What is this for? Junk ou gold?

[Nelson Paschoal]

Hello friends, and old porn cinema here in São Paulo/Brazil just dumped some audio equipment and a friend give me some things: a power amp and some kind of audio processor/preamp that I don´t know if can be used in my recording studio, I put 1khz signal and the piece is working, but I don´t want to spend time on a dead end, since I know nothing about this brand/gear , please the experienced guys could help with some knowledge? Inside the gear is like a series 500 luchbox, with boards, one of them is on the photo, marked "optical preamp" , two boards is for graphic equalizer, and the others I don´t know, if more photos is needed just ask!! Thanks a lot!!

 

[Brian Roth]

All I can say is that Olde School film movie projectors used a lamp and photocell to pick up the audio from the edge of the 35mm film. Hence, the need for an "optical preamp". As I recall, there may have been some EQ in those preamps.

Bri

 

[Walrus]

According to this forum, in the fith post, Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Difference between theatrical and Bluray releases
the Starscope may be some sort of copy Dolby Surround decoder.

 

[Tubetec]

As far as I know it was just two channels of audio on the film , then the dolby matrixes the signal to the surround speakers .In the modern age they include the digital sound on the film as well , but the old fashioned analog waveform remains there for compatibillity .
You could keep the Suround module as an effects unit but chances are a modern plugin would do much better.

 

[Tubetec]

Speaking of old film equipment and cinema clearouts etc , Dolby NR units like the 361 are defintely worth keeping , its got really high quality discrete circuitry with transformers at input and output , they work as preamps in bypass mode , gain is adjustable under the card panel .
Inputs are 600ohm /10k switchable .

Another Dolby unit worth looking out for if you have the 361 is the Cat 43 , its a single ended noise reduction process , essentially a four band compressor/expander , a set of faders allows the user to either compress or expand each band . The actual Cat 43 itself is no more than a few faders and a couple of transistors in a box that the Cat22 dolby A card docks with . A cat 22 could probably be modified internally with 5 mini pots in place of the sliders