Try the W86 in a quick but correct op-amp environmet and see if the Eckmillers are working as they should.
Step 2: Build a transformer coupled high brow amp later.
Well it does not have to be precisely 20 Ohms, just the lower the better.
I may be completely wrong, but it reminds me of a power amp that is driving an speaker. Every speaker has its resonant frequency an when you hit it you get coloration but you will have the physical mass of the cone performing unwanted oscillation as well, like a pendulum that resonates at its own resonant frequency. So what to do about that?
Well, your amp has to be powerful enough to force the cone´s mass to perform exactly the movements it ought to an not to resonate as it wants to.
Same thing with your W86: It has its own resonances and you have to supress them by driving it with a powerful source and as well by making it drive the correct load.
Here´s what I would do as "Strep 1":
The correct load is easy enough to achieve: Every mic-input on every mixer has an input impedance of 2 kOhms and thus provides you with the correct load automaticly ... and it´s symmetrical as well ... and it gives you your 34 dB too - bingo!
As for the driver: To provide 1,55 V with an source impedance of 20 Ohms you need 0,12 Watts, so with two TDA2822 on opposing phases you ought to be on the save side. You might try these:
https://www.ebay.de/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2332490.m570.l1313&_nkw=TDA2822M&_sacat=0
... or something similar
That shouldn´t take more than one evenings work should it? And it would give you good results on how well or not your Eckmillers are.
best wishes from Bremen,
Wulf
Yes, and i NEVER knew that!
I only wondered why they looked so very differently although bearing almost identical names. So the tread you started has been very informative for me es well - thanx a buch for that!
Oh, and by the way: Only one of my Eckmillers is a W86a, the other two very similar looking units are HV55. HV stands for "HörspielVerzerrer" wich would translate as "Distorter for radio plays". Just like the HS10 and TS10 they would just make a hi- and lo-cut, but at rather insane frequencies. For instance with the HV55 the lo-cut could be raised up to 6,4 kHz and the hi-cut could be lowered to 200 Hz - nothing to make your music sound nice, but to make it unrecognizable!
The HV55 even had a brother, the HV53 wich again looks just like your W86 but with the insane frequencies. And then there was a third "Hörspielverzerrer", only it wasn´t named "HV" and wasn´t made by Berlin based Hans Eckmiller but by Hamburg based Hugo Maihak. It was the W49 - a huuuge machine that was only produced in about 100 specimens for the NWDR wich in 1954 split into the NDR in Hamburg and the WDR in Köln, where they installed the magnificent Studio für elektronische Klanggestaltung" - Studio for electronical sound design at the WDR, a kind of radiophonic workshop, where a jung German composer named Karl Heinz Stockhausen fell in love with it - so much so, that he even wrote its handling into his sheet music.
You find a photo of an entranced young Karl Heinz attached, the device nearest to the photographer is one W49 and anothere one on the other side of the special built mixer.
BUT: the Eckmiller HV55 has one advantage over the much grander W49: You can choose the frequencies freely as you wish, whereas with the W49, you had two levers in the same groove and thus you could never put the lo-cut higher than the hi-cut.
best from Bremen,
Wulf
The HV55 even had a brother, the HV53 wich again looks just like your W86 but with the insane frequencies. And then there was a third "Hörspielverzerrer", only it wasn´t named "HV" and wasn´t made by Berlin based Hans Eckmiller but by Hamburg based Hugo Maihak. It was the W49 - a huuuge machine that was only produced in about 100 specimens for the NWDR wich in 1954 split into the NDR in Hamburg and the WDR in Köln, where they installed the magnificent Studio für elektronische Klanggestaltung" - Studio for electronical sound design at the WDR, a kind of radiophonic workshop, where a jung German composer named Karl Heinz Stockhausen fell in love with it - so much so, that he even wrote its handling into his sheet music.
You find a photo of an entranced young Karl Heinz attached, the device nearest to the photographer is one W49 and anothere one on the other side of the special built mixer.
BUT: the Eckmiller HV55 has one advantage over the much grander W49: You can choose the frequencies freely as you wish, whereas with the W49, you had two levers in the same groove and thus you could never put the lo-cut higher than the hi-cut.
best from Bremen,
Wulf
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Back then Eckmiller also supplied transformers (CT10/11) in case they were not used together, to present a required impedance. But I have never seen one, sadly; using them strapped together was always very convenient, and cost-saving solution I guess.
Amazing! Please tell me you also saved documentation of the console (...and intend to scan it someday)?
It is very rare to see such a console not cut up to pieces and sold for modules, and it would be even more rare to see original docs (console wiring diagrams, test reports etc.). In any case, very admirable to save the console and keep it in use!Yes I did
And luckily so, because at the NDR the thing had been changed so many times and I would have been at a loss to know left from right.
Why not? But it is many big sheets of paper because they painted a new block diagramm with each modification ... in ink ... by hand. Ooo, all the work they put into it! So of course I wouldn´t want to spoil their legacy and continued to record every alteration I made.
For instance when I worked at it in 1991, it had lost the V76 it once contained and I wouldn´t even have noticed if it hadn´t been for the old block diagramm from 1957.
Well, and when it was to be torn out in 1993 one builder told me, there would be a crane coming the next day to heave it from the second floor and drop it into the container ... but if he accidently found that there would be a trailer being parked right next to the container, he might as well let it down gently two meters next to the container.
And when I moved from Hamburg to Bremen a couple of years later, a friend of mine, whom I had asked if he could help me, replied: "Do you still have that massive thing? Size of a washing machine but twice the weight?"
"Yes" I said "I still own it."
"Well then I will not help you." he replied.
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Aaah! I didn´t know that eighther! I always wondered how there could only be a TS10 in the side rack to an old console of "Deutsche Phonogramm" that a friend of mine owns, without the adjacent HS10 - well, that explains it, thanky you!
That console - by the way - does contain the V72´s little brother: the V71.
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That is absolutely amazing! I would gladly help with scanning that if you can't or don't have time to do so (I have a small scanner but can stitch the images in Photoshop together, no problem with that). Or I can clean and stitch the scanned images, whatever suits you (PM me). I can also understand you won't want to bother with that at this time, it is some work, but please don't throw it away...Yes I did
And luckily so, because at the NDR the thing had been changed so many times and I would have been at a loss to know left from right.
Why not? But it is many big sheets of paper because they painted a new block diagramm with each modification ... in ink ... by hand. Ooo, all the work they put into it! So of course I wouldn´t want to spoil their legacy and continued to record every alteration I made. [...]
This is a treasure trove of information esp. on gainstaging and impedances, years of manufacture etc.Malotki V71/V71a are very rare, and information on them is also pretty rare as well esp. information on different revisions (V71 w/ 19/34dB Switch, V71 w/out Switch, V71s, V71u)...
Siemens Sitral V272 would be a good match, and still affordable?
