Mccurdy AT284

[Rossi]

[quote author="Brown Note"]cool,

thanks rossi! it's all wired up. i just wanted to make sure before i drilled a hole for the phantom switch.

ben[/quote]


Any first impressions? I'm curious what this thing sounds like. Looks easy enough to build from scratch with maybe a few variations. Got some 1:10 beyer trannies, too. The 48V single rail concept is nice. :grin:

 

[Brown Note]

jetboatguy: i ended up soldering the wires directly to the card itself, and it's working out great. i don't have much in the way of trade-able stuff right now anyway. thanks though. :thumb:

(edit: i had failed to connect one leg of the volume pot to ground when i posted about the following problem. distortion was caused by the preamp running at max gain on a loud source)

rossi: as far as first impressions go, this thing is basically unusable without the pad engaged. before i added the pad, the transformer was saturating heavliy from a ribbon mic placed 5-6 feet in front of a drum kit. it still sounded pretty cool if that's what you're going for. all in all it definitely holds its own against my pm-1000s and my one-bottles. i'd say it's worth racking. i have a few sessions at the end of the month, so i'll give further impressions in a couple of weeks.[/i]

 

[Rossi]

hmm, interesting. Iknew those beyers can't take as much level as bigger transformers, but I didn't they're that sensitive. Still, the 48V concept is nice. :grin:

 

[jetboatguy]

My McCurdy preamps react quite the same... tons and tons of gain... I had to build a inline pad to make this thing useable for recording music. Although, my input transformer is a hammond... I suspect McCurdy designed these preamps for broadcast dialog in mind... as apposed to recording loud stuff like drums and Marshall amps.

 

[GussyLoveridge]

Hi folks - sorry for reviving a really old thread - but I'm wondering if anyone did the thing that I didn't do and downloaded the documents that were in this thread. The links are now broken and I could really use this information. The layout, schematic, pin-out etc would be super helpful.

 

[punk]

I think I have what you're looking for. PM me with an email and i'll send it.
byron

 

[mjrippe]

I think I have what you're looking for. PM me with an email and i'll send it.
byron

Or add it to the Technical Docs section so it is available to everyone?

 

[rackmonkey]

Doesn’t look like this ever made it to the Tech Docs section. Does anyone have these? 


thanks in advance

 

[abbey road d enfer]

In addition: in the file that Jakob recently added I read that those Beyer TXs are  toroid-like,

Please see attached pic and judge for yourself.

EDIT: How come we unearthed a 12 yo thread? 

 

[mjrippe]

Well, the thread was unearthed last year by someone who needed the schematics.  You used to be able to contact the company and pay a small fee for a copy of any of their docs.  Unfortunately the owner of McCurdy (Mr. McCurdy?) has passed away.  I know someone is trying to buy the brand and all the related IP but that might take a long time.

 

[rackmonkey]

EDIT: How come we unearthed a 12 yo thread? 

Fair question. Because despite the red pop up warning that says, “Dude, why are you resurrecting this fossil!?” when you necrobump a thread, I think it’s preferable to keep follow-on questions with their predecessors for ease of reference and to avoid duplicate topic sprawl when searching the stacks.

And because I have 2 of these units on the bench right now and could use the schematics, it made sense to me to follow this thread up where there was evidently an exchange of schems previously.

Also kind of a timely topic based on the JFET pre (UA 2108) that Winston posted about recently. The 1108 was cited as perhaps the first commercial  JFET mic pre in that thread. But from some of the dates I’ve seen thrown around regarding these AT-284s, it might have actually pre-dated the 1108. Or not. But it’d be interesting to figure that out.

thanks for the replies!

 

[gridcurrent]

.

 

[rackmonkey]

Thanks,  Gridcurrent!

Happy New Year

 

[CJ]

re-fried. 9 x 12

thing needs an output transformer of some type.

 

[rackmonkey]

re-fried. 9 x 12

thing needs an output transformer of some type.

Cool thanks Ceej. Anyone know what console these were used in? Summing amp probably had a transformer out.

 

[Monte McGuire]

McCurdys were popular as broadcast consoles. Not a huge ton of features, but reasonably good performance and reliability.

 

[rjb5191]

What kind of output transformer would be good here?  I'm working on racking up some AT285's.  Anybody have schematics?  It doesn't look like a single ended output stage so any standard non-gapped transformer should work possibly with a small step up ratio?  I was thinking maybe throwing an old Urei B12614.

 

[gridcurrent]

What kind of output transformer would be good here?

derive output signal from pin 7, delete R23,
any of your favorite 1:1 (600:600):
Hammond 804;  Triad A-67j,  A-57j;  UTC A-20,  A-21,  A-22.

I'm working on racking up some AT285's.  Anybody have schematics?

isn't the AT285 an input transformer, similar in function to the Ampex matching -02,
and the AT286 similar to the Ampex bridging -01  ?

The 285 and 286 are @ 100.00 in the 1974 price list.

 

[mjrippe]

I have some nice Hammond transformers taken from McCurdy distribution amps.  If you are interested send me a PM. -Mike

 

[emrr]

Hammond 850G(?) are cheap and plentiful.  Small pile here.